Last year I had written already about our two weddings, one in China and one in Finland. However I kind of forgot to do so about our engagement dinner which was back in 2011. This dinner was also the reason why my parents had their first trip to China. My old people stayed for a bit over a week in China and the engagement dinner was towards the end of their holiday. By then they had already eaten all kind of Chinese food and actually survived. My mother however was a bit more difficult with the food but this is an everyday problem with her even when traveling through her home country.
It was a usual July day; hot, smog and high humidity resulting that you start to break into perspiration the second you leave a room with air-condition. For the dinner the closest relatives of my wife had been invited such as her aunt, uncle with his family, crazy granny and godmother and godfather. From my family only my parents had come as it would be just impossible to get my brother ever to China. It was already challenging enough to get him to our wedding in Finland! As for the location we had chosen a bit more fancy restaurant in which we were invited few weeks prior by FIL’s retired boss. I liked the food there, the restaurant looked rather good so we decided on it/ my in-laws decided on it.
We got one of the private rooms with a table big enough for us all. I can not remember all the different dishes anymore but I do remember that we had camel. Even my mother tried some camel but only because we didn’t tell her what meat that was…as I said before, it is difficult to go eating with my mother. But MIL took pretty good care that my mom had enough on her plate, always enough, as she continuously filled up my mothers plate with food, and my mom ate everything. You see this is how I was also raised, always finish everything on your plate and this is also the only reason why she was eating and eating and eating. By the way, always eating up everything was also the reason why I gained in those five weeks in China around 8 kg. I learned from this experience and never ever finish up everything anymore when being in China!
We had no real celebration or ceremony for this engagement, just eating, receiving few gifts and then everybody went stuffed with food back home. Actually it was similar to our wedding in China, just on a much smaller scale and without all the booze and smokes. My parents paid for the dinner as a “present” as my in-laws were paying later on our Chinese wedding. However many of those great friends of MIL thought that my parents were too cheap because the dinner was apparently not expensive enough for their taste, they had expected some fancy gift, such as a car or similar, oh well, can’t please them all.
Did you have an engagement dinner with the family or just celebrated together?
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Crazy Chinese Family 