family anecdotes

anecdote #1
The 2 granddaughters of my host mom came over for a few days during their school vacation. At the end of their stay, my host mom had to take them to their other grandmother's. I asked her if it was far and she replied it wasn't, it was in Grenoble.
Thought to myself: and they never pay visit to each other (or do they and I'm not aware?)

anecdote #2
asked Aurélie if she went home often. She wanted to clarify what I meant by often because from the point of view of a French, yes, but from that of an Italian, no.
I turned to Cristiano: so by Italian standard, do you go home often? - No, but for me that's enough. From Milan it takes about 3 hours by car and I go home once every couple of months or so. But I have friends who come home every weekend, that's the Italian way.

anecdote #3
if asked where's my native place [quê], i'd say Nam Dinh because that's where my grandfather was born and brought up, even though i don't even go there every year, and i've stayed overnight there only ONCE my whole life, and because it was a trip with Hoa.

anecdote #4
A little bit more than a month ago, my parents went to Thanh Hoa for the death anniversary of Ngo Ro, the grandfather of the founding father of my dad's village in Nam Dinh. It's said that during the war, for fear that the bomb would destroy all the seals and tablets of Ngo Tu (son of Ngo Ro and father of the village founder), the people in Thanh Hoa had to borrow a car to carry everything to Nam Dinh. After seven, eight hundred years and tens of generations (each of them had probably at least ten children), they could still keep track of all the family annals and know for sure where everyone was. That takes a lot of talents.