On the morning of December 4, at Hue One Food manufacturing plant (No.1 Nguyen Van Tuyet Street, Thuan An Ward, Hue City), Hue One Food Joint Stock Company held a ceremony to release a 40-foot container, carrying about 19 tons of traditional Hue cakes, for official export to the U.S market.

In Da Lay commune (Da Teh district, Lam Dong province), the new homeland of the people from Hue today, it is hard to recognize the traces of the hardships from nearly half a century ago. The most recognizable feature in this rural area that carries "Hue far away" is the distinctive Hue accent, the conical hats of the elderly women glistening as they shield their kind smiles, and the lively mornings with loc and nam cakes. We arrived at the Da Lay market in the Central Highlands and felt as if we were back in Hue, enjoying street food and chatting at a corner of Dong Ba or An Cuu markets…

Beautiful custard apple varieties from Thailand, Taiwan, and even our own Vietnamese sugar apples grown and cared for by Mr. Nguyen Quang My, the owner of Quang My Garden, will be supplied to the market in Hue during this Lunar New Year. These are the "sweet fruits" after 2 years of Mr. My's hard work in transforming the land of Huong Tra hills to grow fruit trees for commercial purposes.

The memory of Ao dai in me is simply the image of my mother wearing an Ao dai, in a rush carrying a basket in one hand and hastily putting on a gray Ao dai with the other, getting ready to go to the market. And so, over time, the elegance of the Ao dai worn by Hue’s women, with its flowing silhouette, naturally became a part of me.

This afternoon, in a program with VOH, Hoang Dung, an editor at Ho Chi Minh City People’s Broadcasting Station suggested the topic about old careers. I then talked about the career of mending raincoats at Dong Ba market.