(Host) Mother's Day

母親天快樂! That's a sentence that, prior to this evening, I was not capable of uttering. But now, having been taught it and practiced it many times before a group of 20 or so people, I am well able of saying "Happy Mother's Day!" in Chinese.


Tonight, James, Margaret and Emily picked me up to go to an early celebration of Mother's Day. I grabbed some flowers for Margaret (it is Mother's Day, after all!) and figured I was set for an evening with my wonderful host family.

And I was. What I hadn't realized, though, was that tonight would be my whole host family--that is, James'  mom, brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, and nephews. (Later explanation revealed that only perhaps 3 or 4 people from the extended family were missing.) We met at a Japanese restaurant, where we were treated to a multi-course, multi-toast meal the likes of which I'd only seen here before at a wedding. 

What the table looked like BEFORE it disappeared beneath a mountain of food

Movies playing on the wall <3

It was a pretty epic restaurant, really...

Eating 米苔目 for the first time: delicious! (or 可口)

The Japanese place's sister restaurant provided the towelettes: yay for Seattle!

Dinner conversation was peppered with various uncles and aunts trying to make their kids talk to me in English--it was cool to hear "我的英文不好" (My English is bad) coming from so many mouths, having uttered the reverse, "我的中文不好," so many times myself--and a rather fun mixture of English, Chinese, and Hakka coming from all sides. 

Filled to bursting, both with food and with new-learned vocabulary, we then relocated to James', Margaret's and Emily's home, where we drank tea, ate corn, and continued our trilingual conversation.


All in all, quite a fun night, though infinitely different from the one I had thought was coming. Being with James' family reminded me of being with my Mom's side of the family, always a fun occasion, and as always I loved being able to simply slide into belonging, not just to my immediate host family, but to my extended one, too. So, to all my mothers, Happy (Host) Mother's Day!