My father has a penchant for exaggeration- a trait that I clearly have inherited from him, along with his love of telling really cheesy jokes. Growing up, he would make up tall tales and we would believe every word of it. He has a strange scar on his leg that he attributed to being shot in the leg during his time in the army. One day, my little brother was looking through the pictorial medical encyclopedia we had at home (we actually looked through it quite a bit at all the strange pictures while growing up) and we realized that the scar on his leg was actually caused from a severe burn mark, not a gunshot wound.

He also used to tell us when we were younger that if there were still kings in Vietnam, my brothers and I would be princes. As I got older, I became somewhat skeptical, shrugging off that idea because, well, how many Nguyens are there? We couldn’t all be in the dynasty. It wasn’t until somewhat recently that I found out that the royal lineage was from my mother’s side. Growing up, I never really thought it was a little strange that all the sisters on my mom’s side had a different last name from all the brothers on her side. And then one night at dinner, I finally asked what the connection was- and it was that my mother’s great grandfather was the great grandson of King An Tho Minh Mang.

Not that it really means anything at all in this day and age, but it is nice to know that some of the tall tales you heard growing up turn out to be true. And strangely, sometimes, late at night when I’m sitting on the computer editing a photo or two and trying to figure out my way in life, I’ll think with the ghostly weight of a long gone dynasty that I should have made myself into someone more than I am.