Monthly Archives: May 2014

Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family

Our Wedding in Finland

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In one of the previous articles I wrote about our wedding in China and how I experienced it. Now it is time to present you our wedding in Finland!

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Last summer we had first a “little” wedding in China which was pretty much stressful experience but also at the same time very interesting. About three weeks later we had our wedding in Finland which had been planned for nearly a year by my wife. However unlike in China, we had instead of 100 guests only 50 but at least we knew each single person there! Besides it would have exceeded our financial limits to invite anybody more as Finland is not exactly known to be a cheap country.

Our guests included of course both of our parents and much of my family from Finland and Sweden. In addition my brother was flown in with his girlfriend from Germany. The tricky part was to invite our friends as we had only limited capacities which meant we couldn’t just invite everybody we know but had to be very selective. My wife invited some of her friends she knew for years in Finland and also several friends from her work place. I on the other hand invited several dudes from my swimming years in Finland, one guy from my old swimming team in Germany and last but not least my best friend from my youth who extra came from California for this event.

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The couple of days prior to the wedding were more than just stressful. The location of the wedding reception had to be prepared, people had to be picked up from the airport and delivered at the hotel and of course my wife and I still had yet to start practicing our wedding dance! The night before the wedding we also met at the hotel with some of the guests to have a DIY dinner consisting of potatoe salad, sausages and jiaozi 饺子. This dinner allowed us also to get some dancing practicedone  as my uncle from Sweden used to be a dancer. Not that we practiced alot but at least we learned the basic steps.

Things became even crazier on the wedding day itself. It started very early in the morning, I had to pick up one bridesmaid from Helsinki city center so she could help prepare my wife with hairs, make-up and her dress. My own preparations were a bit less exiting as there is not much to do except to suit up and put the hairs into a less messy state. However there was still much to do at the wedding reception because one of our guests changed plans and would not come, my wife had to invite somebody else and my task was to come up with a new seating arrangement + getting the technic to work for the picture screening. This meant I drove very often between our home and the wedding reception, building up more and more stress as time was running out. I do not know how but in the end we managed to be in time at the church. I believe this included several speeding violations on my behalf.

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Already one year before the wedding we were trying to find the perfect church for us and booked it in advance together with the wedding reception in a manor house near our home (they only had two weekends still free for us at that point, one year before!). Thankfully nothing out of the ordinary happened at the church, not even a crying baby! Our pastor was holding the ceremony in Finnish and in English and in the end we received also a bible in those languages from her.

Once we arrived at the wedding reception it was time for some photo shooting, relaxing in the sun and welcoming all the guests before entering the premises. One of my wife’s bridesmaids was the MC doing everything in English, then another bridesmaid was translating everything into Finnish and one of my groomsmen was translating into German and Chinese, hence we had all needed languages covered. Thanks to the MC there was always something going on which resulted that no one was getting bored. She had prepared a full program for that day and it was planned in a way that it allowed much free time between the sections for the guest to get some rest, mingle and pick up few drinks from our car. We had a lot of games, very good food and a wedding dance which was okay for practicing only 15 min before. The celebrations lasted well into the night and in the end we could get our well-deserved rest in the hotel at the manor house. All in all I can say it was a great day, sure it was exhausting but it went very well and thus was a nice experience.

 

Here are some more pictures from that day. I will still try to find a picture from our invitation cards which we had purchased before from China.

 

 

Crazy Chinese People, Dad in Law, Mom in Law

Eating out with my Chinese Family

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Eating out with my Chinese family or mostly with my in-laws is always a very special occasion. Not because it happens so rarely but due to their interesting behavior which includes that mother-in-law is always right and father-in-law is very careful.

There is something like a pattern to the way everything works out. It usually starts when deciding where and what to eat. Of course I get always asked what I would like to eat but somehow plans change and I get for example not my visit to my favorite BBQ place a second time during our stay! (So evil people, oh how I suffer). This is due to one simple reason, we get invited out of nowhere by other people for the evening or next day so my beloved BBQ is on hold until there is a time slot available.

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After all this is settled we need to arrive in time which never works out. Somehow we are always late, for example we should be there at 1pm but we just start leaving by 1pm. But here again it has one very simple reason. Mother-in-law is the one who gets to know what time we should be there but tells us that we should leave by 1pm. So when we arrive she says that she thought it was agreed to leave by 1pm and not to arrive by that time! Sounds weird and it certainly is without being able to provide any further information on why this happens every time (my wife is also confused).

The next hurdle begins when sitting down at our table. Here it starts immediately with father-in-law taking all our tableware and clean it with the wipes he took along. These wipes are dry so all what happens is that in case there was any dirt or similar on them he just spreads it evenly out. Next it’s the turn for mother-in-law by putting the chopsticks into the tea to kill the bacteria. That the tea is already on a temperature to drink and thus not that suitable to fight of germs does not matter. Even better, she fills up one cup of tea and “cleans” each other cup by pouring this very tea from cup to cup resulting once again in a very nice spreading of dirt if it ever was somewhere.

