KEEP IT IN THE PHAMLY

I've decided to stop online dating, and I suppose that means offline dating too since I only meet dudes online. I like failing to some extent, because it means I tried. However, I believe there are only so many times you should fail at the same thing over and over before you admit defeat. I'm no good at online dating - it's better for people who like texting which I hate, being flirty or playing mind games which I’m terrible at, and random hookups which I don't enjoy. I don’t know why I kept it up for so long. Dating is clearly not for me.

Our Phamly fortune-teller said I live in the world as it should be, not as it is so I will always struggle to make my idealism a reality. He is right - I want the ideal partner; someone of substance who'd become my best friend and back me on things, since I'm always taking care of other people but haven't had someone in my corner since Mum Pham passed. It honestly sucks not having someone you trust around to reassure you things will be turn out OK.

Now I think of it, this must be why I started (attempting) to date in recent years. I'd always been content to be single before Mum’s death. I never questioned why I suddenly thought dating was a thing I should do until now. I missed having someone that had my back the way she did - no matter what happened, I knew she’d always be there for me whether to support me or to shut my dumb idea down. But I’m not going to find that in the online dating world - it's full of broken people, and I'm too unlucky to meet a good one. My one attempt at a relationship from Tinder was a total fail because I met a lying cheater and was stupid enough to think we could build an honest relationship. And I've been failing at all other types of dates before and since then too.

I've been ‘taking breaks’ from Tinder the past year and a half since we broke up, and it's taken me this long to realise I don’t want to take breaks, I want to stop. I am totally burnt out, and so over spending time getting to know people I don't like. If I'm going to bother with other humans I'd rather my energy go towards friends who care about me.

It's not all dire though. Life took pity on me, and delivered a friend who's new to Brisbane so he’s up for random ventures about town. Things my coupled friends don’t have time for because they’re doing things with partners or other friends. It's the time out I need from boring dates I never want to see again. I might get back into the dating thing one day - whenever I next feel like punishing myself with disinterested bozos who treat me like a piece of meat, or interested weirdos who treat me like an alien species. For now - boys, bye.

We did a day trip from Nice that took us along the French Riviera and to Monaco. It was one of only 3 tours we did this trip. We lucked out - our tour group was a really fun South African family who joked around and poked fun at everything in a good natured way making the whole day more fun.

Monaco is such a strange country. How can somewhere so tiny be so rich, have helicopters as an Uber option, and so many fashion model-looking policemen? Ridiculous! We basically did this tour because it included Monaco and Little Sissy Pham’s boyfriend is a mad Formula 1 fan and this tour took us to Monte Carlo along part of their Formula 1 track. We got to see the starting line, but then a Harley Davidson festival and hundreds of bikies closed down the infamous tunnel so we couldn’t drive through. Worst timing.

The country will forever be the first time I’ve seen an elevator weight limit get triggered. The tour group went up in the lift together, but then we all had too much to eat at lunch, and on the way down the tour guide sacrificed himself for the overweight tourists and ran down the stairs. Achievement unlocked.

We visited a small town called Èze - a gorgeous stone town with gardens along its cliffside. The whole day was filled with picturesque locations like this. Afterwards, we went to Cannes which I found underwhelming. The beach is nice but the whole beachfront was covered in hotels and not nice cute buildings like in Nice. We also went to Antibes, the deepest natural port and had a quick walk around the town.

To end the day, we went to Saint Paul de Vence the second most visited small town in France. It's ancient and beautiful and set on a mountain top and full of art galleries. We only had one hour there but if I had more time it would have been nice to look at all the galleries. I was drawn to the street art vendors but there was anything and everything there. 


Definitely in Monte Carlo.

A post shared by Jade (@thephamly) on Aug 19, 2017 at 10:07am PDT

It was inevitable that mum’s side would want to know more detail about how and why their beloved sister and Aunty passed away so young when we reunited with Aunty 6's kids. Mum Pham was the youngest of her siblings, and survived by four sisters - one in Melbourne, two in Germany and one in Vietnam. It hurt my heart to relive the loss but we had to for our cousins. They love Mum so much and deserve to know her final days.

Little Sissy Pham took the brunt of the struggle and anguish of watching a loved one pass. She was living at home and caring for Mum for her last months. It was traumatising for her but she recounted the heartbreak for our cousins. She told of how Mum Pham was in hospital and saw apparitions wearing white (Vietnamese funeral attire) who told her she was to go with them. That's when she fought with the hospital to be discharged, because she knew it was her time and wanted to be home when she died.

