My friend did not answer directly, but slowly said: "There are things that when we are still here, we don't think about them much. But just go away, suddenly feel lacking - in a way that is very difficult to name. For example, a home-cooked meal doesnt have any special dishes. Fried eggs. Vegetable soup. Ward fish. All are so familiar that no one stops to think about the flavor. But when we live far away, just need a smell that occurs on the street, or hear someone mention a dish, we suddenly remember it - not only the dish, but a familiar state of life.
People often think that deliciousness is a matter of the tongue. But feeling it really is not that simple. We are not just tasteing. We also smell, look, hear, touch and react according to the mental state at that time. A tiring dish is completely different from a relaxing dish.
Household rice operates according to that mechanism. It's not just a dish. It is a system: fixed eating time, acquaintances sitting together eating, kitchen sound... When all these factors are associated with a specific dish, the brain records the entire experience as positive. A job can be high in salary but full of internal conflicts. A house can be beautiful but makes you feel lost. Mistakes happen when we think we are evaluating a dish, but are actually evaluating the accompanying feeling - without realizing it.
I interrupted him: "So what does eating at home have to do with missing Hanoi?"
He said: "The older I get, the more I see the experience of activities like housework: it seems like one thing, but it is actually a combination of many other things. And if we are not alert enough to realize that, we will just go looking for "decoration" in the wrong place, choose a job because of numbers, choose a partner because of personality, choose a city because of beautiful scenery - then we don't understand why we still lack it. As for Hanoi, we are as familiar as family rice. But these days, please stand from a different angle, in the position of a person far from Hanoi, you will return and see how beautiful and strange our Hanoi is....
These days, Hanoi is covered with flags and flowers, waiting for the parade to celebrate the 80th anniversary of National Day. It is still Hanoi, but perhaps, the love of Hanoi among Hanoians has never been as strong as it is now: full of taste, full of lemon but also very familiar.
Like home meals.
