Category Archives: Dad in Law

What to do later?

January 3, 2014 CrazyChineseFamily 4 Comments

This is something we have discussed a lot in the past years. “What to do later” actually means what do we do later with her parents when they need help.

Planing ahead on how to take care for your parents has in Asian countries a whole different meaning than in many European countries.

In Germany most elderly people are often pushed by their family into retirement homes rather than taken in by their families into their homes to be taken care of. In China on the other hand it’s the other way around. Even when those families do have money to send their parents to retirement homes, they prefer taking them into their own homes and either take care of them by their own or hire some nurse to help out.

I guess most Chinese living abroad have been wondering about the very same question rather much. This is because if they build themselves a life in a foreign country they would need to give it all up just be with their parents back in China. Why giving it all up? Well, the world is a cruel place and many countries make it under normal circumstances nearly impossible to get your own parents to stay with you. Sure there are exceptions, as I know some Chinese in Finland who own restaurants and basically get first either their mother or father to work there for 5 years to get a permanent residence permit and afterwards get the other parent as this one will get a residence permit immediately due to the permit of the partner. Indeed not an easy way.

Now back to my story. As we plan to move soon back to Germany it will be pretty much impossible to get her parents to stay with us later. The law in Germany is pretty strict and chances are close to zero to ever getting her parents live with us. My wife pretty much doubts also that her parents would feel comfortable in such a different environment.

They are happy in China and life is so very different in Europe.

So what does it leave us? We have actually no clue at all. We have been discussing this topic so often that it is currently on hold because neither of us wants to think about it anymore. Not only because it is so complicated but also it is just awful to think ahead and imagine your own parents in a condition that they are in dire need of you.The only thing we can think of is either hiring professional help later in form of a nurse helping them out in their own home or somehow finding a very good retirement home (which are often incredible expensive and at the moment out of our league).

Many might say “Just move to China!”. It is not as easy as it sounds and you never know when this situation of need might occur. Maybe it is in the middle of your own children’s school education or during important project work for your company, can you just leave everything behind like that and start entirely anew? Furthermore, my wife has no wish to ever move back to China. For her, a month staying for holidays in China are already too much, she hates the pollution, the noise, and the people (the mass of them and mostly their behavior).

As you can see, we still have much to figure out. We doubt that the migration law in Germany will change anytime soon in our favor in this situation so we really have to create other plans for the future.

Do you have similar troubles when thinking ahead in your life?

P.S. as this blog is titled “My Crazy Chinese Family” I did not talk about my own parents who are actually a whole bit older than my parents in law. But do not fear, I have no wish to send them to some retirement home and thus far my wife shares my opinion.

Crazy Family, Dad in Law, Mom in Law, Travels

You can overdo it sometimes (Mount Hua)

November 6, 2013 CrazyChineseFamily 4 Comments

Most people say that you can never be prepared enough for a task ahead. I found out the hard way that you can be over-prepared.

Last year we were once again for a few weeks in China, visiting my wife’s family. As usual we had some plans regarding which places we would love to visit. Number one location was Jiuzhaigou 九寨沟 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiuzhaigou. This changed after we arrived as my wife got too lazy (it is just too tempting for her just to hang out on the sofa, watch TV and eat snacks whole day). So in order to not disappoint me too much we agreed at least to go to Mount Hua 华山as it is just an hour or so away from Xi’an, my wife’s “hometown”.

The Planning begins

I had watched some information about Mount Hua before so I was excited to go there. My parents in law were shocked. How could we visit such a dangerous place (as if crossing a street in Xi’an is any safer than climbing the mountain…)

It took some time convincing mom in law but we were “allowed” to go there in the end. Dad in law wasn’t so happy about it. He said it is too dangerous. After some time we got to know he had been there several times. Even using the infamous Plank Walk before any security measurements have been installed (Check out http://www.wherecoolthingshappen.com/huashan-crazy-plank-walk/ to see more about the nice little path). Him using that path strikes me as fairly unusual as he is more the safety first type. Actually he is more the type not to do anything remotely dangerous. But then again, he was just 20 back in the days, trying to proof the world something.

The day prior to our climbing adventure arrived. With is also the preparation started. I received some huge backpack from some friend of the family. This backpack was filled with food, much food and a huge vacuum flask. I estimated that the weight exceeded 30 kg easily. Sure, you need some things when climbing a mountain. But that much? The whole duration on the mountain would never exceed 5 hours in our planning and yet we had food and drink for a whole week. Yet, I agreed to it, to make parents in law happy.