In a way it was good because Mum got to pass at home surrounded by her family and loved ones. She told Little Sissy Pham and Big Brother Pham that she was proud of them, and content to leave since her children were all doing well in life. We were raised a welfare family of refugee parents - it was a struggle some of the time, but we all overcame the disadvantages and hurdles life threw at us thanks to mum's sacrifices and hard work. My brother had a trade and family, my sister had a secure job and steady partner, and wildcard me also had steady work in the creative industries even though she didn't really understand what I do. Mum did so much for us kids to get us to this point in our lives where we could take care of ourselves, and care for her and Dad in turn.

I haven't told many people this because it hurt too much when it was fresh, and after a while we just never spoke of Mum's passing. My one, only and greatest regret in life is that I never got to say goodbye to Mum.

I was living in Melbourne at the time, when Little Sis called me mid-week to say Mum was home from hospital and that I should come visit, she was in denial so didn't tell me how dire Mum's situation was because she still held onto hope that the doctors could bring Mum back from the brink like before. I finished the work week thinking it was like my last visit to Brisbane only a couple months earlier to care for Mum till she was on a path to recovery, and I flew home on a Friday night. But it wasn't like last time at all.

This time Mum Pham was waiting up for my arrival home. She was awake when Little Sissy left to pick me up from the airport on the opposite side of town, but by the time I got to the house at 11.30pm, she had fallen asleep. She never regained full consciousness the next day. I'm confident she could hear, but she didn't have strength to open her eyes or speak. She was in too much pain to hug so I just lay next to her, and held her hand and told her how much I love her. But I didn't get a proper farewell or parting words of wisdom, love and appreciation like my siblings because I came home too late.

I wish I'd been by Mum's side for her final days of awareness. It was sad but nice to hear Little Sissy retell it to our cousins. I learned details I didn't know before. The days and weeks after Mum passed were a blur of funeral plans, and grieving, and taking care of everyone. I'm glad Mum knew it was her time to go, and content with the lives she helped us build.

Nice is a fun town. It’s a relaxed port and beach town. I thought Marseille would be more like this but it was too rough for my liking. Nice is much more chilled out and friendly tourist vibes in the old, heritage part of town where we stayed. Not as fab as Barcelona but still a nice atmosphere.

The pebble beach was an experience. Walking into the Mediterranean Sea was tricky but fun. The trek out once my skin was all soft and sea-soaked was a lot more painful. I gave up on trying to keep my dignity and crawled out of the water - it was really slippery where the waves broke on the pebbles. Suddenly, the locals wearing full foot-covering water shoes made sense.

The water was divine though. I spent most of my time not swimming and just floating on my back, looking up at the clear blue skies and being rocked by the waves while I listened to the sound of pebbles swaying to the water. I can feel my shoulders relaxing just remember this moment of bliss.

Hello Nice.

A post shared by Jade (@thephamly) on Aug 18, 2017 at 7:56am PDT

The city itself is fun to walk around and explore in. The buildings are colourful and bright, the esplanade by the beach stretches as far as the eye can see. There is a massive park called the Jardin Albert-Ier right by the main esplanade with statues and water features - we walked through it twice, once during the day and once at night to make the most of it. We slept terribly in Nice because we were in an old apartment and could hear all the noise on the streets where people partied until 5am or 6am each night we were there. It’s definitely a good place to holiday and party. I can see why Parisians head to Nice when they want a beach trip.


Cliff art.

A post shared by Jade (@thephamly) on Aug 18, 2017 at 8:03am PDT

Most of the time I feel really anti-social on social media. It’s like the lazy person’s way of keeping in touch with folks instead of emailing, messaging, calling, or meeting up with friends. But every now and then social media does what it’s supposed to do.

I shared a photo of the Eiffel Tower on Instagram and an old housemate from Melbourne commented to ask if I was in France. I wasn't at the time we messaged but I told him I was in Paris, and would be back in France but in Marseille and Nice next. Teeny, tiny world - he was visiting his hometown of Marseille at the time and we arranged a meet-up!

Marseille, the city, I didn't get to experience in full because we'd only planned to stay a night in a proper hotel (not an airbnb apartment) with nice air conditioning and roomy bathroom (all the luxuries we take for granted at home). We didn't do any of the tourist things, just went to the city docks, had food then met up with my old housemate for drinks. And then to make our small world even smaller, turns out 2 other French guys I'd lived with were both living in Marseille now. One was in the city so came to meet us, the other was heading out of town for a festival.


