Many people have pictures of their loved ones in their wallets. Not all mind you but many. I personally didn’t have any pictures in my wallet until I got together with my wife. Ever since then I have few pictures of her there, one of us together from the crazy Chinese photo shoot and one particular picture of Nathan, erm I mean Mini Churchill.
One of the pictures in my wallet
This topic itself is really boring but not with my crazy Chinese mother-in-law. As you have seen already during the past two years of my blogging time is that she does a lot of weird stuff. At least the stuff is weird in my opinion as there must be also many people who think that it is not that strange at all. I don’t know but so far I had only people supporting my viewpoint commenting here. Let’s see what you think about this one….
What do you guess is in her wallet?
A picture of her siblings or mother? Nope!
A picture of her husband perhaps? Nope!
A picture of her daughter perhaps? Nope!
A picture of Nathan perhaps? Nope!
A picture of her poor little dogs? Nope!
I think you can guess already of whom she got a picture in her wallet…Of course of herself! Not any normal picture either, it is some older picture of one of her photo shoots some 20 years ago with weird clothes and everything and damn huge, filling over half of the front of her wallet once opened.
Meet Churchill
Perhaps it is just me and my wife and anyone else I tell this who think this is a bit weird. Sure I have also a picture of myself in my wallet but that is printed on my ID! Too bad I wasn’t able to take any picture of it thus far as she is guarding her wallet like a demon. Perhaps next time I will be able to when she is either coming here again for three months or when I manage it again to China.
Do you have any pictures in your wallet? Is it a bit odd that MIL only got a picture of herself in her wallet?
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I think the title is pretty much self-explanatory. Today I will touch this topic as we live now already for more than a year in Germany after living for nearly eight years in Finland. The years in Finland were surely exciting and we had no urge to move anywhere to soon however few months before Nathan was born we made from one day to another the decision to move to Germany. Then in 2014 our son was born, shortly after that we got our apartment in my old hometown and planned the whole moving process which took the whole summer. More about what happened in 2014 can be found in this summary I wrote in the end of last year. All the things which will be listed here are from our own experiences and can (and will!) vary as it always depends on the person plus the area where you live in/ surroundings.
MIL eating freshly picked strawberries in Finland
The first thing which comes to my mind is the nature. Finland got an amazing nature even in the cities. You got those huge forests, thousands of lakes, the Baltic sea, part of the country is even within the Arctic Circle and so clean air. Sure, Germany also got many beautiful things to offer but all in all it just can’t keep up with Finland when you are used to wild forests just behind your building while as in Germany you got to travel some longer distances to enjoy some real nature. Just thinking about my parents cottage in Finland makes me want to book a ticket and fly asap there though on second thought I might postpone that to next summer to enjoy the never setting sun and some warmer temperatures than now. So which country do we prefer when it comes nature? Finland of course!
Everyday view from our cottage…
The next point on this list is a very important one, the living costs! While living in Finland all those years we surely felt that live wasn’t cheap there but we never realized just how expensive everything is until we moved to Germany and needed to do our first grocery shopping. Just unbelievable, in average everything was suddenly only half price than what we were used to in Finland and some little things such as garlic, ginger etc up to only 1/10 of the Finnish prices. Through this we are already able to spend half the money per months than what we had to in Finland! You might think that in Finland you must earn more in order to sustain higher prices but the average income is only slightly higher than in Germany (speaking out of our own experiences and what we heard from friends). Germany is the clear winner when thinking about living costs and any other costs such as for clothes, anything you wish to buy or just going out to eat!
Outlet Center here in my hometown, so low prices compared to Finland!
The food…food is really something which can’t be really labeled as good or bad as it clearly depends on the person. In our case it depends entirely on me as my wife doesn’t like Finnish nor German food. In my opinion Germany got the better food and much more variety than Finland. As I said, it depends on the person and I grew up in Germany so all my thoughts about this topic are biased and thus useless for this list. I can’t even think about too many Finnish dishes except of some of the standards in Finland such as Karelian Pasty and some rye bread which I really enjoyed . However what I certainly loved in Finland are the sweets / the love for black liquorice candy and even food and drinks with wood tar flavor! In Germany there is just too much to choose from and I don’t even know where to start as each region or even town has their special dishes so in the end I just say Germany is the winner though I know there will be now an outcry from every Finnish person in the world (thankfully not too many Finnish people out there).
