“Oh,” she says and continues on this line of questioning about pets. My mom believes it impolite to ask people difficult questions. Instead she inquires about one relative’s German shepherd, another relative’s beagle, an old friend’s mini schnauzer. Each pet story seems to have a happy ending or a sad ending depending on how one looks at it. Either the dog is now gone or the person or both.

“You can either have tea or beer or both,” my aunt says. She dishes up the food we brought. I’m starving but notice that the wooden chopsticks are discolored on the ends. The bowls put in front of us should be white but have turned a denture-colored yellow.

My aunt and uncle lift their bowls all the way to their chins when they eat and use their chopsticks to shovel food into their mouths. They compliment the food intermittently between gnawing at duck bones and slurping noodles. My aunt looks up perplexed and asks me, “Don’t you know how to eat Vietnamese food?”

My mom says, “She’s very good at eating.” She pinches me under the table to urge me on. Her chopsticks reach for the duck. She places each piece one by one into my bowl. “Even in America, I’ve taught her that wastefulness is a sin.”

My uncle and aunt take sinful pleasure in hearing the gossip from abroad and my mom indulges them. They want to know who lives where, what jobs they have, who has a bigger place, the biggest house, what cars they drive? My uncle asks, is it true that in America each member of the family has his and her own car? Yes we nod. My aunt asks, is it true all American women have large breasts? She say, “We watch Baywatch, the show with those rescuers in red bathing suits at the beach.”

My uncle then says to my aunt, “You’ve got to show them that article about Baby Boy.” He points his chopsticks toward the living room. “After we eat” he says, “I’ll show you. I set it aside on the coffee table over there.”

Once I start eating I realize how hungry I am. It’s delicious. The duck has a sweetness from the star anise that would humiliate the ducks hanging from the storefronts of San Francisco’s Chinatown. The sweet buns are like clouds dissolving on your tongue. For the majority of the meal, we see each other only from the nose up.

As the evening dwindles away, my uncle takes pleasure in bragging about his first born grandson. Baby Boy is two years old, and according to them, the talk of the nation. “Even the Northerners are fascinated.” He claims, “It’s the human interest story of the year.” I believe him. He is suddenly talking in sound bites.