Showing posts with label Relatives. Show all posts

I'm hungry and want to eat food, but the stupid sister's not awake yet. Agh! Wake up stupid sister! It is currently 11:40 a.m.

Took the day off today because 1) have a day that I can take off, so might as well use it up, and 2) attending a wedding tonight and need to prepare for it! Mmm, not really a wedding, I guess, more like a reception. They already had the wedding ceremony back in the States. But work has made me unable to sleep in. The body's running on its own time schedule, I guess. Meh, it's probably a good thing that I sleep (relatively) early and wake up (relatively) early. Still. Now I get to sit around and wait for my sister to wake up so we can go shopping for Kenting stuff! Ahhhhhh. and eat. Eating is very important too. Sigh.

Weddings, weddings, weddings. This is the second one this year! Well, the first one was my cousin who I think most people in my family had given up on getting married, but she did! To a Japanese guy. It was nice. They seem cute and happy together (as you can see from the picture). Belated congrats (on the blog) to my Cousin Sophia.

Tonight's, though, is of a family friend (who's only like one or two years older! Ahhhh! Am I nearly at that age?!?!). Our dads worked together back in D.C., and they're still pretty good friends. We randomly meet up with their kids (two daughters) every couple of years. It's always like that with these family friends who we meet in other countries. Even though we all go our separate ways after we leave the country, somehow we always end up meeting up again a couple of years later. It's not really keeping in touch, but it's not really losing touch either. And Facebook has made it semi-easier to keep in touch, well, more like keep semi-up-to-date on their lives. Meet ups always occur mostly in Taiwan since we all come back to Taiwan, either for a visit or to live, every so often. It's interesting.

Anyway. Will most likely update about the wedding afterwards. I mean, I've heard that there'll be quite a few politicians there, and most of them I'm not a fan of. Hah! So we shall see.

新年快樂!!! It's the year of the rat ... which means ... eh, I don't know what it means exactly, but yah ... :P

Anyway, currently in Chia-Yi chilling with the relatives. It's the first time I've been back here for Chinese New Year in the past four years. Relatives, especially the young cousins on my dad's side, have really changed. I couldn't recognize a lot of them last night when we went out to dinner. I was so confused because there were a lot of new faces and old faces that just looked different. So, it was a confusing night. And I was also stressing because I didn't have enough Red Envelopes for all the kiddies. So, the new faces didn't get any. >.< Oopsies. Met some cousins (or were they uncles?) that I'd never met before. It's been 22 years! And I'm just meeting them. How strange. :P

Today we went to sweep the graves of my great grandma, grandpa, and grandma. It's always a weird thing for me whenever I go because I never remember what I have to do. And 拜拜 (bai bai) isn't what I'm used to doing either. We also had to go to temples to bai bai as well, and that's even weirder for me. I'm used to having my mom just handing me the incense sticks (香 ... I don't know if that's the right word in English) and telling me to bai to whoever. Aih. It was a walk in the dark this time around without my parents here. But yah, there were like 30 people from my dad's side when we went to sweep my grandpa and great grandma's grave. Soooo many people. Crazy. Got to hear some stories about my grandpa who I didn't get to meet since he passed away before I was born, and we don't hear much about him. Those two graves were kept clean by the people who take care of the graveyard, but my grandma's is in a different location, and because it's more or less free, there's nobody to do the cleaning. So we had to weed out the grave, clear the dirt and mud from the area in front of the grave, etc. It was busy and messy work, but always interesting and an experience.

It's good to know that I've somewhat grown older and graduated from having to "build the house" to just having to collect rocks, except for when we're at our grandma's since we are still the youngest generation.

So many traditions and old stories about the family that I don't know, and I doubt I'll ever know more than 50% of them. But I guess that's why coming back once in a while is a good thing - get to learn a little bit more about the family before the ones who can tell us the stories are gone. Going back to Chia-Yi's no longer such a chore as I found it to be when I was younger. I wonder why. What's changed? Me? My mentality? Have I matured?! *Gasp* Who woulda thought. :P

Meh. Anyway, it's Chinese New Year so it's time for celebration and food! No more sad or serious thoughts. :)

Been taking lots of pictures of foods, so be prepared for a crapload of food pics when I get back to Taipei. (Edit: Too lazy to post them on the blog, so they're here at flickr .. check 'em out for food pix!)

Hope everyone has a good year of the rat! Be safe!