Sunday of the Dead

November 20, 2016 CrazyChineseFamily 15 Comments

No this is not the title of some old gore horror movie but a Lutheran holiday in Germany. Totensonntag (Sunday of the Dead) was introduced back in 1816 by the Prussian King Frederick William III of Prussia to make the last Sunday before Advent a general celebration in remembrance of the dead. This holiday is observed in all German states and there are some special rules as well such as no music is allowed to be played in public and dancing is forbidden as well!

This Sunday of the Dead we drove together with my parents to Hamburg to the Ohlsdorf Cemetary, trying to find for the very last time the grave of a dear relative of my Dad (Uncle Kurt). Not that he was a close relative, my father does not even remember anymore how they were related but my dad loved him and even bicycled in his youth all the way to Hamburg from our town to visit him. I don’t have too many memories of dear Uncle Kurt as I was just five years old when he passed away. What I still remember is strangely the layout of his apartment, the smell of the cigar smoke and that we always ate cheese cake there. When he passed away he was buried in Ohlsdorf Cemetery and with this cemetery the trouble starts when trying to find a grave again.

ohlsdorf12 — The grave of dear old Uncle Kurt

Ohlsdorf is a bit special as it is actually the biggest rural cemetery in the World and the fourth-largest cemetery in the world. It is just huge with wide streets for cars to pass through and even bus stops. With an area of 391 hectares (966 acres) you might understand why they need those streets and the bus stops. Only once after the funeral my parents were able to locate the grave and that was back in the 90’s. We had tried several times afterwards but to no avail. This time we really needed to find it as by next year the grave will be most likely be removed. The thing in Germany is that you pay for the grave for 25 years. In case no one pays again for another 25 years the grave will be most likely removed by the cemetery to make space for some new arrivals. However this time we were prepared as I had contacted the cemetery and asked about location of the grave. Though we knew where to search we still had to check several hundred graves till we found the right one. We were probably the only relatives who had ever visited his grave since the funeral and lit for the last time a candle for him and his sister.

ohlsdorf3 — Some Finnish Christmas Decoration

After the cemetery we wanted to have something more fun and visited the Christmas Bazaar in the Finnish Seaman’s Church. You might remember that church from the time I wrote about Nathan’s Baptizing there back in 2014. All the Nordic Seaman’s Churches which are next to each other ( The Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian Church) hold this Christmas Bazaar every year for two weekends in a row. As always it was full there, really full. It kind of felt like going around the streets in China just that it was more quiet and organized. Right in the beginning Nathan attracted the attention of Santa and got some chocolate (which he didn’t share!!!). There was all kind of Finnish Christmas decoration for sale and of course food. We also met some other Finnish people who live in our town and even met one of my old Confirmation pals (Affirmation of Baptism). We only went around the Finnish Seaman’s Church as we had little time left so we could not visited the other Nordic Churches and see what they had to offer. Anyhow it was surprising for us that the Finnish Church even got a little supermarket in the basement with all kind of Finnish (overpriced) goods.

ohlsdorf5 — #Nathancuty eating up all of Mommy’s Blueberry Cake

This Totensonntag was the first I went to a cemetery and it felt a bit strange. I guess it might be also because I know it was the last time I was able to visit Uncle Kurt’s grave and that all things come to an end at some point. Luckily we went to the Christmas Bazaar to lighten up the mood a bit otherwise it would have been a really depressing and rainy Sunday today.

The Fire Department was at the graveyard as well to honor the dead firefighters

Finnish woman wearing a traditional dress

Pulla (cardamom bread), very very good with coffee

The Finnish Seaman’s Church from the outside

Do you have some special day such as the German Totensonntag in remembrance of the dead?

