Panic!

xiao_liang, Thanks for reporting your adventures. 你真牛！

Lol. Wow, haven't heard the name "Tucker Max" in years.

The latter is absolutely right! You validate my existence! Hehehe.

I got it! I read, therefore you exist?

What, am I "Credit" to your "Tucker Max"? (I love arcane references).

I suppose if I had manners, I would just say something like "you're very welcome", or "you're a funny guy, so keep at it", or something like that. Maybe i'll just leave it at "awww shucks," or something.

Yea, running for an hour or two is ok, but walking for 4 or 5 every d ay for two weeks isn't so great :) It turns out I pronate quite badly (feet roll inwards), which means even with insoles, 34 years of walking badly has taken its toll on my feet!

Hey, thank you for always commenting on these silly entries, Pretzellogic - I genuinely appreciate it, you know. :) Makes me feel worthwhile! Hehe.

"I eventually stumbled back, feet complaining violently to me at their vicious maltreatment".

I thought sometime ago, you said you were a runner. But if you're not, then I understand why your feet are complaining.

Eating seems certainly to be most of it, yup :)

Sadly, she's not quite as vain as I am, so I fancy wouldn't be too keen on sharing her intimate thoughts. Not to mention too polite, hehe. She does have a micro-blog though :-p

Unfortunately Siri doesn't understand her (very slight) accent!

So this is what happens when you marry into a Chinese family? eating? On the other hand, this is what a vacation/marriage engagement trip is, I suppose. The opportunity to not be at work, and have fun meeting your new extended family and friends.

Now it would be really interesting to hear the other side of the story; having Christine blog about meeting your folks, and blogging in Chinese. Now that would be interesting. Maybe she could use your iPhone 4S with the british version of Siri (the guy with the british accent, not the woman with the american accent) to dictate her thoughts, then translate them onto Chinesepod in Chinese.

We  were picked up within minutes and on our way to the restaurant with my waist still straining against my belt. After the obligatory getting lost in guangzhou's insanely complicated road system, we arrived at a queue of cars waiting to get into the restaurant's car park. I'd been told it was popular, but nothing prepared me for the scrum at the entrance. It was a full-on deathmatch, with elbows being employed as crowd surfing implements by all parties. Apparently if you have a reservation (which we did), and you're one minute late it's cancelled, so this is serious business!

We eventually managed to squeeze inside, where the crowds were thankfully less, mainly because this place was HUGE! When I think buffet, I normally expect one room, with a central depositary of a few dishes. This place was room after room after room of lavish cuisine. There must have been at least a hundred dishes, from Korean to Brazilian to western food. Free beer on tap, it was heaven for a food lover! Unless you happen to have eaten an enormous hotpot 3 hours earlier.

However being taken here was a real treat, and VERY expensive, so we did our level best. We managed to spend a long time wandering the halls, and ate when everyone else was back from foraging, and actually there was a lot that was really good, although a little too many things featuring shark fin for my taste and morality. 

At one point Christine's auntie turned up joyfully bearing a plate with 4 raw oysters - a rare delicacy, and her husband's favourite. 2 minutes later, Christine's mum arrived, and as a woman that doesn't do things by halves, had a plate bearing a further 12 raw oysters. No-one else actually wanted any, so we sat goggle eyed and watched as he ploughed his way through all 16 in a row. 

The placed closed at nine, but conscious of their popularity, the owners started to dim the lights at 8.30. Replete with complimentary (tiny portions, and strictly one per person) Haagen Dazs ice cream, we wobbled our way gently to the exit for a couple of obligatory photographs before chuntering back home.

2 banquets in a day. Feeling like a champion.  

Oh, frog isn't so bad. My friend ordered it without telling me what it was (chopped in nice little pieces in a stew). I thought I was eating fish until I realized the bone I just removed from my mouth had definitely once been a part of something's leg (ball joint, you know). And snake is good - it tastes like chicken. But I'm totally with you on the raw clams. Not sure I could do that...Ehh...