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Mother-in-law has her tea ready

As I wrote in another article so long time ago the most important step is actually before we sit down. In here I have to observe where exactly mother-in-law or any other aunty or grandma is sitting and from there I have to choose the seat furthest away from them. The importance of this step can be explained in a very simple way: survival! Whenever I sit too close to them my plate just keeps on piling more food and whatever I try, I cannot eat up everything. As I was raised in Europe you usually learn to eat everything on you plate which can be in China very quickly be a death sentence (for your waist).

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Grandma is very quick to pack up my plate with food

In case there are some leftovers my MIL has always few plastic bags with her or just asks the staff for some food boxes. This might strike you as pretty normal but this food is not for us, nono, it is for the wild cats she feeds in the yard. No matter what food it is or how spicy, she brings it to the cats. These animals are fed so well that they already ignore the occasional mouse sprinting by them but what am I saying, there are of course no mice according to mother-in-law!

After all of this is over the paying starts. When it is just us with the in-laws it does not really matter but as soon as other people are there the battle starts who has to pay. As this is very common in China I won’t go any further detail besides that I have already seen mother-in-law racing one of her friends through a restaurant to see who will be first able to pay…

 

And now some pictures just to make you a bit hungry

 

What are you experiences when going out to eat?

Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Family

Our Wedding in China

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Over the past years we had basically three wedding celebrations. First one was about two years ago and was a civil marriage/ civil ceremony in Finland at our local register office. This was just a small happening with two of our friends to witness it and we went out eating together. We kept it small as we had great plans for the following summer!

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The event is slowly starting

Last year then, one year after our civil marriage, it was time for the real ceremonies, one in China and one in Finland. The ceremony we had in China was actually called a “Thank you gathering” 答谢会 and was planned by my parents-in-law. I still remember that in the beginning it was to be a dinner with only the family in a nice restaurant. From there it evolved into a bigger dinner with family and a few family friends into a dinner with 100 guests. Don’t ask me how it developed like that as I had nothing to do with organizing it and had not even any idea at all about the size of this event till a month before it.

The location was in a hotel somewhere in Xi’an. I say somewhere in Xi’an, because I have absolutely no clue at all about anything what was going on, well, parents-in-law were organizing it and my role was to be there, smile, say a few thank you words and try to survive the baijiu 白酒.

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Table with relatives

In the beginning me and my wife had to stand at the entrance and welcome every guest. Now the curious part was that not even my wife had any idea who 80% of the guests were. She had not invited any of her friends, I obviously don’t have any friends there to invite so every person there was either family (extended family), old classmates of the parents, colleges of the parents or just friends of them. Later I was told that most of the friends of my parents-in-law were mainly coming just to see how old I would be as they expected most likely a man in his early to late 40’s, but I had to disappoint them…

It was especially interesting to see how there were several men waiting outside in the blazing sun for over half hour. When I asked my wife about it she had no idea what was going on until she asked her father. apparently these men were all waiting for the current boss of my father-in-law to arrive so they can greet her and guide her to the restaurant. Looking at them I felt very glad to be inside to enjoy the benefits an AC.

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People everywhere

Even though it was not a real wedding ceremony we had ten tables packed with people, too much food, drinks and cigarettes and of course a MC. This MC was the retired boss of my father-in-law and was doing, at least in my opinion, a very good job. Of course I had to say some things also on stage by repeating words and phrases the MC told me in front of everyone. Sure enough I gave the people something to laugh about and to this day I still don’t know what I said wrong.

After this part was done the food started and both of us had to go to each table, thanking the guests for coming. Now this usually means that at least the husband has to drink at least one glass of beer or a shot of some baijiu with the people on each table but surprisingly I was given always  tea, cola or other soft drinks. Okay, not always as there was the one table with the godmother and godfather of my wife which was at the same time the headquarter of the infamous booze-brothers. The friendly godmother gave me all kinds of things I had to eat at that table and the booze-brothers (godfather belongs to that crew) tried to fill me up with beer, baijiu and smokes. In the end we managed to escape from that table and shortly after the dinner ended rather quickly.

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Godmother and the booze-brothers!

Even though there was so much food we barely ate anything as we had our duty of visiting each table and by the time we were done the food was finished (well, the untasty leftovers were still everywhere but I prefer to have a proper meal). I think the whole thing was other in less than three hours but these hours were surely exhausting! Looking back my parents-in-law did a pretty good job with it but I am happy that is over as it was pretty stressful.

 

How is you experience with weddings, perhaps even a wedding in China?