fireworks

Chinese New Year reminds me of big white living rooms and lots of people, polite talk, house-hopping, uno/uglydoll/other games, and mahjong nights when there are several mahjong tables set up, along with one blackjack table. (And lots of money of course)

So Chinese New Year was pretty slack this year, 团圆饭 was at home and I could just appear in some random tshirt and shorts because the people there are just my aunts and uncles on both sides (one pair on each side anyway) and we practically live in each others' houses anyway. Mostly we sat around and ate and watched movies and all was normal.

初一 was hosted at home as well, at the behest of grandmother (who I suspect is now The One Calling All The Shots in this particular branch of the family) We had something like thirty over people in the house at one point, but there were lots of children. (Basically I was the only kid above the age of nine, not counting my second cousin who didn't come until evening)

The rest of the afternoon after everyone had left at about three, I went upstairs to where my cousins were hosting their father's side of the family (which actually were just their cousins, and the same people who come over for every major festival anyway. No complicated family trees of second-cousins and what-have-yous, amazingly) and watched all of them play Gears of War on the new Xbox. (It's a gross and gory game by the way, but really, what dyou expect?) Apparently the reputation I'd built for gaming in the last two years of primary school hasn't yet been lost, even though I haven't touched a console (apart from the Wii, but that's a whole different ball game from Xbox shooting games) since entering secondary school or something. (As a result I got my cousin to teach me how to play the Xbox games during the holidays so I won't get my ass kicked the next time there's a shooting party. ;) Somewhere along the way my second cousin's family came to visit, and my cousins on the other side needed two mahjong people, so we played that too. (Unfortunately, no money 'cause there were people learning)

Finally, today was spent at the house of someone on my father's side, and we went to the same place we've been going to for time immemorial. I never get used to that place, because there are seriously so many people I don't recognise, so it's just a lot of sitting in one corner and talking to my mother/two cousins on my dad's side. (I swear everyone's talking about all the cousins and cousins they have, and the number of cousins I have don't even fill up a hand, I've got two on each side :/) My sister, though, found a new best friend in the form of a second-cousin 台湾小姐 who's now staying the night over at our place. (It's kind of funny because she speaks Mandarin and is lousy at English, but my sister speaks English and is beyond lousy at Mandarin. ‘妈，她到底在讲什么？’/'Mum, what's she saying?' abound on both sides. They compromise and speak in English in the end because no one can understand my sister's Mandarin. It's also very interesting to hear them discuss Pokémon in a mixture of English and Chinese（神奇宝贝？Seriously?) and they end up using a borrowed guidebook to point to the things they're talking about.)