Category Archives: Our cute son

Chinese Wife, Crazy Family, Our cute son

Our Chinese New Year 2016

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I know I know I am a week late with this post but I didn’t manage to finish it until now due to all kind of silly reasons. In the whole past week I could read from so many bloggers how they celebrated New Year so here I go with our tiny “party”.

This was the first time since 2013 that we actually celebrated again as we had just no time for the past years. Even before that we usually never did anything special so we always ended up watching the CCTV New Year Gala. Only once we participated in some bigger event and it was just a few weeks after we got together in 2010. Back then we went to the Chinese New Year Festivities in Helsinki. Let me just tell you that it was very very cold back then and not the most enjoyable experience I had in my life (due to the weather!). A couple of years ago I even wrote a little blog post about it which also shows that not much (nothing) has really changed on how we spend New Year.

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A bit of food for watching the New Year Gala

 

So what happened this year? First of all we kind of messed up the actual date for the New Year. My wife and all her Chinese friends CNY9here in town thought it would be on Saturday the 06.02.2016. Imagine the surprise when my wife heard from one of her customers on that Saturday that there won’t be any New Year Gala as it wouldn’t start until Sunday… this shows pretty well what living abroad for so many years does to someone when it comes to such big festivities. Anyways after a disappointing Saturday we started Sunday with preparing for the overeating day. My wife prepared several dishes while I was busy entertaining our little Monkey/ Nathan. Pictures were taken,  food was enjoyed, the CCTV New Year Gala was watched and many video chats had to be endured during that day. As you can see it was a pretty calm day for us especially as my wife didn’t had to work and thus we spend the entire day together. Besides that Nathan was finally able to wear some of the clothes my wife bought for him in China last year. Only bad thing about the dress was that the hat didn’t fit anymore, Nathan just got too much brain inside.

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Calling his grandparents to save him from the New Year Gala in TV

For the next year I hope that we will be either able to travel to China for this event as I would love to witness it once in my life personally or to celebrate with other people together. Sure it is nice to spend the whole day together as a family but to have some bigger gatherings once every few years wouldn’t hurt either.

Where there some Lunar New Year events near your home?

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

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

https://www.youtube.com/

 

Crazy Family, Our cute son

What Winter?

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Currently it seems winter has arrived everywhere in the world. New York is basically drowning in snow, Scandinavia had for the past weeks more than enough of this devilish snow with temperatures dropping down to -40 degrees Celsius, heck even Chongqing is covered in this white mess. It seems everywhere it is snowing except my dear hometown. I am usually the last person to complain about lack of snow during winter time as I had my share of battles in Finland à la digging out the car each morning/ actually finding the car. However ever since we moved to Germany winter has been very mild in this area.

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Grumpy Nathan on December the 24th, what a winter

Northern Germany, especially the state of Schleswig-Holstein where we live, is rarely hunted down by icy winters with tons of snow. The last time there had been much snow here was during the so-called “Snow Catastrophe of 1978” when even in my hometown snow drifts could reach a height of up to 3m! The reason for such mild winters is the fact that this state is located between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. We had each winter some snow, nothing special but usually enough to go to the nearby sledging hill and have some fun or to build snowmen and castles. When my wife visited Germany for the first time in 2010 we had snow. In fact each time we went to visit my parents during winter time we had snow here. However now  we live here and the most I have seen is a layer of perhaps an inch of snow which melted away the very same day.

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Winter of 2010, see we had snow before Nathan was born!

No snow is not a bad thing for me except that we would love to show Nathan what all he could do outside during winter time. Thus far all he could do this winter is wearing his rainboots and jump into puddles. The weird thing is that when Nathan was born we also lacked snow in Finland! We had a thick layer up till a week before he was born and then suddenly poof it’s gone! That week before he was born was the last time I needed any winter clothes or to dig out my car. I have the strange feeling that Nathan is creating an invisible dome around us which does not let any snow in. Afterall I think he even hates snow from what I can tell about his encounters with the pathetic one inch layers of snow in the past two years. Each time he sees snow on the ground he retreats, points with his hand to the snow as says “eew”.

 

Do you have snow where you live?

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

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

https://www.youtube.com/

Chinese Wife, Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Family, Mom in Law, Our cute son

First Contact

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Last autumn we visited China for the first time together with Nathan. I stayed only for a few days however Nathan and his mother haunted Xi’an for nearly a whole month. During that time Nathan made his first contact with the other members of the Crazy Chinese Family.

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Aunty and little little sister

For me as a grown up it was already much to get used to when I met them for the first time several years ago. Not that they are as crazy as my mother-in-law but they still are related to her so what can you expect! There is Granny who spawned crazy MIL and seems more often than not to be even more stubborn than her daughter, there is Aunty who always does everything wrong according to MIL,  there is Uncle who lives with his family together with Granny, my wife’s little sister (cousin, daughter of aunty) who is still trying to find some rich guy but in Japan (but he shouldn’t be Japanese of course), and the little little sister (youngest cousin of my wife, daughter of uncle) who needs two hours to eat a soup but can finish a burger in seconds. Alright,nothing really crazy about this all but imagine them all bunched up in one room with their whole attention on little Nathan. Yep, all attention on that tiny little Nathan who just wants to run away from them all.

 

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Make them go away Mommy!

I guess you can imagine how Nathan reacted when seeing them all, crying and trying to get as far away as possible from them/ into mommy’s arms. Of course they all mean no harm but when all of them try to squeeze and feed him snacks at the same time it just can be too much for such a little human being. I mean I could barely survive each encounter when we went eating with the family and every person just piles up more food on my plate. I have the strong believe that they tried to create a new Jabba the Hutt out of me. Nathan is usually the kind of baby who is too trusting and not afraid of strangers at all but with his own Chinese family he turned into a crying mess.

Though all craziness poured into him in one go he managed to survive. He even calmed down and played with the crazy Chinese relatives but this was only achieved with a lot of bribing via fruits and snacks. Guess how many people it takes to get in China a baby to sleep? Nearly the whole family!! I am not joking but it seems that every female of the family has to be present when trying to get Nathan to sleep. As they all are pretty noisy when being together it takes a long time for him to fall asleep, long enough that they get hungry and need to make some food in between…but that is again a story for another time.

The first contact with his Chinese Family went rather well despite him being afraid like hell in the beginning. I wonder how it will turn out next time when going to China. I have no idea yet when there will be a next trip but I hope it will be soon and that I will be there as well. Not because I am so eager to meet the family once again but the food, the food!

Do you have people on the family with the ability to scare children away?

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

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

https://www.youtube.com/