SQUIRREL!

visited my grandma in Tan Binh today. she looked so happy to see us! so HAPPY!

the squirrel is the household's pet. there are two squirrels actually. the other one was hiding in a can and i couldn't see him/her.

i wandered around the property and took pictures of various things. apparently i did the same thing when i was little, minus the camera. without the camera, i wandered into other people's yards and farms and dug up their yams after i got bored of digging for sand crab and making leaf bracelets.

i learned a load of random things about my family. i didn't know my grandpa has thirteen siblings, and only one of them is still alive. she's very healthy and also happens to be a fortune teller. we visited her as well and i got my fortune told. i shouldn't marry before the age of 28 and my life is destined to be difficult. the second part i've heard multiple times from other fortune tellers (my mum has mine read every year without me knowing for a while). how would i know if it's true? what am i suppose to compare it to for the difference in level of difficulties?

there are a whole lot of other things. i'll write them down so i'll remember them.

- during the vietnam war, everyone was required to help with the war effort by digging 1 meter for the trench. one of my great uncles was shot in the head while digging.
- another uncle was a spy during the French's occupation. legend has it he jumped onto an enemy's car from a bamboo tree.
- there used to be more elephants in Vietnam's jungle. now they are rare, but still come out to destroy farms.
- one great uncle died from a car accident and came back to haunt his grave's area by making vehicles stopped moving when they come by his grave
- butterflies are also associated with dead people here, and my grandpa came back a few weeks ago as a big butterfly
- my mum was also into photography, so was my grandpa. mum used to make my cousins posed for her, and because of her and grandpa that our family have a lot of pictures. that's rare in vietnam.
- most of our neighbors are relatives
- there's a waterfall nearby, but it shrunk by a lot. it has a lot of leeches.
- vietnamese people like to leave their doors and windows open all day. and some find life in the U.S suffocating because everyone's always locked up inside.

that's all i can remember.