So the Monday was Aaron’s birthday. The Ma’s had originally invited us out for lunch or dinner because they like us, but specifically on Monday because of Aaron’s birthday. After they had invited us, the Ma’s were invited to Chinese New Year lunch by their closest and oldest friends. When the Ma’s said they were unable to come, the friends invited us out to lunch too! We were very honoured to be included.
I think there were 20 of us at lunch. Including us there were 4 families. 3 Mas, 2 Milburns, 3 friends #1, 7 friends #2, and 4 grandparents. I don’t remember and didn’t really get anyone's name except for the children of family #2, which are: first child, second child, third child, fourth child and fifth child!!! Who names their children one, two, three, four, five???? The Chinese do!!! This is apparently fairly common. According to our Chinese friends the parents do this so they can remember their children's names. What??? One of the cleaning lady's at the school is named "San Mei." That means third daughter. Her sisters names are: Yi Mei, Er Mei and Si Mei, which mean first daughter, second daughter and third daughter! Don't you have to remember that too?
Aaron and I are also a little confused about how many children the Chinese can have, because friends #2 had 5 children, 3 girls and 2 boys. Friends #1 only had one child, a girl. For both families all the children ranged from late teens to late 20s, so they clearly fall under the “1 child policy.” One of the Chinese teachers at school, Lulu, is the oldest of 3 children. I do know her parents had to pay a fine because they had too many kids. Kelly on the other hand is an only child. But we have not met nearly as many only children as we expected.
We had a pleasant lunch. Most of the tables at restaurants are round. They seat anywhere from 8 people to 20. They all have a lazy susan on them, made out of glass, so it makes it easy to get to all the dishes, but can take awhile, because as you’re turning the lazy susan everyone starts helping themselves. Most of the food tasted very good. We did have to eat some weird, clear, slimy, slightly hard, but also soft thing that I think comes from the water. The other food I didn't enjoy too much was a small little fish that gets baked and you eat everything - head, tail, bones, eyes, skin - mmm, crunchy! Aside from those few dishes, the soups, vegetables and fish dishes were good.
Our lunch not only consisted of eating, but also included toasts and singing and kung fu performances. Now these performances were by those of us sitting around the table. Since we don’t know Chinese, we’re not quite sure why this started, because Mrs. Ma assured us many times that you do not normally have to sing for your supper. It was interesting to see what people chose. Children 2 and 4 chose to sing the pop song “Nobody but You” and danced some of the moves from the music video.
After we finished the lunch feast, we went to a Buddhist temple with family #1. It’s very common for Chinese to go to the temple at the New Year to ask for blessings for the coming year. People travel from far away. They bring gifts of money and food. Groups of women will prepare dances which they perform in front of the Buddhas and other idols. It was neat to be there on this day in particular, because normally when we go to a temple we’re there with a lot of other tourists, but this time it was people here practicing their faith.
