I spent my lazy Sunday with family, to be specific: my Mother's aunts, cousins and their families, and in the evening my Dad's cousin and his girlfriend and their friends. I overslept by accident :) so I got to my great-aunts' house at around noon. My great aunts still live in the house my mother grew up in, which was really cool to see. There was a big yard with a bunch of trees, the same trees (I'm guessing) my Mom told me she used to climb as a kid. The house is pretty big, so I guess everyone used to live together? As a kid Mom told me she used to drag her younger cousin Paul around with her whenever she went to play baseball or climb nearby trees--I obviously did not inherit any of her athletic/tomboy genes... I call all my mom's cousins, including Paul, my "Uncles" in an effort to avoid the complicated Chinese family tree terminology (there are different terms for EVERYONE depending on their relation to you, including whether they are from your Dad's or your Mom's side of the family!!).
So anyway, I had a very healthy lunch with my Uncles Paul and Henry, Paul's wife, Paul's 5-year-old daughter, and my two great aunts. One of my great aunts is like a yoga/meditation master, but I think I may have mentioned this in one of my earlier posts (God... I'm turning into my Mom, repeating all my stories 3-5 times to the same listeners... haha). Then I went to the park with my little "niece" ? Ting An haha and my yoga master great aunt. She climbed trees with me and Ting An like it was NO BIG DEAL!!! I gotta ask her for a lesson or two! After running around and sweating bullets in the park all afternoon, we stopped in the Astronomy museum to cool off, and Ting An played with all the gadgets. When we got back home, Enchanted was on, so we watched it, and I helped translate what was going on to Ting An :) then we had some cake, and Ting An ate a whole slice of her favorite, strawberry cream vanilla cake with pink frosting! She had her first experience writing Chinese characters with a brush, and the silly little girl spilled literally half the ink bottle (of VERY VERY THICK AND BLACK INK) all over: my legs, the chair cushions, and the floor. Haha
After I left my Mom's family, I went straight to a BBQ with my Dad's cousin. At first I felt really awkward because I didn't know anyone else at the BBQ except my "uncle" and his girlfriend. But then he gave me a glass of wine and of course conversing and meeting people became easier after that. His girlfriend's daughter, who's 16, and her friend overheard me speaking in English to a friend on the phone, and looked like they were SO in awe of me haha! So then they sat by me at the dinner table, and they were so cute! They kept whispering to each other in Chinese, like "does she speak Chinese?" and then they asked me and I said yes and they whispered back to each other like "oh my god! she can speak!" and then they looked at each other and were like "i wonder if she understands" and then before they could ask me i answered "yes, i can" haha so cute. Then I met some other people who I can speak Chinese ONLY with! Success. I need to meet more non-English speakers so I can practice my Chinese, even it WILL be so hard to converse with them..
Anyway, my Sunday passed by very enjoyably :) meeting and hanging out with my "new" family here in Taipei makes my life here a little more familiar and comfortable, and safe. Even if there is still a little wall between us. But being with distant relatives here made me miss my aunts (hi Auntie Olivia & Auntie Nancy!!!) from home, and all my cousins that I grew up with, and my mommy, daddy, and Sam. It's always nice to meet new family, and expand my family tree, but there's no replacement for the original :)
I love and miss all you guys! Big Hug & Kiss from Taipei!!
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