Kurt Groetsch @ OldTasty.com

There are a lot of traditions (and superstitions) surrounding pregnancy, childbirth and the first year of a baby’s life in China. While some of them sound strange or downright bizarre to Westerners, it’s important to remember that for the most part, they originated in the countryside where infant mortality was high and formal education scarce.

One of these traditions is that a birth is only celebrated after a month has passed. It’s also when a baby is named, which I got to see firsthand last week when the office went out to dinner to celebrate the birth of He Lipeng’s new baby girl. The food was good, the baijiu plentiful, and many, many toasts were made in honor of the little girl and her parents. After dinner, everyone got to toss out suggestions for the baby’s name, after which the proud father announced the name he and his wife had probably already picked out. As you can imagine, it was a fun, high-spirited evening.