66

Today (it's still June 28 at home, even though it's the 29th here in China) is my 66th birthday. I think this must be a good date for a birthday; my 60th birthday was in Botswana and my 65th was in Scotland, both with good friends. This year I celebrated it in China.

The 66th is a very good birthday; the number six is liu(4), which sounds like the word for "luck", so 66 is liu liu or "luck luck." One's daughter or daughter-in-law is supposed to cut up 66 pieces of meat and cook them with noodles, and offer this to the king of the underworld so he'll forget to come for you. But instead we had this wonderful birthday cake!Our dinner was held in the area around the Confucius Temple, a very big tourist area along a river. Beside the river was a wonderful dragon, seen here by day and then by night.The dinner was 22 courses, although "course" really means a very small dish of the food, and the dishes were quite varied and interesting. And no birthday dinner is complete without entertainment, including this lovely pipa player.And no birthday is complete without a toast, so here's a photo of several students and my colleagues Jim Chen and Ruwei Yun sharing a toast with me. Ganbei!