Vignette #3: The Uncle

Nearing the restaurant, Puu recognizes me from fifty meters, waving gently and beaming. I wave back. I see him tell his employees, all nieces and nephews, to ready a table for me. He greets me on the patio, a concrete slab with half a dozen metal tables and red plastic chairs.

“Puu sok sabai tei?” I ask him. Are you well, uncle?
“Ba, sok sabai,” he replies, grinning. He likes it when I call him uncle.
“Sok sabai sai sabok,” says a nearby nephew. The three of us laugh at this joke as we did the day before, and the day before that.

Puu compliments me today on my sport shirt. This has become routine too. Often he tells me he likes my haircut, or simply that I am handsome, but today he has focused on the shirt, admiring the cut and even feeling the texture as he directs me to my usual table. It is lunchtime, and like most days, I am the only customer. Occasionally two men set in the back drinking iced tea and playing chess, but today the only other occupants of the red plastic chairs are the nieces and nephews, who are lazily watching Khmer pop videos and karaoke ballads on the small TV mounted on the wall.

As always, Puu is dressed well but simply--in pressed, pleated trousers, a long-sleeve button down that is slightly too large, and black leather sandals. As I sit, he says something in Khmer I don’t quite catch.

“Som toh, m’dong tiyit.” Once again, I ask.
“I missed you,” he repeats, this time more slowly. I chuckle, considering the fact that its been just 24 hours since I saw him last.
“K’nyom dai,” I say. I missed you too. Again, he beams, and laughs proudly. The nieces and nephews have shifted their attentions from the TV. One of them scurries to the back to retrieve a menu, despite the fact they all know what I will order. This too, is part of the routine.

“What will it be today?” Uncle asks. Again, laughter.
“Fried vegetables with rice and an ice coffee with condensed milk,” I order confidently in Khmer, without opening the menu.
“Mian ph’sut k’mao?”
“Ba, mian ch’ran,” he smiles, knowing the black mushrooms to be my favorite.
“Aukun ch’ran Puu,” I thank him, and then he is off to the kitchen, leaving me with his nieces and nephews who are too shy to talk much, but all smile like their uncle.