Thanks to the new Mrs Baily for introducing a wife [sic] to her family. Since in England Jenny is Jenny Baily, it is only fair that in China Li Qiao Zhi is now Hong Qiao Zhi.

After several days the snow thawed enough for the roads to be deemed safe!

We took a car all the way back to Youxian, where we had lunch at Li Ji’s mother’s house, and got the bus in the evening. The road trip from Caobo was amazing, with clear weather giving us stunning mountain views; no pictures though because using both hands to hold on to the car frame as we raced around the curling mountain roads.

The bus ride back to Shenzhen was extremely bumpy. We took C-class country roads most of the way for over 12 hours because the expressway was (still after 2 weeks) one solid traffic jam, and we just weaved around it lurching along on these pot-holed tracks. Back in Shenzhen we experienced restored brain function as the temperature was 18 degrees C… but in SZ that is still cold enough to have most of the residents shivering in full coats, hats, and gloves.

Trying to get Baba smart for a photo.

Four Brothers!

Baba has two “Wu Ji” - chickens with naturally black meat, prized for making a gross looking medicinal soup.

With electricity coming back and staying on more consistently, we had a couple of hi-tech evenings in the kitchen:

More PSP addicts:

PSP was initially approved by the girls because Baba couldn’t smoke as much while playing. But everything is possible and he even took the PSP to bed in the evening… a separate bed upstairs so he didn’t keep Mama awake!

Caobo Middle School. Luckily Jenny didn’t go there.

We went to the marketplace on the market day, but:

Part of the covered market had collapsed so there wasn’t much going on.

Typical village butcher. On the left is a pig’s head.

The most important ingredient in Hunan cuisine.

Cousin in his working role as an electricity grid supervisor. Lucky I didn’t get into too much of a conversation about that then.

We were allowed to eat a bit as seen in these pictures, but before that by the fourth dish arriving we had to get up and go round each table pouring wine, and then again handing out cigarettes. There were 15 tables including in all the rooms of the old house and Eldest Uncle’s house next door.

I was, perhaps meaningfully, perhaps not, sat on a table with more children and a pregnant girl.

Officially brothers in law finally.

The family from Changsha had to go back straight after lunch. What a trip for one lunch!

After this I thought it was all over. But actually I then had to go to second lunch with some proper drinking:

I have no idea what I did for the rest of the afternoon. Everyone else just took more photos:

Oh, there I am - can’t remember doing that.

In the evening we had a dinner with only about 40 people.

Jenny drank more than me with no apparent effect apart from even more words per minute.

This official wedding notice has our names (Hong Fang and Li Qiao Zhi) on the right and describes from right to left the 8 ritual steps of our ceremony. You’ll have to ask Jenny all 8 steps; Mama was explaining them to us the night before, but then the electricity cut off and by the time someone found a candle the moment was lost. All the shops had sold out of normal candles (at double price) so we had to use the kind of candles on wooden sticks that you normally stick in the ground at tombs. Later we had two red wedding candles.

First, we had to stand ready outside:

Next, we were joined by our official sponsors - the senior cousins of the family:

They led us into the house through a hail of firecrackers:

Jenny entered first:

Then George arrived at the altar, which had various decorations on it representing lucky wine, lucky money, and lucky cigarettes:

The officiating village elder burned some ceremonial paper money:

Then we bowed three times to the ancestral altar:

After which we are officially allowed to hold hands:

Then we were led upstairs together:

And led into the nuptial bedroom where several small explosions covered us with confetti:

Jenny’s parents presented us with red envelopes of lucky money, and I had to officially address them as “Mother” and “Father”.

Then I was allowed to kiss the bride:

After which everyone in the whole house filed in for group photos in order of seniority…

…including loads of children to bring us child-bearing good luck.

Dawn on the mountains.

Sitting room clean before the party.

Before breakfast I watched two guys chopping up a whole goat in front of the house.

Jenny’s “wedding dress”:

Lucky Liji was around - he let me know important etiquette tips, e.g. since it is your wedding day, it’s no good to offer one cigarette, you have to hand them out two at a time.

At the breakfast, I was too sleepy to take any photos myself and it was about 100 people from the village who were too vague to be invited to the actual wedding lunch, so not much to report there. The tables filled the atrium and kitchen.

I had to sit at a table of vague children.

Staying warm after breakfast:

Heat source in Caobo homes.

Going for walks tended to make us even colder, since Chinese walking speed is sort of like standing but losing your balance and wobbling forward a little every second, but at least it provided a break from smoking, actively or passively from the charcoal burners.