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I close my eyes and breathe in, feeling the lazy sun reaching out in its hazy glaze, the lonesome wind murmuring its gentle whisper. We continue up the hill, kicking up dust on the recently shined motorbike. It was busy on this narrowed unpaved road, but being a developing village and still retaining the uniqueness of the Vietnamese countryside, motorbikes are the predominant mode of transportation, so a narrow road for motor vehicles but plenty of space for us and our fellow motor-bikers. We encounter cheerful faces along the way, their sputtering bikes adding to the dust storm, and the motor-made wind draft left all the recently cleaned motorbikes with a new, brown sheen. It is an unusual sight on any other day but for today and the next few days, our destination will be flooded with people, all unsuitably happy. My aunt pulls the bike to a stop on the side of the road, we are atop the slope of the hill, where a flat expand stretches. We walk through an unmarked path, overgrown with thin, weedy plants. My head swing side to side, attempting to make out the engravings on the gravestones, some had legible markings while others had their messages worn away by weathering and neglected upkeep. There is no visible pattern to the burial sites that span the landscape. Some were small and contained a simple headstone, others had elaborately colored tombs along with their accompanying headstones. The newer burials can be distinguished by their more intricate designs and patterns. We stop at an opened mausoleum, recently swept and freshly plucked, allowing no plants or weeds to grow in the cracks of the cement floor. This spring cleaning was done a few days before as the custom goes. I breathe in and the smell of incense floods my senses. All around me, the cemetery rifles with activities. To our right, ten or so people circle one grave, their age ranges from infantile to hunch-back old. They vibrate with excitement in their new year’s clothes, spanking new and predominantly red. The men form a half-circle, pouring rice liquor into shot glasses, raising the drinks to their ancestors. Then they clink their glasses together before gulping down the strong liquor. The women talk among themselves, in their hands are dried watermelon seeds—the traditional new year snack. To our left, less raucous and smaller in numbers, is a father and son combo, one holding a bottle of some liquor and the other a vase of red and yellow flowers. They place their offerings on the ledge that extended from the headstone with the inscription ‘Wife and mother’. We exchange greetings with our living neighbors before retreating back our dictated space. I focus on our task—lighting the bundle of joss sticks. Once lit, my aunt hands me my half of the incense. We pray to my grandfather, praying for health and happiness. We left the incense sticks burning at his grave, then doing the same for my paternal grandmother and paternal great-grandparents. We proceed to light the remaining incense for the neighboring graves. This is the Vietnamese tradition of welcoming the new year, to invite the ancestors back to the land of the living, the joss sticks burning to show them the way. And in those few days, remembering your ancestors meant celebrating the things they did when they were alive, drinking to their accomplishments, and praying to them for blessings. In this way, the Vietnamese continue their cycle of life and death, a celebration of both entities. The living turns a year older, the dead another year remembered. Before we drove away, I take in the scenery, marveling in the activities of the people around us and in the silence of the setting.