Sunday, February 19, 2006

Oh, the irony


It was a 12.5 hour flight from Chicago to Beijing. I decided to use the time to do some reading and expand my knowledge base about China beyond, say, Kung Pao Chicken and the whole Communism thing. Imagine my surprise when I came across this passage in my pocket-size Culture Smart! China: "Birthdays as such are not usually celebrated in China. ... There is a birthday for 'everyone' on the seventh day of the Chinese New Year."

If I had the wherewithall to command the captain to "turn around this Airbus right now, Mister!" perhaps I would have. But, alas, I was merely a sardine sitting in coach. No one would take me seriously. I had to make the best of it - cake or no cake. I was slightly relieved to read a few paragraphs later that there is one Chinese tradition surrounding birthdays -- you must eat noodles, each one slurped whole - no biting them in half - as noodles represent long life. Cool. Noodles it would be.

Another quick tidbit I learned on the flight over: The Chinese often address each other by their surnames plus either xiao or lao in front of it. Xiao means little or young; lao means old. The cutoff point for being referred to as xiao? You guessed it: 35.

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