“There are so many rats in this family!” 

My family celebrated Lunar New Year a couple weeks late this year. We overtook the cozy townhome in the St. Paul suburb where Cô Mười lives, and feasted on shrimp and chicken curry and broken rice and Thin Mints and more. As the family’s babies got ready for their li xi, I handed spare red envelopes to my sister to use as party favors for my nephew’s upcoming birthday party. For the first time in my adult life, I had remembered to pick up the envelopes and even got crisp green bills from the bank (where surprisingly, the tellers knew to ask if I wanted them to look for two dollar bills). The current generation of kiddos in the family scooted around to each adult in the living room, wishing each aunt, great-aunt, and second cousin chúc mừng năm mới. 

“All you rats, line up for a group picture!” one of the aunts ordered once each adult was graciously thanked and the kids were all counting their cash. Obediently, the seven of us squeezed together and said cheese. “Uh oh, it’s an unlucky year for all of you!” Cô Yen laughed at us after snapping a picture on her iPhone. 

According to ChinaHighlights.com, which was the first result when I googled unlucky chinese astrology just now, “people in their zodiac year are believed to offend Tai Sui, the God of Age, and incur his curse. It is believed to bring nothing but bad luck. Therefore Chinese astrology followers pay special attention to their conduct every twelfth year of their lives, i.e. in their birth sign years.”

As our Tet celebration wrapped up, Cô Mười got out takeout containers and the aunts packed up the leftovers into a to go meal for each family unit, handing them to the girl cousins in individually wrapped plastic bags. Cô Tám reminded us that this April would be 45 years. We said our goodbyes, mentally planning another get together in two months. 

We haven’t spoken about the canceled family get together, the one meant to commemorate the 45th year of our leaving, our arriving, our survival, our existence today. But the rats on the gigantic family text thread have apologized for bringing bad luck to everyone this year. 

ChinaHighlights.com also has suggestions for bringing good luck in your birth year, in case you’re wondering. They suggest that in the year 2020, rats can bring good luck by wearing red as well as jade accessories. They also suggest that good luck can be brought by facing away from the God of Age and that us rats should adjust our furniture and dwellings to face southeast.

I find myself talking to my parents more, sending them at least a text a day to check in, if not a phone call. Early on, at the end of one of these nightly calls, around the time there was a photo circulating of the president crossing out coronavirus in his script and replacing it with Chinese virus, I told my mom not to worry too much, thinking about her blood pressure. I reminded her that we could run their errands and get their groceries. This doesn’t frighten me, she said. I was scared when we left, when we were on that oil rig. I was scared when it was just my body between your brothers and sisters and the ocean. 

I think my mom read a Reader’s Digest article about how white parents say I love you to their kids. Vietnamese parents don’t say I love you, she tells me, before saying, I love you, UyenThi. Thank you for calling us. Good night. 

I don’t know how to put my body between my family and the ocean. But if I’m lucky, maybe the rats in the family can convince our parents and elders that it’s our turn to take care of them.