In our return to Qingtian we have been very well received. Mr Qiu invited us to his home for Australia Day evening and from here we have had a steady flow of invitations. We feel very lucky, and have enjoyed ourselves immensely. Here's hoping the Chinese holiday spririt continues well into the New Year. We also hosted a dinner, but as the dinner invitations have continued we now realise ours was a very poor performance. Maybe we can improve next time. We need far more exotic food and now we know the word for "full glass" is "mang" we can enjoy shouting this at the table also. The more the men drink the less they tend to care about the food. We will remember this for next time. Beer is also a great language equaliser.

It is also surprising how men who have never taken an english lesson in their life have picked up so much day to day english. Maybe all foreign language lessons should be held in bars. At meals "Cheers Mr Mitchell", "Fill up your glass", "Bottoms Up" and "That's more like it" are now very common sayings, even as the Chinese speak amongst themselves.