If you find yourself 20 years old without a sense of home, here are some bucket list items you shouldn’t miss when back in the homeland. 

1. 1. Have breakfast. 

Step out in your honeycomb sandals, jetlagged. You’ll only have to walk two houses down to the house selling pho. Ask the owner if they’re open today. She’ll be closed in a few days for Tết, the Lunar New Year. Yell out your order before you sit at the plastic stools and tables, and clean your chopsticks with lime wedges while you wait. A teenager will bring out your bowl, balancing it along with five others. Cilantro, bean sprouts, fish sauce. Once the metal spoon grazes your teeth, you’ll know you’re home. 

2. 2. Get a bad haircut. 

Get lost in chitchat at the salon down the block. You’ve never met, but you and the hairstylist will chat like old friends. She shampoos your hair and massages your scalp, a service that doesn’t come along with a regular haircut at your home in the West. She asks you how much a haircut like this would cost you in Canada, comparing her life against yours. She jokes about swapping places with you for your return flight. You tell her about how cold and isolating it sometimes feels over there and insist that Vietnam wins by a mile. She and her assistant blow dry your hair. You’ll hate how short it is and how the bangs get in your eyes. She’ll tell you your new hair slims your face and how the white folks will love it. Hand her a few 100 thousand VND bills and do the conversion in your head: C$10.00. 

3. 3. Visit the province. 

Spend a week in the city and grow tired of it. Let the city smog break you out. Then, take a car ride five hours south to take a breath of fresh air when the highway bends around the mountains. Lose cell service, then pull out your film camera to capture the rice patties rolling over each other, though you know a camera won’t ever live up to your eyeballs. Watch your younger sister run around barefoot with the village kids and wonder what kind of childhood she could have if your family would have stayed. 

4. 4. Hug relatives you’ve gotten to know over FaceTime. 

Greet the swarm of family members. Line up their features with the ones you’re used to seeing on screen. Notice how your uncles have a few more smile lines than on camera, and how your older cousin is shorter than you now. Hug them for the first time in years while they tell you how skinny you’ve gotten, have you been sick? They remind you to eat more; they’ll make sure of it. Never break away from the hug first. They tease you about how you rarely call home these days, while you pick apart how much they look like you. 

5. 5. Visit your childhood home. 

Make sure to manage your expectations. Everything will be smaller than you remember. Pull open the green iron gate that’s always been there, which is also lighter than you remember. The new owners will greet you and your family and invite you in for tea, wishing you a happy new year. Look at the walls and remember what used to hang there. Recall which side of the room the TV used to be on and how your parents used to keep the kitchen organized. Sit on the stairs and cry about how all the little details are exactly what you pictured every time you’ve imagined “going home”. 

6. 6. Fake it ‘til you make it.

Lunar New Year means food, family and practicing obligatory tradition. You try your best to stay connected to New Year’s traditions with the community you find abroad, but spend so many of them away from home that you lose touch with the mundane day-to-day traditions. Look around at how everyone else holds the incense, how long are they closing their eyes when they pray? Shake hands and wish your elderly health and prosperity, make sure to give them at least 500,000 VND in their envelopes to make up for all the years you missed. Pay attention to the way the elders serve tea. Pay attention to the way they serve liquor. The way they rinse their glasses, the way they clink their glasses. Accept cash with both hands and learn how to turn down a drink without offending. Learn so you might teach your little sister, whom your family members tease for being so “tây”.

7. 7. Accidentally refer to Canada as “home” to your Bà Ngoại. 

Oops. 

8. 8.Go on a moped ride with your cousin. 

You’re close in age; she’s in university now. Congratulate her on passing her driving test and realize how much time has passed since you wore matching dresses and had the same haircut. Your conversations will be different than they were a few years ago. You’ll talk about exes and your careers. You’ll piece together how similar your parents are, and how you’ve learned to maneuver in the same way. She’ll hand you a helmet for her moped and take you to the spots that she and her friends frequent in the city. You’ll be in awe of how much there is to do after 10 p.m.; it’s not like that in Saskatoon. Notice the fashion of the people your age. Notice their slang. Realize you could fit in here. 

9. 9. Receive your Bà Nội’s jewelry as heirlooms.

When your grandma calls you into her room, go without question. Watch her as she rifles through her armoire, follow her gaze when she reaches for the velvet jewelry boxes. You’ve always known her as an adorned woman, even at 90. Your uncles and aunts haven’t stopped talking about how much your piercings and bangles make you resemble her, especially when you have your hair up. She’ll have bangles for you and your sister that she’s saved all these years. She’ll polish them up before she hands them over. The solid silver bangles will wink at you while she lets you pick which hand to wear them on. Listen closely while she tells you of how she used to wear them herself, shift your gaze to her dainty wrists. You’ll show your mom and aunts, who will all gawk at how she managed to hide this vintage jewelry from the rest of the kids. You’ll fidget with these bangles on the plane as you leave. 

10. 10.Set off fireworks on the street, Happy Lunar New Year. 

Help your aunt and grandma clean up after the New Year’s feast. Switch into your outdoor sandals and make sure there are telephone lines in the way. Your uncle won’t wait for you to start recording or wait for traffic to stop before he lights the fireworks. The noise will draw out the neighbors and before you know it, there will be a crowd, and the little kids will hug your legs as they watch. Motorcycles will drive right around it. You’ll watch the videos long after the florets burn out and swear to come home more often.