Remembering Tonton Albert

In the summer of 1980, I was in Paris. After 18 months of France, my father said my French was not good enough and opted for me to join my uncle to spend the summer in their country house in Southwest of France so I can be in an environment that solely speak French. Sure, being separated with my mom was horrible, but I didn't have a choice and I'll get to play with my uncle's son which is someone around my age and that's rare for me up to that point in life.

Both of my grandmas were friends and both lived in Vietnam back in the 40s. During the First Indochina War which led to the independence of Vietnam from France, my grandma on my father side had to fled Vietnam because her husband was in the French Army. She had unfortunately lost her son during the war and my other grandma (Grandma Nancy) helped her to the task. (It's very Madame Butterfly, I know) Her son, as later found out, had met his early grave during the war and since a slot was already panned out for a young child to fly to France, Grandma Nancy found a young distant cousin who lost his parents and travel to France for a better life. This person got adopted and later became my father. Some relatives would argue that since my father had such a humble childhood, I should give him a break for his deadbeat ways but that's another story for another time.



So my younger uncle (Tonton Albert) was nothing like my father, heck, they are not related in any ways. Since he's mixed and the rule holds generally true to other mixed people, he's rather good looking. I've had some wonderful memory with him because he had been more present than my father. He's the one who taught me how to pee by myself and the one who told me that the blue porcelain marionette hanging at the shop had a tear in her eye because she can't touch the moon.

The trip to the country was wonderful, I met my older cousin and my aunt for the first time and we went to the beach a lot. After a stormy night, we also went out with bucket in our hands to catch snails. They ended up being baked in the oven with butter and herbs and I've had my first escargot. I also had artichoke for the first time and fell in love with sucking on the leaves. Chocolate with different animals printed on the bar that we and my cousin have to make the animal sounds as well eat them, he always give me the weak animals of course. Funny how I remember that place with the foods. I also remember they subscribed to a little children's architecture magazine, where they can cut and glue the pages into a working watermill and I remember playing Yahtzee, but I was only 5 so I bet I'm just happy shaking the dices around.



After the trip, my mom commented that the clothes in all my pictures are my cousin's old clothes and my clothes bought for the trip ended up on my cousin, but what do I care, I've had too much fun. I've lost complete touch with them after returning to Hong Kong at the age of 10. I wonder how they are now, how my aunt and my cousin is doing. Or how foreign they look like now. I wonder if they remember who I am and that I visited their country home. I think by the end of that trip, I couldn't stop speaking French.