Mother's brother's wife's cousin's son

Happy new year to everyone! The monkey has gone and the rooster has entered :)

And my new Chinese family life is going well, in the whirpool of cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmas and countless others who even my 'sister' can't always name. It has been a wonderful few days, being drawn into the noisy, lively family celebration, going out to see places around Kunming, playing tennis, eating together, and just hanging out with the family. Not that I understand a whole lot of what's going on or what's being said, as everybody speaks the local dialect of Kunming, which is often very very different from the 'standard' Mandarin Chinese, or Putonghua as it's called in China. But no matter, i just tag along and smile at people and hit the tennis ball when it's my turn!

The day before the actual new year's day, the dad called me into the kitchen to learn how to cook some Chinese dishes, as I had asked him to teach me some time. And you can imagine how I felt, as a vegetarian moreover, as I realised the what was going to be cooked was a big huge pile of Pig hooves and a live turtle, wriggling in a plastic bag. So i stood there, nodding and trying to seem interested and dodging the flying splinters of bone and flesh as the dad was whacking at the pig legs with a huge axe. I was dreading that he would ask me to help, but thank god he never did. The point where I had to admit that it was too much for me and left the kitchen was when the turtle was pulled out of the bag to be killed. I came back briefly to see the guts in a big bowl and the skin being pulled off the lifeless head but that then was the final end to my cooking lesson. Oh well... :)

The people in the family have been absolutely fantastic anyway, I was given a little 'red envelope' with money inside by the parents, they have gone out of their way to cook veggie dishes (they even had me teach them how to make salad!!) and so on and so forth. It seems now that I was really lucky to come across the chance to come live here.

A million stories to tell of our new year and the big family, but i'll continue next time, as I must be getting back home.