Judy Liu and Andy Jiang

Andy is our Quality Manager and his wife, Judy, works in our finance department.  Judy is out on maternity leave right now with their 2 month old baby girl.
Andy invited me to dinner last night but part of the process was to stop by his apartment to see the baby and to meet his parents.

I know all brand new babies are cute, but this little girl is just too precious.  Andy's mother was holding her when we arrived (I doubt she gets put down too often) and apparently kept telling the baby to call me "grandpa".  I learned later that the label 'grandpa' could be used to call any older generation male family member, so I guess that means Andy's mother believes Andy has included me into his immediate family.  I think it was supposed to be a compliment and that's how I took it, so if you learn any differently from any of your experiences, please dont' tell me.
She wanted me to hold her, but I didn't dare.  I knew the baby didn't know my smell, my heartbeat, and certainly not my very foreign voice and there was no way under the sun I was going to do anything to make that child cry.
They named her Jiang ZhiXin (Surname first, Given name last and while the wife does not take the husband's name; the baby does).  I found this name to be the ultimate in Chinese Maternal Guilt Trips.  The name ZhiXin  means "Home Heart" so that when Jiang ZhiXin grows up and begins to think about leaving home;

she will think of her own name and remember where her heart should be and then feel guilty and decide not to leave.  When I pointed this out to Judy, she just gave me a very wry smile and said "of course!" 
I already knew that after a baby is born it is customary for the mother and child to stay home for two months. 
That means inside the home. 
No "run out to the store" or "out" to dinner with friends and family. 
They believe this somehow makes both mom and baby stronger by avoiding outside germs and bad air (and maybe even those 13th century style "evil humors"  This is just crazy to us Americans, because 1) the windows are always wide open to any air quality issues and 2) quite frankly, a few germs are good for you.  But that is the Chinese custom.  Out of curiosity, because I knew Judy would be going to dinner with us, I asked how many times she has been "out" of the apartment?  She answered "This will make 3."  Three times in two months.  And the apartment is only maybe 1200 square feet.  I can recall when my Sam was two weeks old and I arrived home from work to find Elise dressed, hair fixed, makeup on, Sam sleeping in the car seat, and she said "Dinner.  Now.  Get in the car, I'm going crazy!"  And off we went.  I often retell this story to my Chinese friends and they just look totally bewildered by the concept.

But we had a nice dinner joined by Bill (Plant Manager), Devid (Eng Mgr) and Joyen (his girlfriend and works in HR).  Andy paid, but I made Judy sit at the head of the table as guest of honor.  I think she was pleased by that.

I sat next to Andy so I could harass him all evening (no real toasting since he was driving), but I managed to regale a few stories that made Judy laugh at him.  One in particular was just from this last week when we had a team dinner at my favorite restaurant (The Bald Headed Friend) and we had, of course, their specialty

of snake.  The snake is very spicy and you can't eat it with chopsticks because the sauce is slippery (though I try) and Andy ended up sticking toothpicks in each end of his (like those little corn cob handles) and ate that way.  We kept telling him he was eating like a girly-man and I then the next day at lunch, I gave him some toothpicks to use at lunch in the plant.  Judy enjoyed all the stories.  I ended up reminding her that one of the perils from "staying home" was that she misses out on all these fun times.  She agreed, but I will never change her mindset.

Ultimately, it was good night for her to get out of the house without her daughter for some 'grown up time' and I enjoyed getting to meet little Jiang ZhiXin as well!