Thursday, February 18, 2010

The Sounds of Ha Nam II



I should have waited a night to write that first blog. As I mentioned last year, during Tet I sleep in the same bed with Huyen’s younger brother. On the first night I slept with Su and man, that kid sleeps like an angel. Minus the occasional sharp elbow in my gut, sleeping with Su is like sleeping with a warm, skinny teddy bear.

The sleeping arrangement on the first night was thus:

First floor overhang: Huyen’s parents.

Second floor: Bed 1: Huyen and Hoai. Bed 2: Su and me.

On the second night, things were a lot different. Hoai’s husband took the train up from Hue and Huyen’s other sister Hoang and nephew Viet Hoang joined us in Ha Nam. This totally shuffled how everyone slept:

First floor overhang: Huyen, Hoai, Hoang, Viet Hoang and Huyen’s mom.

Second floor: Bed 1: Huyen’s Dad and Su. Bed 2: Me and Tan, Hoai’s husband.

Tan’s a nice guy and all but Ben August doesn’t usually sleep around with men for a reason. The reason being, guys snore. Holy cow, did I have flashbacks to sharing a hotel room with my snoring family on nearly every family vacation we ever took. Tan, inches from my ear was sawing wood at a pretty high decibel. However, his clearly deviated septum was nothing compared to Huyen’s Dad who’s snoring could be the reason the roosters started crowing at 1:30 AM.

Today I’m going to ask Huyen how to say in Vietnamese, “Roll over!”