German food, greasy and heavy just like I love it
The mentality of the people is something really interesting. Most people from around the world have the general idea that Germans are very cold people and don’t show much emotions. Well…don’t go to Finland then as you might think the people are emotionally dead. Sometime ago there was a great satirical blog post on the Helsingin Sanomat (the national newspaper in Finland) about Finnish men called “Tis is Finland Män”. Of course everything exaggerated in that article but in its core it is a perfect description about the people in Finland and their mentality. Here in Germany we met some people who lived all their life in other countries such as China and USA. So when they told us about what they think about German people and how unfriendly they all are we were just shocked. For us it felt like we were suddenly surrounded by friendly open-minded people who all seem to care about you unlike in Finland where the general view is “Not shou emousshiöns.” Even my crazy Chinese mother-in-law who doesn’t speak any Finnish or German said after short time in Germany that the people here are so much more friendly than in Finland, not a good sign Finland!
These are just the main points I like to compare as I don’t want to go into politics or similar topics as they are for many dead boring or not interesting for us/ me. In general I can say that we prefer living in Germany right now but who knows, it might change in some years again. There is only one point both countries have in common and fail miserable at: Keeping MIL out!
Not even the Swedish Royal Guard was enough to keep MIL out of Sweden!
Have you lived in different countries and did also such evaluation on what country you prefer the most?
Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore I also have a YouTube Channel in which some videos might pop up from time to time
Indeed, our little Nathan had also a crazy photoshoot same as his parents had several years ago in China. Okay it was not only one photoshoot but actually two different ones but that was due to my crazy Chinese mother-in-law. Why? Oh well, she messed up as usual but more about that later on. You might remember that the photoshoot we had back in 2011 is not one of my fondest memories as it was pretty much a day of torture for me. Now just imagine how to make a 1 1/2 year old kid pose for the camera for several hours…yeah it won’t really work.
Meet Nathan the monk
Enough of the introduction and lets talk a bit about the first session Nathan had to endure. Appearently the first company they went to with Nathan was not the perfect one. MIL won from some kind of prize competition a photoshoot for children worth 500RMB. This was pretty great at first until they went to that place as everything was kind of run down and broken plus some of the items the children are supposed to pose with were empty German beer kegs. Each and every single thing was broken there and dusty enough that you might think that the place was a movie setting from Tatooine. The next problem were the clothes for Nathan. My wife brought some clothes she had ordered beforehand from Taobao and it was a good decision to do so as barely any clothes they had at the photoshoot were fitting or any good-looking for our little one. Needless to say my wife was not pleased at all about where her mother had taken them but MIL had already excuses as nothing is ever her fault. In the end she blamed her friend whom she had asked about the location and this friend said it was okay. So no way on earth it was MIL’s fault by not checking out this company beforehand!
Posing with a beer keg
Apparently it was also not Nathan’s best day as he was very grumpy but I guess it was also due to the jet lag as it was just few days after the arrival in China. I don’t know how but through some dark magic the photographer managed in those two hours of demon baby running around to get few decent shots. You know when you pose for some pictures you know where to stand as the photographer will give you basic commands what to do, how to smile etc. This does not work with a little kid. Everything and really everything is just pure luck. Little Nathan the Satan won’t just stand there holding a toy airplane and smile into the camera, no…he will take that airplane, throw it in some corner, turn around and crawl somewhere as crawling on a dusty ground is so much cooler than walking. In the end some pictures ended up pretty well and my in-laws even got a huge picture for their wall (the monk picture above).
Pumpkin tastes good
The second photoshoot company was a total different matter. My wife spent several days researching all about this topic until she settled on one company. Everything also went well except two things which somehow happens every single time we have to be somewhere at a certain time. First of all MIL never wants to “book” a taxi as according to her it is no problem to get a taxi on the street. Yes, usually it is not a problem but when your appointment is around the time the taxi drivers have their shift change it is a huge problem. This always results that the heavily crowded busses are the main mean of transportation. The next problem is that it is impossible for my in-laws and my wife to find the right location. I don’t know if it is normal in China but it happens all the time with them. They roughly know where to go and it pretty much stops there already. Going around buildings and asking people where to go for at least one hour is nothing special. Now you can see why for this photoshoot Nathan was nearly two hours late resulting that a long waiting time was needed as the photo appointments of other children which were supposed to be after Nathan were suddenly before him (thank you MIL).
Coolest Monk ever
This second place was the exact opposite of the first company. Everything was clean, only few things were broken and the staff was pretty good in cheering up the kids to make them smile. Furthermore they did not push with one child through the whole session but gave after 5-10 min the kids (and the family) some rest and took pictures with another child. Though Nathan was still very great in avoiding in front of the camera what he was supposed to do the photographer adapted always quickly to the new situations and was able to take many great pictures in the end. Also the whole family left less exhausted and annoyed than after the first photoshoot as everything (except the arrival) went very smooth.
What are your experiences when it comes to take pictures of children?
Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore I also have a YouTube Channel in which some videos might pop up from time to time
Crazy Chinese Family 