I feel for you. In he'll, Satan makes you sing karaoke.

The evening went uphill from there, with most members of the family belting out everything from 1930s military anthems to S.H.E. hits. I had to physically restrain myself from collapsing at the historic video for one marching song featuring goose stepping right out of springtime for hitler. "Is this serious?!", I asked Christine. "Deadly serious!" she replied. 

Their singing voices were actually rather good, secret operatic stars all! Later on there was even some credible ballroom dancing, and one astonishing Cha Cha Cha, which we tried our hand at (and failed).

Earlier on I had been talking to JiaJia who was asking me if I really eat everything. Of course! I replied. The only things I couldn't eat are 蛇 (snake), 乌龟 (turtle), and 青蛙 (frog)! Towards the end of the evening, Christine came over to tell me that the cousins wanted to go out to eat (eat more?!) after the karaoke. What's on the menu? 青蛙... Oh boy

So bidding farewell to the hall of shame, the younger family members, including JiaJia with her parent's permission, headed out into the wilds of Guangzhou. One couple knew a great place for us to go apparently, but first we had to go and pick up the new mum and dad. 20 minutes later we admitted we were lost and spent quite some time sitting in a darkened side street on the phone. Bear in mind this is past midnight, JiaJia was still getting phone calls from her classmates, asking for help with their homework. The GaoKao is a fearsome beast and no mistake.

We eventually arrived at a busy busy street and were "helped" to park by no less than three people, all of whom were giving different directions. (accurate translation of their "conversation": "Here, HERE, no, OY fatty! Let them park here for god's sake").

I am told that this is the real cantonese lifestyle - late night dinners. Thankfully frog is off the menu, but pretty much everything else that wriggles in the sea was on. The restaurant was ... well let's just say not the cleanest I've ever seen. It was hugely noisy and we were surrounded by apparently quite drunk people drinking, eating, gambling, and enjoying themselves. 

The Canadian guy by now was taking 加班 "overtime" to new ninja-style levels. We were sitting in the suburbs of Guangzhou, in an insanely popular filthy dirty seafood restaurant, and the guy had his laptop out, frantically typing away. That's pressure for you.

I've mentioned before my mild seafood phobia, which I dutifully ignore in the name of impressing relatives, but when the first dish arrived, and was not just clams, but raw clams, thankfully I wasn't the only person that baulked. I may be of questionable sanity, but raw shellfish is way beyond me!

The rest of the meal went well, and we chatted away. Well, I chatted a bit, everyone else chatted a lot while I tried to follow the conversation. We eventually were dropped back at gone 3am, and dropped into bed, declaring that I think I'm too old to be a Cantonese person. 

I am now fully aware of the necessary requirements at enormous Chinese banquets and was doing fine. Except there's one cousin with a mischievous nature that we've met before who made sure to pick on me. No bone is left ungnawed, and in the case of a huge pork bone, muggins here was given a little plastic glove and told to make sure it was clean as a whistle. 

Nai Nai was looking a bit miffed at one point, and I asked why. Turns out the new mum and dad have a full time nanny, but she wasn't present. She had committed the outrage of asking for three whole days leave for Chinese new year, something grandma found untenable. Mind you, it wasn't as if there wasn't enough childcare available - the mum barely saw the baby, it was passed through so many hands, thankfully mostly fast asleep.

Dinner complete, we headed out into the lobby for one hundred million photographs, presided over by another cousin's husband, who had managed to trump Christine's dad in the camera stakes - unheard of! I'm featured in several photos looking dazed, full and happy, and slightly unsure who any of the people around me are.

We split into people's cars to head to the karaoke place. Christine and I split up, and i travelled with her cousin JiaJia's family, where we made slightly stilted conversation with my poor chinese and her slightly less poor English. 

