Saturday, January 26th, can’t back out now....

Well, this is the first in a series of posts of my strange adventure home to the place of my family’s origin. I’ve always wanted to go home and visit, but never in my life I would be going home to possibly walk into a marriage. Hold on, I haven’t introduced myself yet.

Hello, I’m Viet, 32 going on 33, and I’m half Vietnamese. My upbringing was not the typical American family upbringing. My journey thus far begun in Kansas. Where it all began. But that’s not the home I’m returning to. The home I’m referring to is a home that I’ve only heard about and never seen with my own eyes, this home of my ancestors. The country of Vietnam. 

According to Wikipedia:

                                

                                  Vietnam (UK: /ˌvjɛtˈnæm, -ˈnɑːm/, US: /ˌviːət-/ (listen);^[9] Vietnamese: Việt Nampronounced [vîət nāːm] (listen)), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam), is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula. With an estimated 94.6 million inhabitants as of 2016, it is the 15th most populous country in the world. Vietnam is bordered by China to the north, Laos and Cambodia to the west, part of Thailand to the southwest, and the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia across the South China Sea to the east and southeast.^{[n 3]} Its capital city has been Hanoi since the reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1976, while its most populous city is Ho Chi Minh City. (From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam)

To current, I live in Indianapolis with my older sister and her fiancé. I’m 3 of 7 children. I can’t really think of anything else that would be pertinent about myself.  Maybe family history?

I didn’t have a really bad childhood. I was clothed, fed, sheltered. I was physically and mentally abused by today standards, even back then they’d considered what I endured physical abuse. But that’s old news.  Leading up to sitting here in the airport, several events cascaded on top of each other, one being worse than the other. On top of trying to sort out feelings that I have for people, everything was blown up tenfold. The amount of anxiety and stress has never been more clear, and I’m ready for a life changing journey now.  Just to get away from everything for a little while and focus on me for a change. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to improve the lives of people around me that my own mental and physical health gets side-lined. A lot. Too much actually. 

What brought about this trip? It all started in Kansas of course. I was visiting my father and my stepmother for the holidays.  My older brother lives in Kansas too, as well my maternal grandparents. So I was visiting family. I was at my Father's house eating hotpot. I go to the bathroom downstairs and my older sister just lets out this gigantic laugh. So I head back upstairs and go to the dining room and she says:

“Hey Viet! Dad found you a wife! You wanna meet her?”

I respond “Hold on,” and I literally walk back downstairs and come back up. And I’m asked the same question again. And I’m just flabbergasted. Is this seriously happening? So I sit down and ask if this is serious. Then my stepmom chimes in:

“She on Facebook! She take pictures two days ago! Two days!”

And begins to go through her Facebook to find the pictures.  I’m floored, my older brother and sister are laughing their asses off, my dad is talking about the need for more tax payers, and my stepmom is showing me pictures. This happened Christmas 2017.  There’s also a funny story I’ll get I to as well.

Going back to the hot pot, it was absolutely delicious. Shrimp, crab, veggies. It was phenomenal. And I showed my appreciation so much I ate tons of it, including what’s called a banana flower. Fast forward a little bit to dinner. We are at a Japanese steakhouse being seated, and I feel this rumbly in my tumbly.  So I go to the bathroom to do business. Little did I know I would be praying not to die on a strange toliet in a Japanese steakhouse in Wichita.  At first it seemed normal, but after about fifteen minutes I started to worry. My father comes in and asks if I’m alright, which I say yup just taking a poop. And he leaves and announces very loudly to the whole restaurant:

“He alright! He just taking a dump!”

As if the embarrassment wasn’t enough, then the diarrhea hit me like a train wreck. We arrived st the steakhouse at 7:30, I head to the bathroom around 7:45, I don’t leave the bathroom until about 10:0”. What made it even worse is that the janitor had came in and shut off the light at 9:45. So I had to leave the toliet long enough to switch the light back on and pray to whatever god would help me not leave a trail of shit from the stall to the light switch. 

I finally am able to get out to the car and get back to my brothers house without incident. But run to the bathroom as soon as I get out of the truck.  And it’s round 2 of the shitfest I caused myself. As I’m holding my head, rethinking my life, I soon realized I forgot to lock the as my older brother barges in and starts giving me directions about medications I’m going to take. And I give him this look like “ can’t you see I’m busy trying not to shit my brains out”. He says what he needs to say and leaves. At any rate, I survive the night and have to stay an extra day to recover from my night of diarrhea. 

And that’s how we end up here today. I’m sitting at the airport in Indy waiting for my flight to Wichita. Another post about the events leading up to this will follow probably tomorrow. But this is a good start I think.....