Yesterday was a busy day for my family. We had two celebrations to attend, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. The first was a ginger egg party for my new "niece" and the other was my grandpa's 90th birthday. Most of you are probably wondering what a ginger egg party is, so I'll explain.
In Chinese culture, families hold a party for their new babies when they are a month old to celebrate their birth, and offer red (ginger-colored) eggs to their guests. I think most of the babies in my family have had these (although my parents didn't have much interest in having one for me but my grandma- dad's mom- insisted on having one since I was my parents' first-born), so my cousin's new baby girl was no exception. Pretty much everyone who is even remotely related to you (including relatives by marriage) and friends of the parents are invited, and of course everyone brings gifts for the new baby. The last time I'd seen little Allison was when she was 5 days old, so now that she's 3 months (so she's a little overdue for this party, although my parents went to a party for another baby the week before for an 11-month-old) she's pretty chubby. The excitement was there, and she'll be taking her first plane trip in a couple of weeks when we all attend a family wedding in the Caribbean just after New Year's.
My grandpa's (mom's dad) 90th birthday was that evening. It really is hard to believe he's that old. It doesn't seem like he is- he could probably pass for 80 or 85. He's been through a lot in those 90 years, growing up in Guangzhou, living & working in Hawaii during the Second World War (his brother narrowly missed being at Pearl Harbor the day it was attacked), raising 5 children in Hong Kong, coming to the United States and watching his grandchildren grow up, enjoying all the privileges associated with being here. He was actually one of the people who inspired me to go out and see the world - he did a lot of traveling in his retirement, mostly of the tour group and cruise ship variety, but he still got a nice glimpse of faraway lands and cultures nonetheless. In the last few years, he's dealt with the deaths of relatives and my grandmother's Alzheimer's and dementia, which has definitely taken a toll on his morale. He didn't want a big, showy celebration like my uncle had envisioned (my mom also reminded everyone that Chinese birthday celebrations were a simple affair until they were corrupted by Western influences), so the party just involved dinner, conversation, and a gathering of lots of relatives and friends who we rarely see.
It's events like these that allows us to see family members you could easily have forgotten were even related to you. Even so, not everyone could make it. I had trouble remembering how some people who looked familiar to me were related to us, and tried to remember the last time I had seen them. Some relatives I remember seeing a lot of when I was younger, but not so much anymore. A couple of distant cousins, who I have seen a few times in the last couple of years, hadn't seen my first cousins (the ones most closely related to the baby) in 2 years, and their parents couldn't even come out with them. It kind of puts your family into perspective, how you've got so many relatives running around out there that you don't know about, and to appreciate life. I've got high hopes for Allison. She was born in a time very different from the one I was born into, and all I want for her is that she learns to appreciate the city she'll be growing up in (San Francisco, just like her mother), yet be aware of the plethora of other cultures and peoples inhabiting the planet. I'd love for her to follow in my footsteps and become a world traveler (she'll be getting plenty of cultural gifts from her aunt Valerie's travels) but I can't force that on her. And for my grandpa, congratulations on living 90 years, you deserve the big celebration you got. I can see him going on for another 10 years or so, but I'll have to be sure not to take any time I spend with him for granted.