We arrived and there were slightly horrified glances from the younger members - this was no KTV! Apparently a very old style of karaoke, a large room with a stage  featuring two microphones, and tables around the edge, where you wrote your song choice on a little card. The song choice was expected to be equally antique, and I sat back, relieved that I wouldn't be forced to embarrass myself in front of christine's family.

Not so. 

With a rolling of eyes, she sighed and said "look, let's get it out of the way early, then we can relax", and I was dragged into the little room with the song machine to desperately try and find anything I know. The bizarre english song listing included the backstreet boys' back catalogue, a bunch of songs I didn't recognise, "fuck you" by Lily Allen, and lady gaga's poker face. 

In the end, Christine picked "I just called to say I love you", and pushed me on to stage to get it over with, at which point I realised that although obscenely famous I actually only knew the chorus to this song. Bless her socks, she came on stage and sang it with me, but humiliating doesn't begin to describe it!  (to salve my ego, I did go on stage later and do a credible "cry me a river", which was declared 更好! Or "much better!")

But first we all drove down to YeYe and NaiNai's place to greet the family as they all arrived. Including their newest arrival, a grandchild from one of christine's cousins. 

24 chinese people and a baby all greeting each other in one small room is something of a noisy experience! Red packets were flying everywhere and I was very happy to stand in a corner looking slightly awkward making passing conversation about the portraits (and statues) of chairman Mao that littered the living room with the Canadian Chinese dad of the new baby. 

Soon we all piled into cars and made our way to the hotel. I say "we". Being "young" and healthy (and unbeladen by children), we walked, but it fortunately wasn't too far. Up in the hotel lobby there were more greetings, more relatives, more red envelopes, but my newfound friend, who I gather is something of a high flyer had flipped out his laptop. The couple live in Hong Kong, where the work ethic is work, work, work and why have you stopped working?! Get on with it! So he was embroiled in 加班, or overtime, even at a family dinner. 

There was mild chaos at the dinner tables as I got to watch family rank in action. 3 tables

We're quickly made into 2 and relatives grumbled as they were shifted from one table to another. Christine's dad commented with a chuckle that New year was a time when you can see Chinese families at their most harmonious. And she told me he didn't understand sarcasm...

In that case, just polish off the horrible version of "2002年的第一场雪"。

At the antique place we went to, I guarantee there wasn't :-)

The next time I'm forced to do karaoke, I'm checking to see if there's any Coldplay on the play lists.

The shopping street was extraordinarily crowded, with every shop employing microphones to holler just how much of a saving their sale was delivering. Or in one case, a woman outside clapping. Not sure what that was about. We did look for shoes for me in one shop, but forgot about the whole unnaturally large feet thing. On hearing my size, the assistant looked practically nauseous and directed us to a shelf where they kept the only repugnant shoes available in "enormous", "gargantuan", and "shocking vast" sizes. Not keen.

However, however dear readers,  you will be overcome with joy (or perhaps tepid apathy) to hear I have encountered Chinese shopping success! We had planned to find a body warmer, hence removing the need to compensate for my unnaturally long arms. Whilst waiting for the shop assistant to fetch my size (gargantuan) in our chosen style, I tried on a nice jacket just for the hell of it, and nearly died of shock when it actually fit. And at 70% off (or 0.3 in Chinese sales speak), we snapped them both up! I'm not entirely sure I really need two coats, but what a bargain! 

We grabbed a couple more things (red underwear since next year is my Chinese birth year... Don't ask), and admired a scrum over clothes going for ¥10. Eventually my poor beleaguered feet complained and we caught a cab home.

Tonight we were going out for dinner with Christine's parents at a restaurant serving Hunan cuisine. The family are... How can I put this... Enthusiastic orderers. Even with my newfound ability to manage enormous Chinese banquets, food was still arriving when my belt was about to snap under stomach-laden pressure. There was no need to drive, so

Christine's dad had ordered a kind of herbal rice wine and was enthusiastically toasting us, and getting very merry. The food was utterly great, including an exceedingly tender pork dish that apparently was chairman Mao's favourite. All I know is that I got a cheerful round of applause every time I had a piece, which was kind of sweet. 

