New Cleaver with a story

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jbl

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So,

My girlfriend’s dad is French and lives on a mountain, in a solar powered, natural source provided restored maison in the Cevennes. He has his young family there with him, and my partner and I make that our sole holiday destination each year. We fly out cheaply and hang out and help with some of the labouring, cooking and entertaining my girlfriend’s half brothers and sis.

He’s a quiet guy but he loves us and this time was our joint 30th birthdays. We’d told him having us stay was enough of a gift.

On the day, we hung out, went to the nearest cinema to see Jimmy P (great film btw) and ate some very Frenchified Vietnamese food. (Dijon vinaigrette)
The kitchen was open and the chef and I spoke a little after the meal. I saw that he had a cleaver and asked him for some advice re. choosing and sharpening. He claimed that this thing was Vietnamese, and that it’s best to just sharpen tip and heel ‘and the middle takes care of itself’.

Anyway, two days later my gf’s dad tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘Happy Birthday’. In the Super U bag he gave me was the chef’s cleaver. He had driven back to the restaurant and bought the thing direct from the chef.

I’m still getting used to it, but the thing is incredibly sharp. I’m still not convinced of its origin. Looks Chinese to me. Any idea?

http://s7.photobucket.com/user/joeblove/media/cleaver-1.jpg.html?sort=3&o=7
 
Nice story behind the cleaver. Looks Chinese to me. Characters on it appear to be 永利 Yong Li, which is interestingly the name of a brand I found here in Taiwan (link), though they may well be very different brands/makers, since the name is a bit generic.

Sorry I'm not more helpful than that!
Robert.
 
asian cultures, you would give the GF's dad a token bit of money..like 25 cents.
 
Yep, I did! One euro. He's into that folklore too
 
While they are not as common as I expected, they do make that type of cleaver in Vietnam. I have one I bought back in March in Hanoi. One comment though, none I saw were marked with Chinese style characters. Viets use a western type alphabet.
 
One euro not worth that. Bit more
 
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