Earlier on the radio, there bopped a lyric about sipping Hennessy with you, boo. I hiccupped ha ha softly; Hennessy doesn't signify girls shaking scantily-clad ass in a dark smoky club but a ritual during summer birthday parties, played out in a living room, the main characters being my father and his friends, pouring and sipping little glasses of liquid amber as they discussed the politics of their homeland.

Hennessy wasn�t only for men � my adopted grandmother imbibed it too, with other old women, cackling over cards spread on a little table hovering low over a glossy, tiled floor.

FYI, I�m not adopted. In the early 80s, my parents adopted a family, allowing them to take our name so that they could immigrate to the US.

Somewhere in my parents� photo album, there's a pre-immigration/adoption flick of my aunties and uncles, just kids when they were living in a refugee camp because there was no (safe) Cambodia to call home. Later I�d realize that kinship could be acquired or lost easily if not without pain, just like that, through necessity or events that happened beyond your ability to control them.

I don�t know my adopted grandmother�s name (her first or her real last name) � I don�t know the names of many relatives. But I remember her bosom-heaving laughter and the way she spoke Khmer, deep-throated, contentious, and always generous.

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