15 November, 2010

The Results of an Experiment

Google Analytics tells me some wonderful facts about my audience. For example, 48% of you use Firefox to browse the web, 40% of you are based in the USA, and 97% of you are Western males married to Oriental women. It's amazing.

Given that you, gentle Reader, are statistically likely to belong to the last category, you may have an interest in my experiment into determining the appearance of Anglo-Chinese offspring.

The results are in: I can report, as a completely unbiased* scientist, that he is entirely lovely.

*Perhaps slightly biased.


Xiaohu
Meet Xiaohu (a middle name).
Do you think he looks English, or Chinese?

My dear wife jokes that I could well become one of those people for whom their entire internet presence (blogs, Facebook, etc.) becomes saturated with baby photos.  I'm trying to resist, but have allowed myself the above exception.

Another, lesser, experiment that I have been running was into the purchase of a tong of 2001 Dingxing from Taobao's 999 Wo Xin Yijiu ("My Heart Will Always Go On"), which you may remember from this article.  It was a charming tea, but the vendor has a reputation for selling fakes. 




The tong arrived about six weeks ago, and I'm glad to report that it's exactly as the sample cake that I ordered - delicious.  Furthermore, the vendor threw in a bonus 8th cake, a huge bag of (really rather tasty) maocha, and a tuocha.  Perhaps I was lucky, but it all worked out rather well.  Under 200 RMB for this cake is a steal, and I heartily recommend it.

I know not when I'll write again, given the joys of parenthood, but trust that you and yours are well and drinking plenty of excellent tea.


Toodlepip,

Hobbes

12 comments:

Tuo Cha Tea said...

Congratulations Hobbes for spreading the love for tea to next generation!

Anonymous said...

Don't let the tea interfere with getting sleep, yo!

--shah8

Brett said...

Congratulations Hobbes. Your son is beautiful!

Sincerely, A firefox-using american pengyou ;)

RoysHeng said...

Hi,

First, Congratulation on the baby, The first time I saw the photo he remind me of a boy in Air bender movie.

Second, I have some information about Dingxing factory. I got it from a booklet that come with the king of thailand 80th birthday pu erh.The Royal project use tea grown in Thailand and commision Dingxing factory to process it.
Dingxing is founded in 1940 in Menghai with symbol star and moon (note: my picture the moon is on the left side) to say it manage by a muslim. Later they setup another factory in Cheng tung, Burma. In 1948 when British give independent back to Burma, they have to stop the production in Cheng tung. In 1949 China change to communist, The owner decide to close factory in Menghai and Cheng tung and in 1954 set up a factory in Thailand and exporting tea to Hong Kong and Taiwan market under the brand Dingxing. Now it is the third generation who run the factory.

The booklet is in Thai and Chinese, I hope I translate it correctly.

Regards,
Roys

argus said...

Congratulations on your newborn. He is a lovely angloasian as you put it.

Guess we won't be seeing you around for a while. :P

jan e. said...

Then there are those of us caucasian women who have married asian men.......My kids didn't end up looking a asian as many.....and then the first grandchild came out with blond hair and blue eyes!!! and 25% Japanese. (the rest is english, irish and german) It's amazing what genes can do.
Congratulations on your new little one, he is surely handsome., and just himself.

speakfreely said...

97% of your readership are Western males married to Asian women? That IS amazing. I never would have guessed that.

He is sweetly adorable, your little guy, and a definite blend, not strongly Asian or European looking. Did you buy him a tong of something from 2010?

Hobbes said...

Thanks for the comments, one and all.

Roy - thanks for the fascinating information regarding Dingxing.

Jan - the proprietor of Postcard Teas has a similar outcome, as far as I can tell, with a blonde child who is half Oriental! It's a lovely combination.

Carla - I bought quite a few tong in 2010! Mostly the three Nadacha teas that I mentioned in old posts, and the Dingxing, but Lei and I bought various random little-factory tong when we were in Beijing in January. I suppose we can say that they are all birth-year pu'ercha for Xiaohu!


Toodlepip all,

Hobbes

Anonymous said...

Hobbes,

As the lovely Lennon song goes, “beautiful boy”…

Xiaohu, the nickname for your son, reminded me of an old friend in Taiwan, the sanwen 散文writer Ma Guoguang 馬國光, a.k.a. Liangxuan 亮軒, who named his first born Xiaohu 小虎, Little Tiger. Ma introduced me to literati style tea around 1970 when I was a student in Taipei.

By the by, I am an Asian married to an Asian, and all the more happy to count myself among your many readers.

Steve.

DK said...

Cute! Tea photos are nice, but there's no reason to limit yourself.

I've been wondering what kind of people are actually interested in reading a blog about weird old tea. Do you actually think your readership consists of "Western males married to Oriental women"? (Good thing Google can't detect that kind of thing...yet.)

Also, I just tried to use Chrome to write this comment, and concluded that 0% of your comment-writing audience must be using it.

Will said...

Really cute! Congratulations, guys.

- Will (soon to be a 97%er)

Hobbes said...

Thanks, Will - you might tip it into being 98%!