Doggy bags in hand, we wandered back home past the late night sellers offering brightly lit toys, clothes, and chicken of dubious quality cooked over hot coals.

 I'm sitting watching the Chinese culture ministry's new year gala, which outclasses last night's 4 1/2 hour show by a league. Not sure I'll ever be a fan of Chinese opera though. Tomorrow, karaoke competition! Bring on the elvis!

JiaJia said her English name was "Chris", which is fine, but she wasn't happy to find out that's a boy's name, unless it's short for Christine, which is Christine's name. Obviously. So I got to choose her a new name, which was fun. (after several rejected efforts, we went for Lauren, should you be interested).

The family were in good spirits, getting ready for the new year meal and annual viewing of the national new year gala. Most of the girls were upstairs preparing the 饺子 dumplings traditionally eaten at new year. I was allowed to join in and managed to not hopelessly embarass myself, although my little parcel was declared somewhat lean. That's not a metaphor, in case you were wondering.

We sat down to dinner, which was excellent, and drank 甜酒 - a kind of chinese rice spirit out of tiny cups (and one egg cup, strangely enough) . It was however, very cold, since the upstairs we were eating in opened onto grandad's garden on a balcony, concealed by a highly insulating thin curtain. 

As Christine's dad put it,  吃热你不冷. "eat hot, and you won't be cold"! The family spent the meal gleefully pointing out each others faults. Mum's cooking was roundly lambasted, mum listed the time dad came home drunk and lost his wallet, all in good humour (I'm assuming, since at no point was a plate of shrimps emptied over anyone's head) and everyone enjoyed themselves, although there was some eye rolling from the younger family members when grandad launched into a brief lecture on what he considered virtues that I gather had been heard literally every year of their entire lives.

We then descended to the  (thankfully warm) living room to watch the annual new year's tradition of the CCTV new year gala, watched (or possibly endured) by 700 million people each year. Featuring the cream (or at least what i assume is multiple committees' agreement of what is the cream) of Chinese singing, comedy, dance, and acrobatic talent, it also appeared to be host to a secret competition to determine which host's hair could be hoisted to the most ludicrously gelled height. If you're from England,  imagine the royal variety performance, but it's FOUR HOURS LONG. I particularly enjoyed the audience shots showing the important (probably) and lucky (questionably) people variously clapping, laughing, looking confused and/or bored, and in one case, sleeping soundly.

After a while we all bid goodbye to 宝宝and 爷爷 who we would be seeing again in a couple of days for a family KTV karaoke competition (you think I'm making this up?!) and drove back through the unbelievably empty streets home, where we promptly carried on watching until the show ended with dancing robots and a lovely big singalong. 

 So that's new year Chinese style!  Happy new year everyone!

Yep, I can also vouch the cold comments. Entirely natural for the whole household to be inside the flat/house wearing winter underwear, a few middle layers and a big bomber-jacket on top. No heating on and with the windows open. Just imagine if the whole country started doing what we unfortunately all too frequently do in the west, and turn up the heating to 25 degrees just so we can wonder around in shorts and tshirt in middle of winter. Not sure the earth's resources would last more than one chinese winter if that was the case!

I'm with you on the cold front. Mid winter in Beijing, no less. They say "we need to open the windows!" I say, "So we can breathe in the fresh smog?" I get overruled anyway, and the windows are open to let out the heat we paid for.

I don't know about Senna but 2 days ago we walked past a stall selling (amongst others) DVDs of "the great magician" which isn't out at the

Cinema yet, so I'm guessing the pirate trade is alive and well here...

In Beijing, there has been a crackdown on pirated DVDs. I am actually curious about how far the crackdown extends. Hence my genuine question about "Senna".

Note: not my opinions!

Google isn't working too well here, what's the thing about Senna? Or are you genuinely asking? :-)

I'm glad that the US will be around for awhile. I have to go to Vegas in March :-)

Why the US is paying $300 for a iPod, then UK/Europe pays 300 pounds/300 euros for the same type of iPod is beyond me.

