She likes him!

In fact, I think eventually she'll like my engineer more than she likes me (heh) but that's a problem I can live with most happily.

It helped that he paid for our lunch ;-P as stinginess is a cardinal sin in Chinese society. Heh. But then, my sister and both of his Chinese work colleagues reminded him that picking up the check was KEY. Heheheh.

My mom even behaved herself (mostly) and waited a whole 20 minutes before prompting me to get a move on with having kids. (My sister's comment that I didn't want kids fell on deaf ears, but hey, I can only ask for so many miracles.)

More importantly, my engineer likes her, since her opinion wouldn't have changed mine, but his opinion does make things easier for me. As with his parents, all is smoother if you like your loved one's relatives.

Actually, it was not so much as whether she'd like him (as the Magic 8 Ball would say, "All signs point to yes" since he is after all, a swell fella) but whether or not she'd make MY head explode.

So after we had a pleasant lunch, my sister took off (with undisguised relief that all had gone well... and by the way, the flower above is from her garden) and the three of us wandered around Chinatown shopping for shaoxing cooking wine (for him), fresh -- not canned -- water chestnuts (for his mom), and checking out a new Chinese grocery store on Mulberry St (for my mom). He asked her opinion as to which brand of shaoxing rice wine my mom preferred (the answer: Pagoda Brand, which you actually have to buy in a liquor store).

He likes her zongzi (more brownie points, but then her zongzi are fabulous... mmmm....) and cooks, and likes fish cheeks (we had fried whole red snapper). Plus, he has a graduate degree and is devoted to his parents, all adding up to a gazillion brownie points in her book.

Life is good.