l'Odeur de papaya verte

L’Odeur de papaya verte (The smell of the green papaya, 1993) by Yen-Khe Tran Nu was the first movie I saw in Amsterdam (the next one had to wait a few years until I moved there in 1996). Yen-Khe Tran Nu’s movie hovers around the theme of nostalgia, so it seemed to me. But nostalgic to what? To Vietnam? The director and actor Yen-Khe Tran Nu hails from Vietnam but lived since 1974 in France when he made this movie in a French studio (his next two movies, Cyclo and À la verticale de l'été, were shot in Vietnam). And does the papaya symbolize this nostalgia because it cannot be bought in Europe? Or is the main character in the movie feeling nostalgic? And does the papaya symbolize this nostalgia because it reminds her of her poor background (papaya is a very cheap fruit, unlike, for example, durian, which is considered a delicatessen)?