Let me know if you can buy the movie "Senna" on DVD in Guangdong/Hainan.

Christine has also been the victim of (albeit light-hearted) attack today! First she's told her English isn't good enough (I assure you, it is excellent), and then that her boss won't approve of her painting her nails. The latter is quite funny, and indicative of the large cultural gap between the way companies work in china, and the way they do in the west. With some glee, christine tells him that my boss is a woman who has dyed her hair with streaks of red! (which is true). Moreover, since I work in the health service, 75% of my colleagues are women, including the chief exec! I'm not sure her dad believes her...

Cultural differences aside, I'm actually very proud of my girlfriend, who like many Chinese students, travelled to the west at the age of 17, knowing elementary English. Since then she fought her way through education and qualification, without the endless reserves of cash that some overseas students possess. She found a good job, and worked with that particular chinese focus to make a success of herself. What a woman! No wonder I want her to be my wife. She also happens to be beautiful, funny and erudite, and anyone who says I'm biased shall be dutifully ignored!

You can all stop throwing up now. :-)

The only ones I've seen have been a kid throwing fire crackers! Oh and some crazy person firing them on their balcony in Sanya! I think Guangzhou still has a city ordinance banning them...

Fireworks!!!!!!!

Heh, I guess that since I've been out of the US for quite some time that I forget about the terrible delays I've had there.... O'Hare, Philly..... Ughhh, and Newark...

Huh. Fair enough. I guess I'm jaded by the multiple times I've slept at O'Hare, Dulles and Philadelphia airports because of flight delays, flight cancellations due to crew rest, weather, and then being told squat by USAirways, United, Continental, American, etc. I've never slept in a Chinese airport before. Might be an interesting experience. At least at O'Hare, some staffer threw a United blanket on me at around 2:30am. Maybe Air China gives you snacks and tea....

I can second the Chinese internal airlines being terrible. I fly a lot, my worst experiences have all been on domestics flights from/to Shanghai-Beijing and Shanghai-Shenzhen. My last 3 flights alone had a total of 16 hours of delays and one canceled flight.... The airlines are completely unorganized and don't keep their guests informed for domestics flights. On the other hand I flew from Shanghai to Phuket Thailand last week, was expecting big delays, but was only delayed an hour... I'm so used to delays in China that I considered that a good take off time.

Oh. I take it your job doesn't require you to fly much.

No, I really think Chinese internal flights are pretty bad, although I've only been on them 4 times. 3 of those 4 were delayed, the passengers are extra especially rude, there's literally nothing to do. At least they are relatively short!

Good description of the beach. I need beaches to be wide (~50 meters or more of sand) and long (5-15 miles or so). I'll have to consider Hainan as a vacation spot.

Not sure if you're joking for effect or not. I kinda liked internal flights in China. Definitely some of the airlines are on the quirky side, but different. I can't imagine any American based airline leading us in group exercises the way that one Chinese airline did (I forget which one it was).

Yea, i can't imagine many australians finding Hainan's attractions to their taste. Russians and northern Chinese though..

Well, then I guess it's what I thought. I guess we're characterizing it differently though. I thought Beijing is "crawling" with foreigners, but the ratio is something like 1 foreigner to 1000 Chinese. Sounds like that's the same ratio down in Hainan/Guangzhou.

My in-laws are visiting from the US, and they casually reported that United 851 was 3/4 full of Chinese returning for 春节。

Sydney Airport has great big electronic poster ads for Hainan.

This gets my prize for the biggest waste of money on advertising this year.

(No disrespect meant to your holiday destination Xiao_liang.)

Put it this way - you would not be leaving Australia and going to Hainan for the beaches. Australia does have an advantage over China in beaches.

A lot of Chinese people go to Hainan for the shopping - but again, Australians have their own retailers in distress. If you can't get a 50% - 70% discount you are not trying. I put it down to a pride/face thing .. and it makes me smile.

