Family

Today we went to the market at 6:00AM with our hotel's landlady to buy fruits. The first ordeal was crossing the street; even in the early morning, motorbikes already thickened the narrow lanes. "Ped xings" and "pedestrian right-of-way" did not exist; yet somehow, amidst the chaos of a strange morse code of honking, pedestrians are supposed to magically integrate themselves into the flow and make it across at least four lanes of traffic. After the street-crossing adventure, we made it to an alleyway where merchants extended the front room of their houses into an open-air market. Fresh meat lay on wooden cutting boards, different grains of rice sat in colorful plastic bins, dried goods were spread out across table surfaces, barbecued chickens and ducks hung from metal hooks, and fresh fruits sat piled high in domes and pyramids.

We bought rambutans, custard apples, a type of banana called "chuoi xu" (or "chuoi xiem"), dragon fruit, "sa-po-che," and Vietnamese red plum. It's a real pity fresh fruits and seeds couldn't be brought back to the States.

After our fruit breakfast, we took a taxi to visit Tung's paternal grandmother. It was practically a surprise visit--Tung's dad called the day before we were set to arrive to tell the family that a "guest" was coming. Tung's grandma lives in a 3-room house. The front "guest" room was converted into a mini dining area for his aunts' business; every morning, they'd sell rice or egg noodles in broth ("hu tieu/mi") with chicken bought the evening before and refrigerated overnight. His aunt also ground fresh soy bean drink.

Tung's grandma didn't recognize him at first, but when she did, she hung on to his arm most of the time and made him sit by her side.

The small complex made me think of how I've always aimed for a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom minimum house in the States. Yet four families live in this modest house; the shop front led in to the bedroom where several wall-mounted fans were turned on for us "guests" to circulate the air. The back-most room was a kitchen that contains a bathroom in the corner with a toilet. There is, believe it or not, a gutter in one of the kitchen corners that serves as a urinal. The "sink" for dishes is merely a second gutter under a different wall, where a protruding faucet delivers running water.

Several generations of Tung's family have lived in this house; his father grew up here. I wish I could communicate with Tung's grandma, but she speaks a special dialect of Chinese, and I could only use the meager sentences I gleaned from Mandarin lessons at work to say to her, "Nihao, Avaa" (Hello, Grandma), "Wo jong mei-gwoh lai" (I am from America), "Wo hway jiang ying-yew" (I speak English). The rest was up to Tung and his aunts and uncles to translate.

We left Tung's grandma's and toured around a famous market called An Dong. It's like a huge indoor Flea Market, but by noon and so close to Christmas day, the throng of local and tourist shoppers made it almost impossible to walk through. Here's the parking scene:

The clusters of shops were so close together that you could barely squeeze through unless you were a gifted contortionist. Merchants took breaks in-between sales to squat in front of a plastic table and enjoy a quick lunch of noodles in broth. They would speedily lay down their partially-devoured food to help a browsing customer in hopes of making another sale. Their lifestyle really makes America's typical 1-hour lunch break seem very lax. A million vendors pushed through the passing crowd to hawk their merchandise. With all the shoving and weaving through the crowd, pick-pocketing becomes a commonplace. After an immense bout of claustrophobia, we actually surrendered and hailed a taxi to get back to our hotel without attempting to buy anything.

At night, my Aunt Kieu Oanh ("Di Oanh," my mom's younger cousin, far right) arrived at our hotel to take us to an "ao dai" (Vietnamese traditional long dress) tailor. I got to customize the outfit by picking out the fabric color and sequin design. Di Oanh also paraded me around family, most of whom I had never met. Our taxi driver that night was a lively, sarcastic youth who cracked us up at every turn (literally) by telling entertaining stories of some of his more memorable customers. I met up with my Uncle Nhan ("Chu Nhan," far left in above picture) and his family, along with another of my mom's cousins, "Di Suong" (on my left in above picture) who told me stories about my mom's younger years, up to the time she got married with my dad and emigrated to America. These were stories I had never heard before, and it was so interesting to see that part of my mother through someone else's eyes. Instead of feeling alienated, these homely stories of a long-ago childhood and coming-of-age made me feel closer to her, as I saw how I inherited her temper, strength, and compassion.

Eventually, Chu Nhan drove us to his newly-built, 4-story house. That was the first time I had ever been in a house with its own elevator. The first thing we were led to was the house's flat roof, built with rails that were hugged by potted plants. The cool night breeze caressed my face as the neon lights of the city's night life winked at me from four stories below. The house was built with a private office for Chu Nhan and an overhead projector for board meetings.

The combination of work space and home life was so typical of Vietnamese estates, for my Ong Chu 2 (Chu Nhan's father and my maternal grandfather's younger brother) made sure to show me the ornate family altar in the main sitting room with framed photos of my deceased ancestors. I was almost 8,000 miles away from my house in California, and yet the serene, smiling faces of my relatives, including my grandpa's, gave me a warm sense of homecoming and a feeling of familiarity amid a sea of strangers.

Chu Nhan took us to Thien Thai restaurant for dinner that night, where french fries are strangely dipped in mayonnaise, but the restaurant does make the most memorable little seafood eggrolls. We ate under a pavilion in the cool night air, surrounded by a sea of lights strung up to welcome Christmas 2008.