In my last blog post I wrote all about Granny in China not doing so well and how Aunty terrorized the rest of the family. That situation was already very annoying but things got even worse. Granny is still doing well and does not suffer and aunty did not improve her attitude either. So from those two is nothing different but another player entered the field to make the whole family grumpy. Out of all people Uncle decided to mess up everything!
Uncle was always calm and unnoticeable, taking care of everything but now it changed. The whole family agreed to give Granny a certain medication to prolong her life. It is no miracle cure as she will still eventually die from the cancer but it can bring up to a year more with the family. This medication is not cheap as it is not covered by the insurance and cost around 100.000 RMB a year. The family has decided to use Granny’s retirement money (roughly 30.000 RMB a year) to pay for the first few treatments and pay the rest evenly by themselves (MIL and Aunty decided on that). However Uncle does not want anything like that and is angry that they want to spend HIS money as the first payment. In his eyes all the retirement money from Granny belongs to him and no one else.
There have been dozens of fights now within the family because of that. MIL even recorded all of his Weixin messages as proof in case he will ever state that he never said anything like that. Uncle came up with all kinds of excuses not to pay for the treatment with “The medication does not work at all, I know a guy who knows someone who has some idea about it all and he says the medication is not working and just exists to steal your money”. Yeah, he knows someone who knows someone with some sliver of an idea about medication, what a great reason. Meanwhile my friend who is the main pharmacist in a big hospital and who specialized in Oncology states something very different about this kind of medication and is positive that it will prolong Granny’s life for at least half year.
As you can see the past weeks have been really taxing on the family and by now everyone decided to burn all bridges with Uncle once Granny is not with us anymore. Hard thing to do though as the whole family decided to move into the very same apartment block last year! Sometimes I wonder how they come up with their decisions, dicing perhaps?
Alright enough with this family madness and to more “amusing” things in life: My mother-in-law. I have been not so forthcoming with news about her and it is not because she became normal out of nowhere but because her level of madness became kind of normal for us. There is not really anything special for us anymore when she pulls some crazy stunt or has some weird ideas. Writing this just made me realize how my view about everyday life has changed. For example she had some knee trouble before coming to Germany so she put some special Chinese medication on it for several days. Thing is she was apparently allergic to it so she had a firey red, swollen knee upon arriving here. I gave her some “healing earth” from Germany to put on as a paste on the knee. This paste she needed to keep for 30 min before washing it off and thus far everything went alright. However she washed it off in the shower and never cleaned the shower afterwards turning the whole thing into a muddy mess. When my wife asked why she is not cleaning the shower afterwards her only response was “why bother cleaning it today, I will still use it tomorrow so it gets dirty again anyways”. What a great logic she is applying. No wonder her husband has to clean their apartment three times a day and got grey hairs in his twenties.
Besides this refusal of cleaning up her own mess she is also doing really great in destroying stuff in the apartment. Okay it is actually not herself doing the destruction but Nathalie HOWEVER she enables her granddaughter to do so. Some expensive Totoro statue high on the shelf? Give it to Nathalie and leave the room to find later destruction on the floor. A wooden toy hammer? Give it to Nathalie in front of the TV to have later a broken screen. A felt pen box? Give it to Nathalie on the white carpet to have later a very colorful carpet. The list goes on and on. She either leaves the room with tools of destruction in Nathalie’s hands or sits actually next to her but checking her phone and not realizing the destruction around her. I have no clue why she would give Nathalie these things without paying attention what is happening or thinking about what could happen. Of course I let my daughter play with these things but I am right there to see nothing bad could happen.
By now those little accidents have summed up to several thousand Euros of damage just in the seven weeks she has been here. It is just insane thinking about it and worse is there is nothing we can do about it. My wife tells MIL daily with the same reply “I know I know, I won’t do it again” while handing Nathalie the next tool of destruction. These scenes are reminding be more often than not on some old cartoons. My understanding of a normal life certainly changed in the past years as the complete madness became the norm by now. Also after reading this whole blog again I have to apologize for this long rant.
Any unusual things entered your life which are by now normal for you?
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Crazy Chinese Family 
Oh boy … Your stories about MIL were funny to read. I am sure you don’t laugh so much looking at the destruction.
Uncle and not wanting to pay … I suppose he felt left out in the decision making process or he is really evil. Not easy. Family dynamics are challenging.
Uncle just wants the money. He helped with everything but as soon as something costs extra he is against it
Bad uncle.
It doesn’t sound like Granny’s retirement money is much but a lot less than the treatments? Oh dear so funny why MIL would give Nathalie things all the time. It is like someone has to keep an eye on MIL 24/7 whether she is indoor or outdoors.
Granny really doesn’t have much retirement money, but then again she hasn’t been working in over 25 years. Think she retired with 50 or something…
MIL is a real challenge, cant really say who needs more watching out, her or the kids
Who knew you had to MIL-proof the apartment instead of just baby-proofing it?
Ugh. There’s always an evil uncle. I have one who has been living off my grandmother’s savings for decades.
Uncle really chose the perfect timing to show his evil side.
I think it is impossible to MIL-proof the apartment, she is just walking disaster
We in the United States understand about unusual things becoming normal. Since we elected Trump, he does so many crazy, unprecedented things every day that they have come to seem normal. It would be good if MIL would learn from all the small disasters she causes and if Trump would change his ways, but they won’t.
Indeed both will never change. My mother in law also thinks that Trump is a really great president but then again she also believes the people in North Korea have wonderful easy lifes
LOL!
My god, you are a SAINT. I don’t know how or why you haven’t divorced your wife’s family by this point. Really. Sorry. Not sorry.
I suppose you can hide everything from MIL when she visits? But she’ll probably find it and destroy it somehow anyhow, right? GAHHHHH.
$$$ + family = almost always disaster. #truth #youarenotalone
Hugs.
Nothing is safe. Tried already hiding some stuff but it appeared magically in her hands few days later.
By now I just look forward to the end of August when she will leave so we can “organize” the whole apartment again and glue back together the pieces
Good luck.
oh boy!
I didn’t read your blog in a long time.
For me, it’s the opposite. What used to be destructive and normal became not-normal.
A month ago i fell and hit my head on concrete, broke my glasses, and had my right hand in a temporary cast. Mother thought i’m really fine to go places and such. When i refused because i wasn’t really fine (i was dizzy and scared to go to far places, but she isnt one to understand something as simple as this), all hell broke loose. She thought that her new floors are more important than me and my health (or life).. meh… I think i was this close to dying, but a guardian angel watched over me, and i’m doing well.
You could have had a serious had injury with this kind of accident. Couple of years ago my mother fell down and refused even to get help even though her leg was all purple and swollen, half face was bruised and her arm injured. Thankfully I was able to force her in the end to get some treatment (old people can be really stubborn)
Sad about her selfish uncle…