Pics still on the camera!

Hainan in particular seemed a very chinese centric place. There were a lot of Russians around near certain beach areas, but to my perception, all the foreigners just stayed at the beach. Most of the time i was the only foreigner and most days I'd say we saw less than 20 non-chinese maximum.

Guangzhou is a little different, because Christine's parents live in Baiyun district, where a lot of foreigners live. But they're mostly black (african) and a few south Asian. White faces are still pretty rare. Possibly because of the time of year. It's not western holiday season and prices are high, so why travel?

It's kinda interesting that you seem to end up on places where you're the only foreigner there. Is this my perception, or is this the comical reality? I ask because it seems like in Beijing, foreigners of all nationalities are crawling all over the place, and I would have thought that in Guangdong and Hainan, it would have somewhat been the same thing. I've never been to either place, so I certainly don't know from experience.

By the way, where are the pics?

订婚了订婚了~ 恭喜你们两个！

Hurrah! 恭喜啊！

Congratulations!

clap clap clap

(the suspense was killing me)

clap clap clap

My cunning plan was to wait for the no-doubt-breathtaking sunset and then hand in hand declare my love to Christine (via a carefully prepared speech) before dropping to one knee to rounds of applause by teary crowds of appreciative bystanders. But Sanya bay... Well, let's just say it's not exactly conducive to romantic heartfelt confessions, seeing as it's utterly heaving with people, there's a main road behind it and for Sanya drivers it's compulsory to use the horn at least 7 times in each 100m stretch of road. Then as the sun sank towards the sea, the clouds rolled in and i gave it up as a lost cause. Instead we wandered in search of a restaurant, risking our very lives by crossing several roads, over which there appeared to be no actual rules since cars, buses and bikes travelled both ways along both sides, often with no lights. Don't think pedestrian crossings are any safer, because that little green man is loosely translated in Hainan Chinese as "go faster, honk your horn if you can be arsed".

Dinner was sadly vile, but we were so knackered by the time we got there, we barely cared. I did get to have of those little rock star moments that china occasionally delivers. I was just heading upstairs to the loo and I heard one waitress whisper to another "he's coming!!", then they rushed giggling past, glancing up at me. I don't know how to put this, but uh, I'm kind of a big deal. And my apartment smells of rich mahogany. 

Back at the guesthouse, we were both shattered, but I was determined to see this through! The tension was killing me. I suggested, somewhat forcibly, that we take a walk along the beach, romantic moonlight walk! Christine wasn't keen, she was tired, blistered and really wanted to sleep, but bless her lovely socks, she agreed to have a stroll along the beach to see if anything was still open. 

So there, on the moonlit beach, soft music playing from a nearly-empty bar nearby, the time had come. My mind doing somersaults, my command of Chinese rapidly evaporated and I managed to squawk a few appropriate lines before falling to one knee and uttering the big question.

 Fortunately she said yes, otherwise it might have been a bit embarrassing, but we were both a bit surprised when a passing couple gave us the round of applause I'd been thinking of earlier. I love it when a plan comes together.

We spent the best part of the day wandering the roads of the complex, suffering a little from the sweltering heat (I remind you: in the middle of january). Lunch was in a pleasantly air conditioned buffet restaurant, where the entirely vegetarian cuisine consisted of fake pork, fake chicken, fake beef... which makes the vegetarianism of the contents something of a moot point, but hey, it was cheap and good.

A little exhausted and sore of foot, we wandered back to the entrance  and caught the ludicrously overcrowded bus back to the "corridor of coconuts" (coconuts!), which is the strip of beach in front of Sanya bay. I say "strip of beach", like it's tiny. It's 18km of white sand, stretching into a pearlescent blue sea, lined by endless trees heaving with ripening coconuts (coconuts!). 

I'd been lugging a bag full of beach towels round all day specifically for this purpose and we were soon stretched out on the sand under a tree, risking certain death from plummeting coconuts (cocon... ok I'll stop) for the sake of some shade. 

