Family Time

My parents always put a strong focus on “family time.” Turning the TV off, playing a game, eating a sit down dinner together. It drove me nuts when I was younger.

But now I love it. And there is nothing like family time in Southeast Asia to get to know my mother in a whole new way. With our family and work and friends and holiday preparations literally a world away – for better or for worse – our layers seem to melt away. And it’s definitely for better.

I don’t think I will forget the image of her driving in Cambodian rush hour on an electric moped with hundreds of Khmer motorists swarming around her. Or her question, in all seriousness “do you think the Khmers thought the world was round or flat during the Angkor period?” Or her response to the hundreds of peddlers who call out “Hello Madame!” Her response was always, even 50 times a day an enthusiastic “Hello!”

And I could learn all over again what it was like to have five brothers. Or her favorite age of raising children. Or how to be married for almost 40 years.