My aunt and uncle happened to be in town from B.C. yesterday, so they took me out to dinner and brought their son along. I don’t believe I had met any of them before, although they all seemed familiar. A difficulty I have with the Chinese culture is the fact that everyone is called aunt or uncle if they’re older, even if they’ve just been met. Our actual relatives (the aunts and uncles related by blood), however, have a completely different name system, mostly based on rank and which side of the family they are from. The problem ends up being the fact that I have no idea what the names of these people are, since we don’t append a first name to “aunt” or “uncle”, and I ran into that specific problem yesterday. I was able to go the entire dinner without having to call any of them by name though, so I escaped with my ignorance in ignorance.