谢谢cinnamonfern!

Hee hee - I love your posts Xiaoliang. 你的帖子是好像我弟弟写的。好搞笑啊！ 我真喜欢读了。加油！ ;D （我也觉得广州是漂亮的。）

ok, i'll sheepishly go back to my tangential observations :-) I'll bring my sense of humor as well. Good thing that most of the people i'd love to have dinner with (living or dead) are comedians.

I put a ;-)!! Was only teasing, but you were exactly right :-)

Ok, for the record:

1) I'm only interested in the flying.

2) I still don't know the dates you flew, nor am I really that interested.

3) You still have plenty of anonymity, as there are thousands of white European guys marrying Chinese women every year (my guess), so no one knows which one is really you.

Yea, last time i came there was a little crocodile guarding the restaurant!

He said, "阿，我们明白。你喜欢他。" sorry, nothing unusual or revelationary. Just basic enough so that even i could understand it... I don't know what else he said though! We're going to ask mum today while he's at work:-)

and pretzellogic is actually quite scary ;-)

"guard caiman"...you shenme yisi? ni de yisi shi bu shi ...crocodiles guarding the restaurant [statues] or cai refers to some dish?

"her dad said (effectively), "yea, yea, we get it, you like her" "

..you don't recall the chinese do you? it's always interesting to hear the natives selection of language to express things

ok. Lufthansa 786. 12 hours. London-Frankfurt-Guangzhou?

It's raining at the moment. Slight understatement. Someone heavenly has decided Guangdong needs a bath and is liberally throwing water at the city in an unending deluge. It actually makes the city even more romantic, and the pace of life continues unabated. Just with umbrellas. Or large plastic sheets held on your head in some cases. 

We had a nice dinner with 伯父 and  伯母 last night. No guard caiman this time, but the happy tradition of ordering literally everything on the menu continued. We had 12 courses. 12 COURSES! But I am proud to announce that I have mastered the art of eating with Chinese people. So proud. It's simple: eat everything, but eat slowly. So you are constantly eating, but at rate that stops well-meaning relatives from piling food on your plate expectantly. 

The restaurant was full of work colleagues enjoying their annual new year's dinner. I say enjoying. If being constantly forced to down glass after glass of red wine is enjoyment, then so be it! As we eventually left (carrying the inevitable 5 doggy bags, literally in some cases because I'm sure half of the food was destined for the family's pet mini-lion, 宝宝), one guy was asleep on his chair and another 2 looked well on the way to spectacularly redecorating the inside of a taxi somewhere. Ahhh, social drinking pressure, my old friend.

The country is a-buzz with news of the Taiwan general election. I'm not sure how this country, which after all has no real choice in government, views an election in a country that the chinese see as an errant wayward child well overdue returning to the fold. I gather the number 2 choice is vehemently anti-china, so perhaps it's a mixture of relief and mild jealousy. I'm not fluent or brave enough to ask. 

I wrote about gift-giving last time, but i get the impression it's going to step up a level this time. New year means 红包, hong bao or red envelopes. You give them for luck, and they contain money. Thing is, they are given to Unmarried young people, and amusing enough, even though I'm 34, I still count. Still, Christine takes the fore, so I'm happy to stand back and watch her potentially work out how to gracefully accept someone younger than her giving her money. hang on, what am I saying?! Why am i seeing something wrong with people giving me money?! This is awesome!

I suppose at some point we should do something about that whole getting married lark eh? Now that would be something to write home about! 

Siiiiiince you mention it. Dinner gave me the opportunity to get dad and mum alone when Christine was away from the table. I had prepared an elegant speech (well, elegant...ish, given my Chinese. Hopelessly clumsy, you might say). I launched into it, explaining how we were very happy and how much I like her. I began listing her admirable qualities (of which there are many).  Pausing for breath halfway through, her dad said (effectively), "yea, yea, we get it, you like her". Anyway, apparently it's ok to ask her to marry me, which is lucky, cos that's what I'm going to do!

