3 Anecdotes: Family in England

Here are some England stories... although they're not really England stories, as in with England as the focus, they did take place in England, so they should at least qualify.

Wales
We ended up in Wales for a brief jaunt while driving around the English countryside. There my father and his brother giggled like schoolboys while trying to read the Welsh road signs. Welsh is indeed an interesting language. They use consonants as freely as someone with a spastic colon uses bathrooms. My aunt, who happens to be English, summed it up best: "I understand more Urdu than I do flippin' Welsh," she said.

What’s in a Name?
One of my other aunts had a horrible time getting my name right. I'm inclined to blame this on her Anglicization. This is my AUNT after all (mother's cousin, not mother's or father's sister, but that shouldn't matter). She knew of my existence before I did. My name is Shahyan. Not so hard, right? Over the roughly 72 hours I was with her and her family, I was called every manner of name except Shahyan including, but not limited to: Farzan, Tariq, Ibrahim, Arman, Shannan, Rehan, Imran and, most mysterious of all, Shamaiyna… I’m not even kidding. Shamaiyna.

Good thing she's a nice aunt.

Nothing Like a Pig
My cousins up in the Crewe area were quite the entertainment package. The youngest one, four or five, and I got into a wrestling match. I had him held down on his tummy quite comfortably – I'm terrifically strong, you see – when he twisted his head back and yelled "You're nothing like a PIG!!"

“What does that mean??” I queried.

“I don’t know!” he responded. But somehow, he had made his point. Over the course of my week long stay, he also confidently informed me that I was “just rubbish” except he said “roobish,” you know, like a Yorkshireman… I think. And another time, I learned I was a “parsnip,” a parsnip being – and I looked this up – a plant, Pastinaca sativa, cultivated varieties of which have a large, whitish, edible root. So there.