Just a wee lil tacker

I turn 29 today. Have you ever met a girl so desperate to turn 30? This time next year our file can be sent to China. I think the rest of the process for our local requirements will take about 6 months, so that will take up half the time. I also think we will have to wait a few more months to progress any further, as the Dept is focusing on getting those who will be ineligible after May sped through. It looks like the timing will all work out nicely in the end.

I just scraped into the Year of the Snake. Here's a pic of me in China in 2003 - we found a set of the twelve Chinese zodiac statues, so had a photo with our respective animals.

I learned something when talking with a Chinese friend recently about birthdays in Chinese culture. She said that when a baby is born in China, they are considered to be one year old on the day they are born. Then, at Chinese New Year they become another year older (well, everyone does! New Year is seen as a rebirthing for all, so it's everybody's birthday). Essentially this could mean that if a child is born very close to Chinese New Year, within a few weeks they could be considered two years old already!

If anyone knows more about this I'm interested to hear it. There's only a tiny snippet about it at Wikipedia. I can't find much about it online, though I did come across this informative article about birth rites and customs in China.

Shāng rì kàui lè!