Seven Heroes — The heroes of the mountain

We left next morning and went to a village nearby the mountain. The in-laws got themselves a little hotel room, because they had to wait for us (they didn’t want to join us). In the little hotel we had some food which was enough to sustain me for two or three days. They said that I would burn much calories on the mountain and I need all the food. They also advised us to eat something every 30-45min, or we would be too weak. Mom in law also wanted us to wear thick jackets, as she was afraid we would get sick due to the low temperatures in autumn. Low temperatures are in her opinion everything under 28 degrees Celsius so the 25 degrees in the morning were life threatening. I didn’t complain and after that we set out to the entrance where we said our goodbyes.

Up the mountain and the suffering

The view was great, you could see the smog layer covering the countryside around the mountain. And fresh air, so wonderful, finally being able to breathe normally again. Basically I was happy, my wife not so much.

Now I don’t want to tell you all about the great mountain, as you should go there better yourselves. But in my opinion it was worth the high entrance fee + cable car fee. Cable car as we didn’t want to climb up the whole mountain and back again, due to our limited time and my wife’s fear of getting big leg muscles….

The climb to the different peaks on the mountain were manageable (we only went to two peaks). The main problem for me was the backpack which was getting heavier and heavier each hour. My in-laws said that we needed all the food and drink so we tried to use it. We really tried to eat and drink much, seriously but there is just so much a body can fit. In the end I still had roughly 9/10 of the stuff left when arrived at the base of the mountain in the evening again. I still wonder why we had so much mantou and meat with us. With all the food I could have fed probably half the tourists on the mountain.

The whole trip was a struggle for me to take the next step and the weight was dragging me down. Remember the jackets mom in law wanted us to wear? Oh, I was so glad we didn’t take them. It was so damn hot going up with all the weight that I might have melted with some jacket. The worst part was the way down. Due to the high weight I had to carry up my legs were a mess when we arrived the south peak. They were just shaking. Each step on the way down again I was afraid to just collapse.

Those stairs are no joke, perfect for getting nice leg muscles

All preparation was not for naught

Yes indeed, all the stuff prepared found still a use. Nah, we didn’t sell it or gave it away but we actually used it. Mind you, not the very same day but two days later we went to some zoological park. It was useful because mom in law didnt had to prepare new food and terrible because I ended up carrying everything once again. Another surprise, we didnt manage to eat everything this time either so mom in law gave it to her friends who came with us. In the end I was carrying supplies, meant for one mountain climbing adventure, over two days just to give it all away.

And before I forget, I got my revenge. When they came to visit us, I made sure that they have enough food to carry :=)

P.S. I must excuse the poor pictures, but back then I only had my Nokia N8, resulting in pictures with rather much noise.

Crazy Chinese People, Dad in Law, Mom in Law

Faith in their Son in law

October 31, 2013 CrazyChineseFamily 12 Comments

I actually don’t know how to explain this situation entirely but somehow it seems that my parents in law do not really trust in my abilities. Okay, I don’t mean my abilities to function as a human being but to be more precise, some of my special skills.

When we moved to our current apartment I did together with my old dad all the renovations such as painting, wallpapers, removing some walls, building a new kitchen etc. I was pretty proud of the work we did. After I had been several times in China I realized that most of the building crews/ renovation crews do a piss poor job. I don’t want to go too much into it because it would deserve an article on its own. So when my parents in law came to visit us they did not believe that normal people can do such renovation work. They explained to me that only professionals in China can do such things and that you need to learn everything first. They even suggested that I had hired some help. Yeah well, maybe I am just too good with such stuff that my work looks too professional, hehe.

Another matter is swimming. In China I have met only elderly people who can actually swim (besides youths from swimming teams). Every other person my age or still in their teens can not swim. I was told that kids learn already in elementary school that swimming is dangerous because only if you swim you can drown…oh dear. I have been swimming nearly all my life, I made it even as far as to represent my country at European Championships. Even though I have all this experience, my mom in law does not trust my abilities in swimming and sports. Whenever I go swimming she is afraid that I will drown because I just ate something an hour before it or that I will suddenly get a cramp, panic and then drown…It seems she knows everything about sports better than me.

It is really weird for me as I think I am still pretty good in it. So this summer I was again at the pool but this time it was not only my mom in law being concerned about my swimming abilities but also the swimming pool staff. I had to do some basic test first before they allowed me into the deeper section of the pool and even after that they did not believe that I had been in a swimming team before… Only after some random Chinese kid challenged me for a short sprint they finally started to believe me. So sad, I have to proof every single thing in China.

Has anybody else similar experiences with Chinese people/ parents in law/ own family or whatsoever?

My crazy Chinese Family I married into…