The first activity when we arrived in the evening was setting off fireworks. Invented in China and still very popular in China, fireworks are a favorite of both kids and adults for bringing in the new year. Our nephew Liang-Liang and his mom set off some fireworks in this photo.

When we got up in the morning, it was cold and foggy. We went out and explored the fields around the village. This is Liang-Liang, his mom, and Jenny.

Jenny showed me the pond where they used to swim. The cement thing serves as both a footbridge and a filter for the small stream flowing from the pond. After a summer rain, fish from the pond would get flooded into the small stream where the kids could then catch them by hand.

Here's Jenny playing badminton with Liao-Liao, our niece. Those are other family members in the background.

These are cousins Zaohui and Xiao Dong playing Chinese Chess. I hear it's fun and simple, so maybe I'll learn it one of these days.

This is the main room of the old house, built around 1985. Jenny grew up here, but then they built a newer house around 1995. That's Mao, and the bicycle that Baba ("Dad") still rides most days. They now use this house for storage and for some cooking.

This is another view of the same room as above. This is the cooking area. The hay burns in the oven, which heats up the stir-fry-pot which is built into the counter. They now have running tap water. The floors of this house are dirt, but the new house has cement floors.

The back room of the old house is used for raising chickens in the pen on the right, and keeping hay for burning in the oven.

The second floor of the old house also stores hay and farming tools. It has some neat old baskets and buckets and stuff.

Mama gave me a tour of the old house. There's a wooden ladder to get to the second floor.

Most of the family members came home for the holiday, so all the cousins were together too. Mostly fun, sometimes noisy! Liao-Liao, Tian-Tian, Liang-Liang, & Liu-Liu.

Here's Liao-Liao. That's Jenny's little brother's daughter, age 3.

Liu-Liu is Jenny's cousin's daughter. Behind her is Tian-Tian, another cousin.

Liang-Liang, age 3, another cousin.

Here's Mama with Liao-Liao.

Jenny with Liao-Liao and Liang-Liang.

That's the old house ('85) in the foreground, and the new house ('95) in the background. Baba & his two brothers share the new house.

Here's a group playing Mahjong in our house. They play night and day during the New Year week.

A very important part of New Year is going to visit all the relatives. Our house was particularly popular this year because there was a foreigner in the village! These relatives told me that they came especially to see me.

My relatives...

Baba and my relatives...

And more of my relatives...

Me and my relative...

One day, we visited Jenny's grandmother's house for lunch. They live in a village 30 minutes walking distance away.

This is the old kitchen, where they fixed an enormous lunch.

The floors of the old kitchen are dirt.

Here's Liao-Liao getting a hot foot-bath. This is very comfortable, and a favorite memory of Jenny's. There's no water heaters in the village, so they only bathe the dirty parts daily using water off the stove, and the rest only rarely. I took a foot bath too, and it was very nice. There are hot bath places all over the nearby city, so we went there every couple of days to take a nice shower and sauna and sometimes even massage. It makes the cold much more bearable.

Liao-Liao and Liang-Liang are very cute!

Here's Liao-Liao with the Aunt's dog. It had one tooth sticking out of its mouth.

Here's the Aunt after fixing the second huge meal for us. You can see the plates are stacked to THREE levels deep.

After lunch, the Uncle took me on a tour of their village, including lots of animals! Here are some young piglets.

Here's the uncle and Jenny in front of an old house with wooden panelling.

Jenny and the old wooden house.

This was the lamb that the uncle was raising. He recently sold the older one.

One of our last stops was to visit this old lady, who has adult-onset diabetes and has lost her sight. She's still pretty cheerful, and keeps a tidy house.

Since Jenny's extended family didn't make the trip from their village to Xiamen (a 2-day train ride), we had a wedding banquet in the nearby city on January 31, which coincidentally is also my birthday! It only lasted a couple hours. About 60 relatives came for lunch, and I went around to each table properly addressing them according to the Chinese etiquette and having a drink with them. Fortunately, Baba explained that I don't drink much alcohol, so I got to use soft drinks instead of the hard liquor they were drinking!

There were six tables in all. This table included Wang Yan (Jenny's brother's wife), Jenny's great uncle, some aunts, and some cousins.

Jenny's maternal great aunt's little brother's wife was the head of one of the tables, pictured with her son.

Here's Baba with an uncle. There was a big commotion when I came to their table to toast them, because Baba wanted me to toast Mama's oldest brother, but the others wanted me to toast Baba. Whoever gets toasted first is therefore the most important person of the table. In the end, I obeyed my father-in-law and toasted the uncle. It was good of Baba to be humble.

Here's me with several of the kids.

Jenny's brother, me, and cousins Zaohui and Xiao Dong.

American Gothic: Baba's older brother and his wife at the banquet.