I loved seeing them, and remembering the wild old days back when I lived with 9 boys in a party warehouse space. Two were little boys when I knew them - it was their first time being away from home and they were living large in a different country on the other side of the world. I remember going on late night adventures together with the one I was closest to - lying on a little grassy mound in a park watching clouds pass over the stars, and sharing a kiss at a warehouse party. Now they're grown men, and lovely humans to boot.

I wish I'd known they were in Marseille and spent more time there, but that's what happens when you've only got 4.5 weeks to explore part of a dense continent and have no idea where any of your friends are. My impression of the city is it’s a bit dirty (so much dog poop) and super aggressive drivers that made it scary crossing roads. It had a strangely agro vibe considering it’s a picturesque seaside town, but it could just be the area we were staying in - we didn’t explore Marseille so I don’t know what it’s like elsewhere. If you have to choose between more time in Nice and more time in Marseille, I’d definitely go more time in Nice. Which is where we went next.

Stopover in a 'lil place called Marseille.

A post shared by Jade (@thephamly) on Aug 17, 2017 at 1:11pm PDT

Dad Pham told me how he left Vietnam by driving a boat of refugees, but I never knew the details of how Mum Pham ended up in Germany. That is, until we reunited with Aunty 6's children this year.

Aunty 6's kids took us to dinner twice - once to an all-you-can-eat Asian buffet place, and once to the most German pub they could find our hometown. Over dinner we shared stories of our lives in broken Vietnamese with bits of English. There was one story I'd never heard before.

As my cousin tells it, when South Vietnam fell to the North the communists accused them of being capitalists and took their house as punishment (though really they wanted it to house communists). Aunty 6's family was given 2 months to vacate to a rural plot of land without plumbing, power or roads. Being city dwellers, they didn't see how they'd survive in whoop-whoop with no agricultural skills or know-how.

This forced Mum's side of The Phamly to leave Vietnam. After living under communist rule for over a year, Mum Pham took all four of Aunty 6's kids with her when she fled Vietnam. They went in a small boat to a larger ship out at sea, like Dad but unlike Dad they paid their way onto the larger ship, instead of being rescued. As a result, Mum and her posse of my cousins were turned away from Australia, their original destination, because they weren't deemed refugees since they paid their way. Luckily, Germany was generous to take them in because Germany is where my parents met.

Sadly, Aunty 6 was in hospital in Frankfurt when we were in Germany and we didn't get to see her. Aunty 6 is the one who smuggled the diamonds in my diamond ring out of Vietnam with her when she left because she didn't want the communists to have them.

I didn't know her children viewed my Mum as a second mother to them. I didn't know took them to Germany alone when they were teens, and took care of them in Germany, and settled them into their new lives before helping their parents migrate over. I had always assumed their family had fled to Germany together.

It's great to see our cousins are doing well. One owns a pharmacy in beautiful Marburg, and another owns the only Asian grocer in our hometown. Their kids are really bright and intelligent. And also huge. Little Sissy Pham and I dwarfed our cousins, but their kids were bigger than us. There's something in the water or the dairy or the potatos in Germany, that's for sure.

We went from rainy, cold Paris to hot and sweaty in Barcelona in August. Barcelona is hands down my favourite city in the world. True, I haven't visited many places but it easily tops all the places I've ever been. There's something extra special about the atmosphere in this beautiful seaside city. The place is so warm and welcoming, and the people so friendly and playful. Everything's just so relaxed yet full of life there unlike at home in Oz where it's relaxed 'cause we have a culture of laziness - probably because we are all lethargic from not having siestas and/or in a drunken stupor.

We did all the tourist things, visiting the otherworldly architecture of Gaudi, visited a castle by the sea, walked by Olympic Park for the novelty of walking by an Olympic Park - primary school me still remembers those Games, that year was my favourite of Olympics memories, and I remember our cousins got us Barcelona game tracksuits - white with black, teal and yellow streaks. Ah, the memories. I wonder if I have a photo of those somewhere.

So beautiful.

