Let me tell you a story of my mother-in-law. I know, there have been many stories about her in this blog but she just gives me so many things to write about. I do not know how she does it but somehow something happens nearly every day to write about and I believe she is far from being done with crazy.
This particular story happened last summer when we were in Xi’an. It was once again one of those days when we visited my wife’s grandmother. Not only is the grandmother living there but also her uncle with his wife and daughter. This little girl is about four to five years old and the younger cousin of my wife. Basically every time we visit MIL has something to complain about such as granny is playing too much Mahjong, granny is not drinking enough water, granny is spoiling the little girl too much, and granny is not doing enough for the little girl. In case it’s not granny’s fault it is either MIL’s brother, or my wife or father-in-law who has done something wrong.
Where did I stop? Oh, everyone is doing something wrong. Alright, so we visited last summer once again. We were playing with my wife’s little cousin and MIL noticed the clothes of the poor little girl. She took a closer look at the girl, turned her about and then said to her brother “What are these for ugly clothes, how can you make her wear something like this?”
As you can see MIL is very delicate when forming accusation and taking always the highest care not to make anybody feel bad. Naturally all people were looking at the little girl and her clothes, then at uncle who looked confused and then at MIL who was still poking the girl and observing the clothes. What came then would be pretty weird for other people but is just another usual day for MIL.The uncle just looked at his older sister, smiled and replied “But older sister, you bought these clothes and gave them to her last time you visited”…
Of course MIL just tried to deny it as she never ever does anything wrong and has much better taste than this but father-in-laws comment about his wife makes more and more sense “She has water in the head” 脑子进水了 or “She has fishes in the head” 脑子养鱼了.FIL is indeed a very wise man.
This brings me to MIL and how stubborn she is. However she must have gotten her stubbornness and weirdness from somewhere and granny comes into the play here. Grandmother is also really weird and stubborn, sure no competition for MIL but still playing in a high weirdness league. For example one of the main discussions they have when visiting granny is that she should not cut the little girls hairs anymore. For unknown reasons she always cuts the hairs of the girl very short and very unprofessional. The result is that the girl always has some really crazy hairstyle when we visit. Everyone is telling grandma to stop doing it, she then agrees but as soon as the girl’s parents are out at work she goes back to practice her hairdressing techniques on her. Thankfully the little girl doesn’t seem to mind it yet but I have the feeling that the combined influence of weird and stubborn grandma and MIL visiting will create yet another crazy family member I can write about in a few years.
Crazy Chinese Family 
the moment of the victory… nahaha couldn’t stop laughing when your MIL was wrong 🙂 I think I even got a tear of happiness in my eye!
Every little victory counts! Sadly it seems MIL is immune to this kind of things and just increase her weirdness the next time something happens 😛
I really think she could make best friends with Momzilla 😀
I think we should organize a group meeting so all the stubborn and bossy Chinese MILs can gang up and enjoy each other’s weirdness, while we poor daughters and sons in law can create a self-help group for mutual psychological support. Deal?
don’t forget chocolate, only this can heal the mental pain. mine suddenly became extremely nice because she wants a grandchild and she started to be creepy… I guess who has uterus has the power … O.O but I feel much better knowing mine is not the only one 😀
reaaally? So now she is all nice because she hopes you will produce a heir soon? Incredible.
Sometimes I think my bf’s mom is still trying to judge whether it is bigger the advantage of having a “prestigious” Western daughter in law or the disadvantage of not being able to understand and control me the way she would if I was Chinese.
In the meantime she keeps being nasty with her own son just because she feels confused about the situation and her motto is “when in doubt, just be nasty!” 😉
They really should meet, wonder what they would talk about, probably how useless we are 🙂
MIL never really said anything about grandchildren TO ME but always gave my wife certain sentences like “When you come next year without a grandson, we don’t go eating out anymore!” and fun like that…
those tough choices she needs to make… I can see all three of them come together, complain and become BFFs 😀
Oh dear. But hahaha, this was another hilarious story about your MIL. Maybe she really doesn’t remember that she bought those clothes for the poor little girl. Or maybe she really was trying to save face. That story about hair cutting reminded me of my own mother cutting my hair as a kid. My mum would cut my hair very, very short bob style with the ends poking my neck, razor straight fringe. From my childhood photos, you can tell my hair was uneven…ugly. Maybe Asian mums like practising their hairdressing skills on their kids, girls. My mum never cut my brother’s hair as far as I can remember.
