Tradition.

It's hard to create and uphold a tradition when you move around quite a bit. There is no restaurant to go to for every birthday, no park to visit every Sunday afternoon. You often end up with a series of traditions, a tradition per country. My family's tradition in Hanoi was to have bagels for dinner every wednesday, because we lived close to a bakery that sold the best bagels. Every Saturday morning, I would visit the Weekend Market with my mom. In Shanghai, we would visit Century Park on sunny weekends, me on my roller blades and my parents and brother on a four wheeled bicycle. Whenever my mom would pick me and my brother up from school, we would get treated to a garlic french bread at Paris Baguette. In Beijing, whenever we went to Decathlon, my brother and I would get Pop Chicken at KFC. And on Wednesday nights, whether summer or winter, my brother and I were allowed to go get ice cream at the nearby grocery shop for desert. The list goes on, and it's making me nostalgic thinking back to all these traditions. Yes, they were short term, but they are so valuable in my heart. I do wonder though, do these things count as traditions? According to the dictionary, a tradition is:

"a specific custom or practice of standing"

This specific definition does not mention time. How long do you have to do something before it becomes a tradition? I suppose that differs for everyone, and as a TCK, I think my time requirement for a tradition to be created has significantly decreased. As soon as something is done the same for 3 times, it becomes a tradition in my mind. But there has always been one thing, one true tradition, that has stayed the same for the past 7 years.

For Chinese New Year, or TET when living in Vietnam, we would go to Krabi, Thailand. A week long vacation that included the sun, sea, beach, and most importantly, family time. We knew our favorite restaurant there (the fancy Italian for if we had something to celebrate), our favorite place for drinks (the beach bar where my parents told us we were moving to Beijing), our favorite dessert (Swensens Ice Cream, or a banana roti), and our favorite nearby island (Railey Beach). It was something I looked forward to every year, because I knew that Krabi would always be there, the same as the year before. It was a little bit of stability whenever I moved. Yes, it is a very extravagant tradition, but it is the one true tradition in my heart. Which is why it was so hard to break tradition this year. This blog post was inspired by me sitting in my cold room, alone, during TET/Chinese New Year. This week has been hard, knowing that for the past 7 years, my family and I would have been together this week, enjoying the sun. My parents decided to finish this tradition, and instead they are spending the week in Koh Lanta, close to Krabi. This makes me very happy, knowing that Krabi will always be 'our' place, the place for the four of us. I know that sounds very selfish, not wanting my parents and brother to enjoy Krabi without me, but I am ever so protective of my one true tradition.

If you and your family uphold a tradition, I tell you one thing: treasure it!