Gaining Hands-on Experience

Meghan Ball

Meghan Ball (’06)             

For Meghan Ball (’06), undergraduate research turned out to be more than the typical semester or two recording data in a laboratory. Instead, the dual history and French major took her interests abroad as she studied French colonial culture in Vietnam through the national cuisine.

The motivation for this research came from Ball’s faculty mentor in the history department at Bucknell, Professor David del Testa. Meghan’s research came as part of a more comprehensive project focused on expanding the library of English resources about French colonialism in Vietnam. Part of that growing collection of transcriptions, interviews, and manuscripts was the diary of a woman named Claudie Beaucarnot.

The Beaucarnot diary piqued Ball’s interest as she began developing the premise for her research. Through questionnaires and interviews with members of the Vietnamese-born French community from the early 20th Century, she developed a knowledge of the pre-World War II French-dominated era in Vietnam. Her research started in the summer after her sophomore year and culminated in a 2 1/2 week trip to Vietnam in December and January of her senior year. She conducted a series of interviews in Singapore, Saigon, Hoi An, and Hanoi with professional and local chefs and restaurateurs to explore the local cuisine its French influences.

While in Vietnam, Ball focused on the local cuisine. According to Ball, Vietnamese cuisine is extremely susceptible to outside influence, thus the incorporation of French cooking into the Vietnamese food culture. For example, stated Ball, the Vietnamese dish Pho uses beef broth; cattle and beef products were introduced to the region by the French.

Through her research, Ball found evidence of an entire sub-community of French natives that were born in Vietnam. These "in-betweeners," as Ball referred to them, were something entirely different from both the French and the Vietnamese cultures. When the French community left the region at the start of World War II, that "in-between" culture also disappeared, but left behind its influences in the national cuisine.

In retrospect, Ball believes that the key to making things happen, so to speak, is preparation. Her on campus research was funded by a Presidential Fellowship, but her trip to Vietnam was funded separately by the University. "Even though there was nothing in place, I was able to take my idea and make it happen," said Ball. With planning, faculty backing, and careful budgeting, Ball presented her proposal to President Brian Mitchell, who personally approved funding for her trip. In light of this lengthy process, Ball hopes that there will be more grant opportunities for research in humanities in the future.

Ball has presented her research at the 2006 Kalman Symposium at Bucknell University, and is currently writing an honors thesis on the topic.

For more information about Claudie Beaucarnot and her life in Viet Nam, see http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=44428.