Now I wonder about cutting the hairs of the children. I mean for boys in young age it might be actually easy, just use some of those dog clippers and its done in a few second 😀
Well lets see how long grandma will continue cutting her granddaughters hairs 🙂
For boys haircuts, that’s so true. Or put a big bowl over the poor boy’s head and start chopping hair according to the bowl’s outline. Or, grab a shaver and, well, like you said lop all the hair off 😀
Luckily, when you’re little and cute, a bad haircut won’t make you any less adorable. (I bet the little girl will put a stop to it, herself, by the time it matters.)
Eccentric family members are always more interesting. My in-laws and I, for the most part, use company manners with each other, so I don’t really know their quirks. (They probably know mine, though, since I’m bad at hiding them.)
Only my father-in-law is holding back with his behaviour. To be honest, I do not know too much about him and my wife can’t give me much info either. MIL on the otherhand is a total different character, same as many of the rest of the family like grandma, aunty, uncle and so forth. They are really showing all their quirks 🙂
Your MIL is so funny! But it is your story-telling that makes the story 🙂
Hahaha, great story. Your MIL could be a character from a sitcom!
YES! Now I know what her perfect job would be, the crazy mother-in-law in a sitcome. Now I just got to figure out whether it is a US Sitcom or an Asian Sitcom 🙂
Your MIL looks so young (last picture), for a second, I thought she was your wife! LOL.
At our wedding my uncle thought in the beginning that my mother-in-law is my wife until my mother pointed out the “real” wife 🙂
Somehow this story doesn’t seem too crazy to me, but rather like a pretty normal Chinese family :P. Maybe I’m already used to this kind of stuff?!
Could be, I have the feeling that I would get used to it if I’d be living in China for several year but as I am there each year only for a few weeks it is really bizarre
The hair-cutting story in my family was when my mother cut her own hair. She was only 4 years old and made quite a mess of it.
My mother used to cut my hair too, however I was back then a young boy and a swimmer, so the basic short cut was all what was needed 🙂
Your MIL looks so young, unlike my old troll of a MIL! LOL! My MIL always thinks everything she buys for Raelynn is the best when clearly, it’s not. Incidentally, my husband forbade his parents from ever cutting our daughter’s hair. I’ve seen way too many beautiful little girls here in Qingdao with hideous, ugly boy hair cuts. It makes me so angry every time I see it.
I think my MIL is 51 or 52 years old now. Well anyways, she is kinda creepy when it comes to fashion for herself or for kids…but then again, I yet have to meet a Chinese family member with any good sense of what to give their kids to wear.
My wife and her older cousin are making fun of their other relatives on what they make the kids wear, they call it countryside fashion or something 🙂
So wait…in these photos, she’s in her 50s??? Wow. She looks fantastic. Have you seen my MIL in my blog photos? Gah! I seriously wonder how my handsome husband came from her. My fave (sarcastic) is how Chinese people overbundle their kids with too much clothing. It drives me insane when my in-laws do this to my daughter but my kid’s a fiesty one and she doesn’t stand for it anymore.
Oh,dont remind me about the too much clothing. And it is not only for kids, my in-laws try to convince us that we need a jacket when going outside at +30degrees celsius, yeah right
wow your MIL looks so young and beautiful!! haha
I know, I was surprised about that too!
Wow. That IS really crazy. I’ve heard so many funny/scary stories of Chinese MIL. Is this common?
I cant say if its common or not but I know also a few crazy European MIL, but that is again another story 🙂
Your mother in law looks very attractive, young and beautiful. She must be such a fun person, reading from all the crazy stories that you shared with us.
Fun is something else! I mean sure it can be amusing when she thinks once again that a dolphin is a polar bear or something like that but more often than not it is kind of frustrating with her
Haaa..haaa I wonder how M.I.L. will react if only she reads this ..’when she thinks once again that a dolphin is a polar bear ..’ I bet her humorous nature will offset whatever frustrations if any. Grin.