DC Trip: Day 3 & 4

The days after the wedding were our obligatory visitations of all the relatives in the area before leaving buttfuck, Virginia.

I stopped by a handful of houses, giving traditional Vietnamese "chào" greetings to dozens of faces that seem vaguely familiar with names I'll never remember. My parents' families are so ridiculously enormous, that a long time ago, when I was young, I just completely gave up trying to remember who was who and how they were related to me. As far as I was concerned, if they were remotely near my age, I called them cousin, and if they were substantially older, I called them aunt or uncle. And if they were morbidly old, I called them, "bác."

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There was this one particular cousin/uncle person that I remember from my childhood. He used to be a priest working out of Louisiana. When I was a kid, he used to visit my parents' house every once in a while just for kicks and giggles.

I distinctly remember him because he taught me how to play cards. As a kid, my mother had seared into me the idea that alcohol and gambling were sinful. And yet, every once in a while, this priest came to our house, got piss-drunk in our living room, and made me play Tiến Lên and Mộ Binh with him for Monopoly money.

He's not a priest anymore.

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There were dozens of little kids running around and making loud noises like little kids do. Their parents made them say "chào" and stuff to me. I bet in ten years, they'll be just like me now, and they won't give a good damn who I am or how I'm related to them.

I wonder if they'll grow up and get the hell out, or if they'll sprout new homes right next to their folks. Maybe this little town could keep growing bigger and bigger. It'll become like one big buttfuck Vietnamese redneck metropolis.

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After a couple days of meet-and-greets, we threw our bags in the rental, said our good-byes, and drove back to Nga's hole in the wall in DC for the weekend.