Category Archives: Crazy Euopean People

Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family, Crazy Germans

My Mother’s Birthday

April 5, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 39 Comments

Today won’t be a crazy story but I put it up nevertheless as it was recently my mother’s 70th birthday. We celebrated on Good Friday however her birthday is on the 31st of March but as this public holiday was so close this year she decided to celebrate few days later with many of her friends.

mombirthday3 — Nathan posing together with my mother

In our apartment block we do not only have a swimming pool with sauna downstairs but also a room which can be used for “parties”. My mother invited twenty guests and as neither of our apartments would have been sufficient to house so many people we reserved this party room. Invited were a couple of neighbours but the rest were all Finnish women who came to Germany around the same time as my mother back in the 1960s-1970s. These women who came to the party stayed in Germany after the initial contract work contracts ran out and settled down here in this city or neighbouring towns and villages with their German partners.

As my mother wanted as less work on her birthday as possible my wife and I helped out to serve the drinks to the guests and clean all the dishes later. Especially carrying everything upstairs again took several runs as it was just too much hence I didn’t need any workout that day. The main food my parents had ordered weeks in advance from a catering service and all the cakes were prepared by my mother herself within two days before the celebration.

mombirthday4 — My mother’s friends singing a song

When the first batch of people arrived together (all having the same kind of rose for my mother) they gathered around her and sang a traditional Finnish song about old friends. After the first verse my mother just thanked them quickly and said it is enough as the whole song has about 10 verses, each taking several minutes! You see, my mom is not up for much celebrations, especially not for herself and she is not a big talker either so the only speech she held was “Thank you all for coming and enjoy the food.” Well, it was enough I would say.

mombirthday2 — Nathan is sometimes happy even in my arms

Nathan did also his best to entertain the guests by running non-stop around and having very interesting conversations with everyone. The best for him was apparently the cake. I do not know why and how but he just loves it, even when we just give him a bit cake base with tiny amount of cream (no young man, no sugar for you yet).

Though the celebration only lasted for roughly four hours it was enough time to get everything more than filled up with all the food. I still felt a bit sick 12 hours later and couldn’t eat anything till next days lunch. Last but not least I have to mention that my days of freedom and happiness will end in 11 days as MIL will arrive then…

What do you usually do on birthday? Do you celebrate every year or only on significant ages?

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Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family

Our Engagement Dinner in China

March 29, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 32 Comments

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.

Engagement2 — My dad, granny and MIL. My dad and granny are actually the same age…

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!

CIMG3167 — Group picture and who is missing? Of course FIL as he is taking the photo

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.

No, I am not that tall, they all are just short

Poor little cousin, probably she will end up just as crazy as MIL

Yep, I am the laowei and of course my nose is big

Did you have an engagement dinner with the family or just celebrated together?

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Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family, Travels

Terracotta Army

March 8, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 33 Comments

Back in 2011 when my parents visited for their first time China we decided to take a look at the famous Terracotta Army. During the week my parents were in China we tried to see as much as possible around Xi’an. It was certainly not easy as my parents are not the youngest anymore but they tried their best. The excavation site with the museum is located in Lintong District, Xi’an. As we stayed in the city center it took us about 45min by car to get to the famous place.

During that day we had staggering +39 degrees celsius ~102 degrees fahrenheit. For unknown reasons we had the whole week already blue sky and hence less smog to protect us from the intensely burning sun. Nearly all of my memories from that trip are actually all about getting from one place with air-condition to the next without spending too much time outside.

Before we actually went to see the terracotta warriors we made a short stop at a workshop which focused not only one copying terracotta warriors but also making and reconstructing old Chinese furniture. Even though the whole place was basically a tourist trap we enjoyed it there as we did not go as a tourist group but with some family friends who know some people who know someone so we could actually skip the shops and concentrate on the art and have alook behind the scenes in that workshop. It was really interesting to see how they “copied” terracotta warriors but also how they custom designed few of them by modeling the faces according to some wishes of paying customers. Furthermore we could watch how they made a lacquer table and the many steps were explained to us. The place was filled with wonderful furniture and I actually would have bought tons of it in case money and luggage space wouldn’t be an issue…

terra8 — So much furniture and decoration!

After that we finally set out for the terracotta warriors. Even though it was so terrible hot it was still filled with tourists. The hardest part for us was the trip from the car, through the entrance, following the near endless path to the main museum buildings. Though in retrospect the way was perhaps only a 15min walk it still felt like hours. To make matters worse there were several places selling stinky tofu. The heat and the smell was near overkill for me and my parents, my wife actually enjoyed it though.

In the end we managed it to reach the main area. As my mind was badly effected by the heat and the stinky tofu I can not tell you anymore the exact layout except that there were several buildings and pits. We visited first the biggest building which was a museum with a collection of the artifacts found in that area. Needless to say it was packed with people and it was hard to take any pictures without any head poking into the camera. The best part for me was of course the fact that the air condition kept me away from the melting point. There were so many rooms to visit in that building that it took us a long time to go through it. In this case a tour guide would have been nice but it was also nice to be more flexible and set our own pace.

After watching countless of artifacts we managed to go to Pit 1. There are several Pits in various sizes but Pit 1 is probably most famous as it is just huge and has rows after rows of the terracotta warriors standing guard. I only have a few pictures as I was more concerned on video taping everything with my other camera while trying to survive the heat, yes the heat, as there was no air condition in that huge hall resulting also that we tried to hurry around and be done with it.

All in all I can say that visiting the terracotta army is a must when staying for some time in Xi’an but it is certainly not my favorite place. All the information you can get there about the past is certainly great but somehow I just could not enjoy it, it might be also due to the fact that I was near a heat stroke and thus my recollection of that day is messed up.

For more information about the Terracotta Army simply check out what Wikipedia as to say about it.