Dude, you haven't already bought a subscription to xiaoliangslife.com? 24 hour streaming access!

"Have random strangers take video of you"

...lol :)

you're a funny guy. Post your pictures and blog real time. Add color by letting your fiance, 爸爸，妈妈 contribute content directly. Have random strangers take video of you, so we know what you and Christine look like together. Post video on youtube AND youku.

很感兴趣，来给看我们吧

谢谢大家 :-)

好浪漫

恭喜你！春节、求婚双喜临门。

恭喜恭喜，你成功了！

Oh, haha. Asking mum and dad was in the comments that were deleted! It went fine :-) I didn't get most of what dad said but it was generally positive.

Proposal went down great! I may or may not have drawn heavily from the chinesepod dialogue, but fortunately, once she'd recovered from the shock, she said yes :-) a moonlit beach in Sanya is a good place to propose :-)

你成功了吗？

ok, get to the point. Did you ask mom/dad yet, and did you ask Christine yet, and did everyone say yes?

see here mate:

http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/12569

Haha. Chances of my dad paying for a wedding in china is rather minuscule :-) he's legendarily tight-fisted as it is!

oops this☝ shouldn’t have come down here.

Here I was just wishing I could crash the wedding (wouldn't know if I’d be "appropriate" though! lol).

Intermediate - "Getting Dad Alone". Sounds like a potential Best of ChinesePod lesson to me. If you allow CPod to use your comment they already have an intro too.

I am certainly not an expert in such things, but I thought in China, the groom's family pays for everything, and does the planning as well. Time for some father/son bonding!?

Well, she is Chinese and we've been going out for a few years, so naturally she's planned most of it already :-p I think she's planning one in England, one in china. Sheesh! And you'd be very welcome, chinesepod massive! Although I'm not sure I could persuade anyone to come to 广州 from 上海!

She's from 广州 guang Zhou :-)

cool, what part of China is your (hopefully) soon-to-be fiance from ?

hahah, there is a TV channel called "ABC" and it stands for "American broadcasting company"

ABC

CBC

BBC

....coincidence or conspiracy ? probably just a coincidence

Canadian-chinese are "CBC". The CBC is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (the canadian BBC). What about Australia, anyone?

I'm white British. But British born Chinese call themselves BBC!

噢，越来越有意思。真可惜你没有【？】视频或者录音。。。在这些情况下有录音的话我们能帮助你听写，翻译，分析爸爸的反应等等

哈哈，很好的建议

"do let us know if you manage to pull off any of the lines from the dialogue"

我跟toianw同意。

Well, I got though the first bit while she popped away from the table at dinner with both mum and dad. Reaction was ... Interesting. Positive, I think! Not really sure half of what was said, if I'm entirely honest :-p still that's the first bit done. Just need to hope it stops raining for 3 minutes do I can find somewhere pretty to ask...

Intermediate - "Getting Dad Alone". Sounds like a potential Best of ChinesePod lesson to me. If you allow CPod to use your comment they already have an intro too.

加油！

BTW, do let us know if you manage to pull off any of the lines from the dialogue. It's quality stuff if I remember correctly. (Not sure how effective it would be with dad though:-)

Hehe!

First I've got to get her dad alone and try and struggle my way through the whole "er, your daughter, can I marry her?" conversation. No English. Oh boy.

hey yeah, they were my thoughts exactly too, haha. Wasn't under the impression you needed a subscription to read the boards though,..thought it was only if you wanted to post.

Xiaoliang...祝你好运朋友

btw great gif of kermit...certainly good representation of panic, hehe.

Haha! She doesn't, so I'm safe there :-)

hehe, I had exactly the same thought! Good luck xiaoliang!

Thanks!

exciting!! good luck :-)

Thank you both ! :-)

祝你好运!!!!!

呵呵 - All the best, mate. Have a fantastic trip!