THIS year's Spring Festival was special for Chinese-Indonesian William Jong, because it was the first time he spent it with a Chinese family.

Having returned from their honeymoon a week before the festival, Jong and his wife Zhang Jiefang were in a festive mood for the Chinese New Year. The couple hung Chinese lanterns on the balcony and pasted the Chinese character "fu" upside down on the wall to welcome the lunar new year.

Jong learned to prepare Hakka food from his mother-in-law. It was a big family reunion. Zhang's parents came to the newlyweds' home in Futian District from Buji in Longgang District. Jong's aunt and her husband came across the border from Hong Kong, and his cousin flew from the United States for the New Year.

It was a family reunion where you could hear English, Mandarin, Hakka dialect, Cantonese and Bahasa Indonesia. Jong talked with his wife and cousin in English and with his father's sister in Bahasa Indonesia. Zhang talked Hakka with her parents and Cantonese with her cousin.

Jong, who was born in Indonesia and moved to New York at the age of 9, came to Shenzhen in 2002 and has been working as an English language trainer.

Editor: Wing