A post shared by Jade (@thephamly) on Aug 15, 2017 at 8:17am PDT

We visited the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya - for the view, not the art because we overdid the art in Paris and needed a break. The gallery overlooks a massive water fountain feature, but we were there during off-time and didn't have time to come back for the fountain show. Instead, we opted to go to the beach for a swim in the strangely calm ocean. The waves break right on the shore and the rolling waves are really gentle - not like the waves at home in sunny Queensland that try to smush you on a bad day, or push you over on a good day. I could have floated there for hours being rocked by the sea. But I didn't because we got hungry and went for dinner at one of the restaurants on the beach. Oh, take me back!

I did a solo trip to the Aquarium by the sea because I am a child trapped in a slow-to-age Asian woman's body, and went for a walk along the beach on my last night in Barcelona. Looking back, our time in Barcelona was the most chill and happy time we had on our trip (apart from our Phamly Reunion). That's what all ideal holidays should feel like - I felt small and humble and appreciative. I hadn't felt that relaxed and happy in years.

Morning.

A post shared by Jade (@thephamly) on Aug 15, 2017 at 11:11pm PDT

We left Barcelona the morning of August 17, and the terrorist attack happened that afternoon. I only learned about it because our cousin in Germany messaged me to ask if we were OK. I messaged the Phamly straight away even though it was night time back home, then waited til night in Marseille to call dad in case he heard about it through the news and worried. It's so sad that people think killing randomly is the answer to their problems with the world. The three of us were wandering that street just the day before. It's dumb luck where you are when these attacks happen. On this leg of the trip, we were on our way to Nice where the truck ran people over a year ago. It makes me sick to think people out there have so much hate and anguish in their heart, they think the solution is to kill people randomly.

Beach vibes.

A post shared by Jade (@thephamly) on Aug 14, 2017 at 10:23am PDT

Photos: Cousin T & Big Brother Pham (with Little Sissy Pham on the side) in 1987 versus Little Sissy Pham & me in 2017

In Vietnamese culture we refer to family members in birth order. So, for example, Big Brother Pham is number 2, I am number 3, and Little Sissy Pham is number 4. It's relative to the speaker so to my siblings I'm sister 3, my nieces Aunty 3, or to elders child 3. And then everyone has their name too so I can be Aunty Ngoc or Jade. And in Mum's Phamly they have their Vietnamese name AND their Chinese name. So depending on which side of the Phamly I speak to I refer to them by their Chinese name (Mum's side) or by their number (Dad's side)... it gets rather confusing so for blog purposes so I will use numbers relative to me.

Mum Pham was the youngest of 10 kids. Aunty 9, being the 8th in line, helped raise and care for Mum since Grandma passed away when Mum was a toddler. Mum loved Aunty 9 and though I hadn't seen her in decades so do I. Her care and love helped shape the care and love Mum gave me. I was ecstatic when Cousin T told us his mum could see us.

So on our first full day in Hometown, we went to visit Aunty 9 in the old flat where The Phamly used to visit every weekend. It was strange to walk the streets and halls that Mum & Dad Pham used to walk every weekend, and then to see the same flat that is in so many Phamly photos. I made Little Sissy Pham recreate a photo from childhood - except instead of Big Brother Pham and Cousin T, we were in the pic. It was the funnest!

It always makes me happy-sad to visit family and friends who knew Mum. I can see the love and loss I remind them of when they see Mum's face in mine. I'm almost the age Mum Pham was when she fled to Germany too. Aunty 9 says I even have the same gentle way of speaking. Ooph, it's like good, firm kick in the feels every time.

In long-held Phamly tradition, Aunty 9 overfed us to the point of bursting...and then took us to an all-you-can-eat buffet with Aunty 6's kids. Aunty 9 was so happy to see us, she spent hours strolling the streets of Hometown with us even though she's only recently out of hospital and not up to her regular strength. One thing we noticed in Europe - everyone is way fitter than Aussies of any age. People are just healthier and more active - obesity wasn't really a thing. Or if it was, we never saw anyone morbidly overweight in our travels.

Aunty 9 and her husband still went for bike rides up until her surgery and his (he was in hospital when we were visiting so didn't get to see him). I remember I used to annoy the crap out of him because he didn't like noisy kids, and I was chubby chaos. Cousin N told me how one time he told me to be quiet, and I had a full tantrum, stormed off into the bedroom, and refused to talk to anyone or do anything I was so mad for hours. What a little shit I was.

Being back in the flat where all these memories were made was surreal. I couldn't tell which bits I remembered from actual memory or from old Phamly album photos or tales. Either way, it was indescribably wonderful to be back at the flat where we hung out every week as kids. So much love and fondness was felt the whole day there.