Filed under: me
Or is it?
My bags are packed and I’m ready to go. I am heading off to China; with about 30ish members of my extended family meeting us there. We are only heading there for a week, not much – for a long-planned family visit. We don’t actually have any close relative members living there any longer (my great grandparents migrated to Penang a long long time ago)…and none of us had ever been back, including my grandparents and their siblings. However, as it is pretty much a clan in Malaysia and in China, relations have been maintained throughout the years, with the people from China visiting Malaysia every so often. Some of our second cousins (it is after all, a clan) visits regularly, spending time at the village on business and pleasure.
I really have no idea why it took us this long; China really isn’t all that far from Malaysia. Why did it take over a century before anyone in the family (second and third cousins ignored) headed back to the land of our forefathers? Most of us have been to China, hitting major cities and attractions over the years. I for one had not seen much of China at all, and this will be the first time that I am in China for a whole week. It is only going to be one area, I won’t be heading to the major sites like Shanghai and Beijing and will see nothing of the Great Wall – but I am heading home.
It took the clan (it’s too big to be simply a family) a decade or two to plan this epic trip. In the meantime we have travelled far and wide; and I have been fortunate to discover countries and cultures across continents and the opportunity to live in a few. But in a way I am very glad that it took them so long to plan the trip – and on perfect timing as well. My parents did not actually think I would even consider on going; they were just letting me know that they are going. I insisted on going, because this is most definately a once in a lifetime trip. It took them decades to plan this trip and there will not be another.
Being a lover of history and stories, I for one am extremely excited in visiting the land of my forefathers. Even with the impending dread of spending five full days with a bus-load of relatives, I am excited. I want to see how they live, what they ate, how their lives were.
To add on to my impending doom, the clan have been invited to lunch by the Chinese Government. Uh. Yeah. **gulp** I could really do without that as I am not a big fan for etiquette, pomp and splendour. But I don’t quite know how do you actually say no to the Chinese government. I would much rather spend time exploring and reflecting, but oh well.
We will be spending a few days with the clan sightseeing and visiting attractions around the city. We are only spending a day in the village, with the clan leaving the next day back for Malaysia whilst me and bacon stay for a couple more days. To be honest, we are in desperate need of some relaxing time, so in the last few days we might just be chilling out by the pool and recharge after the massive stress (of my part) in dealing with family members that I have not seen in years (for a good reason mostly). It’ll be exciting for bacon (heh) I’m sure in being surrounded by cackling, loud people chattering in a foreign language. He’s clinging on to the fact that there is a KFC next to our hotel 
Wish me luck – and have a great Easter wherever you are in the world my dear faithful readers. And this time, I will be blogging about my adventure to China here – you can bet on it. This is one trip that I want/need to document for posterity 
. I’ll get bacon to do a blog post review as well on beers and other strange alcoholic beverage consumed for those of you interested
PS: All cooking posts have been moved to eatwithsticks – I am currently running a GIVEAWAY if you can spare 3 minutes to join in the fun!