This is my first blog. I was inspired by Tom Cho’s blog on his transition to being a man.
I have yet to define the purpose of this blog. A public memory space for people to hear my thoughts on – writing process – being Vietnamese-Australian and a banana identity- and so people can read my thoughts without having to load it all on my website hoapham.net

So to start off today- I had an interesting conversation with a researcher who is looking at pho and identity. Why pho? If you don’t know it’s a noodle dish from Vietnam of beef broth and rice noodles. I think she was less interested in talking to me than talking to my parents.

Which is a shame because I could have talked to her about identity, in particular Vietnamese identity in Australia. I’m writing my thesis on this as relates to Vietnamese-Australian artists such as authors and playwrights like myself.

I use the word banana identity very loosely here. I am yellow on the outside and mostly white on the inside. But the more I look inwards the more I identify a yellow streak running in there somewhere.

More on this tomorrow- when I have more time.