Vietnam through the centuries: Chinese influence You scurry away and resolve never to eat delicious Vietnamese food again until you’ve mastered the vagaries of the Vietnamese writing system. The lady finally says “ah, you want phở!” She scoops you a generous helping. You repeat yourself, saying the word “pho” louder. You ask the nice Vietnamese lady for a bowl, and she looks at you quizzically. After an hour of trying to make sense of the script, you give up and decide to treat yourself to some piping hot pho.
The Ds seem to have extra lines in them, the Os have little tendrils snaking out of one side and the As are balancing bowls on their heads. Amidst the usual Bs and Hs, other strange letters pop out. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of trying to decipher something written in Vietnamese, you might soon come to realise that while it may look familiar at first glance, it begins to descend into incomprehensibility the more you look at it.
