There was a rooster outside my Aunt Thu’s house.  I eat at the house twice a day with Thu, her husband Hung, niece Xuân, and cousin Nga.  Today niece Ha came on a business visit, but that’s a whole other story.  Thu is easily the best cook on the planet.  Hands down. Every item she serves is fresh from the market that day.  The vegetables were in the ground yesterday.  The seafood, clams, fish, scallops, shrimp were in the ocean this morning, less than a mile from her house.  The beef and pork is so fresh it has never been refrigerated.  And the chicken…  Oh yeah, back to the story.

 This rooster lived on the side yard of Thu’s Da Nang house. For a reason known only to him, he went to crowing loud and long each midday meal.  Crowing so loud normal conversation inside the house was impossible.  I was greatly amused watching the faces of the family, each reacting to the riotous bird in a different way.  My uncle Hung laughed, exchanging amused looks with me.  My niece Xuân was embarrassed, but it doesn’t take much to embarrass her.  My Aunt Thu, however, was highly annoyed and hailed invective whenever the rooster started up, gesturing and giving Hung an earful.  Hung just smiled.

The next day I arrived at the house after my usual walk through the beautiful quiet neighbourhood street my family lives on, not far from my apartment.  I always enjoy walking the neighbourhood streets, everyone sitting in the doorways greeting me as I pass.  “Hello!”, they shout.  If a group of men are sitting together, they gesture me over and offer me a beer, laughing as I tell them I am late for lunch.  Maybe next time, but every day they are there, every day they offer me a beer, and every day I am apparently late for lunch.  After school and on the weekends there are a gang of twenty kids who stop me and demand to know my name, each in turn supplying his or her name and saying the one English phrase they all have obviously been taught in school, “Hello, my name is Tuan. How are you today?”  As I kick off my sandals in the doorway I am welcomed as usual by Hung.  I can hear Xuân in the back taking a shower. Aunt Thu shouts a greeting through the open window to the kitchen.  The table is beautifully set as it is every day.  We sit down, Xuân joins us, her hair still wet.

As we share the meal and make small talk about the day, our plans, how my work on the book is coming along, I am aware suddenly how deliciously quiet it is.  Enjoying the moment, thinking nothing of the unusual quiet, I continue to work quickly with my chopsticks, my rice bowl constantly filled and refilled by the relentless Aunt Thu.  Then it occurs to me.  No Rooster.  Our family is able to talk and laugh in normal tones without interruption.  Dipping a fresh cucumber in nuóc châm (ubiquitous fish sauce found on every Vietnamese table), I innocently ask, “So where’s the rooster today?”

Aunt Thu is already reaching across the table with her chopsticks to deliver yet another delicious morsel to my rice bowl.  “Here, have some more chicken.  We have plenty.”