New Year, New Family

I wasn't sure what to expect when meeting my relatives. I didn't know their names, what they did, or what they knew about me. I heard their names in conversations, but when you are a kid, hearing names of people who you don't know, doesn't really make them seem very real. I just knew I had family who lived in Vietnam and that I wanted to meet them and maybe wanted them to meet me. My family that lives in Canada were boat people and they were sponsored by three churches in Sydney in 1980 (this is how my Cape Breton roots developed). I was born the following year, making me the first Canadian born - my age represents the number of years my family has been in Canada and how long (or rather quickly) it took for them to get to where they are today.

But getting back to my relatives in Vietnam, I was scheduled to meet them on New Year's Day at my uncle's farm, which is about an hour drive outside of Saigon, for 10am. They hired a car to come pick me up at my hotel and also invited Sarah to come to the family gathering. When the car rolled down the driveway, there were people waiting outside with cameras and camcorders. My first chao (hello) was caught on film and my aunt from Toronto (who is down visiting) took me by the hand and started to introduce me to all these smiling people.

My dad comes from a family of 12 children and he is the 8th oldest. You address your aunts and uncles by their number or seniority in the sibling chain if they are older than your parent, however if they are younger you would refer to them by their first name. So in this photo, is Aunt 6 (from TO), Aunt 7, Aunt 3, Aunt 5, and Aunt 2.

I was bit nervous in the coming days of meeting my relatives (poor kate and sarah had to deal with my slightly tense moments ...). But as soon as I met everyone, I was completely at ease and now that I think about it, I wasn't really sure why I was so stressed about meeting them in the first place. I did worry that they might be disappointed that I did not speak Vietnamese fluently or maybe they might have thought I was a spoiled foreigner. Even though our oral communication skills were limited, we were still able to laugh, find common ground, and be family.

Sarah and I in our matching ao dai's (traditional Vietnamese dresses)

There is an alter to my grandparents and my aunts were getting dressed in their ao dai's for the ceremony and one asked if I wanted to wear one. I think she assumed that I wouldn't want to, so when I said sure my two aunties got really excited, grabbed me by the arms, and rushed me in the house to change. Remember it has only been about 20 minutes at this point ... one pulled off my top while the other buttoned the dress on me - all I could do was laugh, so much for modesty with the relatives.

I spent the day out at the farm and ate lots of pork (my uncle runs a hog farm) and enjoyed the company of my new relatives. I think the strangest part is knowing you are related to someone because they look like other family members. When I met my aunts, they looked like my Toronto aunt, when I met my uncles they looked like my uncles from Halifax and Montreal, when I met a cousin, he looked like an uncle from Toronto and when they saw me they could tell I was my father and mother's daughter.

My aunt has been going to this dance class in the park for years and is trying to teach me the rhomba.

I returned to my hotel at end of the day, but I was going to see them again in a few days after I came back from my work trip. On my return, I stayed at Uncle Chien's house (who could be my father's twin) in Saigon and got to explore the neighbourhood where my relatives have been living for decades. So on my first morning, I was woken up at 5am and was taken to the park to go exercising. They asked me the night before, but I really thought they were joking when they said we would be going at 5 since it is pitch black at that time. No, no they were serious, and I couldn't even put in my contacts. I was a little cranky to be moving at the early in the morning, but when we got there it was a very interesting sight to see.

Picture hundreds of people congregating at the park (you have to pay $2000 dong to enter, so about 1/7th of a cdn dollar) and either participating in an aerobics class, dance lesson, playing badminton, walking laps around the lake, or just getting some good old exercise in. Couple of my aunts go everyday, except Sunday because that's rest day (so lucky for me I did not have to go again the next morning), and go to aerobics from 5 to 6 then dance class from 6 to 7. Now I understand why vietnamese people take naps at noon!

Other fun things that happened: my 70-year old aunt and I hopping on to a moving bus, my other aunt taking me to get my hair washed at the salon, having slight miscommunication with my uncle when he thought I said I was at the airport but I was really at the ferry terminal when he was coming to pick me up, and (I believe gluttony is a sin) one aunt dropping me off at another aunt's house when they were done feeding me so I could go for another round.

I saw this photo in my aunt's cabinet and it is of some of my Toronto cousins from over 30 years ago

So something I always wanted to do has been done. It still feels strange that I just met new relatives as I feel like I have known them for a long time. I get to see them again in a few weeks and am now much more motivated to learn more vietnamese so I can ask lots of questions and tell them more about my life in Canada.

My uncle took me to visit my grandparents' graves. I remember hearing when they passed away when I was younger. It is vietnamese custom for the family to gather on the anniversary of the death of a family member to celebrate their life, which was a tradition we held up in Canada when my grandfather died.