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Chinese Wife, Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Family

Family is the Best

November 13, 2016 CrazyChineseFamily 23 Comments

Over the past months, nay years I realized more and more that it is not only my dear Chinese mother-in-law who is a bit odd but pretty much the whole family. Not that every family has anyways their own oddities but I am just amazed about the abundance of sheer madness in my wife’s family. Yes, my wife has noticed it as well and has her own battles to fight because of it…on a daily basis thanks to the WeChat Family Group.

family1 — Uncle, unknown relative, Granny and Aunty

There is not much to add about my mother-in-law. She is crazy and that’s it. FIL has also left the road of normal sanity years ago but that is due to living so long with his wife. Now there are few more family members I barely ever mention because MIL always took the spotlight but today is your lucky day to find out more about them (to some degree). So who we all got there in the closer (MIL’s) family ? There is Granny, Aunty, Uncle, little sister (cousin) and little little sister (cousin). The thing is I don’t even know their names except of the cousins. In no particular order they have their own traits or history such as the one who likes to touch other’s posterior, the one who was in prison for robbery, the one who has never money but still travels the world, the one all neighbours run away from and the one who one falls all the time for pyramid schemes.

family7 — Yep, FIL does not look that happy to be sitting between the crazy ones

Sounds rough doesn’t it? I won’t link those points to anyone of them now as that would be just cruel but I think you might get now that MIL does not count as unnormal in the family. As I don’t want to go into the “special traits/ history” of the family I will just throw in some of the things I experienced with them. For example this spring we were all in China, even my dad was with us. We had only one family gathering and that was not even at Granny’s/ Uncle’s home as usual, because Granny was too embarrassed that my dad would see that apartment. Not that the apartment is small but pretty much in ruins as they have not even really cleaned up there for the past 8 years (according to my wife). So we had this family gathering in a Hotel which offered a huge buffet, even with Western food. I already wrote about this particular event in the post “At the Guangyun Lake” but I still have to mention that Granny ate two whole plates of raw seafood and guess what, she got terrible food poisoning. She never had eating such food before and there she just piled to plates to their limit and devoured everything in few minutes. My wife even warned her Grandmother about it but you know the drill about telling your Elders what to do in China, they won’t listen…

family3 — Little little sister terrorizing a Minion

Another story is about Uncle. He is the youngest of the three siblings and the one living with his family together with Granny. A few years ago he got a well paid job at the company of one of his old school friends. After some time working there he/ his wife decided it is time to show some wealth and get him a Louis Vuitton wallet (or was it some business bag?). Here again my wife asked them if they are 100% sure about it and they answered “Of course, just go to the shop and take some pictures of the best ones”. So we went to the Helsinki LV store and the embarrassment for my wife began. She told the sales person that she is there to find a wallet? for her Uncle and needs to take pictures. She quickly found something nice and Uncle was happy with it immediately. That was untill my wife send the price and the answer was like “is there perhaps something smaller?”, so my wife got the same thing a size smaller. Again Uncle and his wife were happy untill they heard the price. Here again their reply was “Is there perhaps something even smaller?” and yes there was actually something even smaller and cheaper. By then the sales person had already a questioning look on her face. You can guess what happened here again “is there something smaller?”. The sales person even showed other products untill they reached the key chains level but no, Uncle and his wife were suddenly not so keen about showing wealth any longer. Long story short, we spent nearly 3 hours in that store going through a multitude of different LV products were the most expensive was over few thousand Euros and downgraded slowly to products costing about 150 Euros. The thing for my wife was also she knew most of the staff there (many Chinese!) so it was a matter of losing face for her.

family8 — Little sister, my wife and Uncle’s wife looking at something

Let’s talk about Aunty. She is the younger sister of MIL. That alone is already fact enough to feel sad for her. There are many stories as well about her but I will only tell you about the most recent one from a few weeks ago. Last week, it was a rainy day and my wife had just dealt with her competent MIL when Aunty sent her a picture of a sofa with the text “Buy me this one”. Nothing more, just a picture of a sofa without any brand or other hint where that might come from. After asking Aunty several times she still did not tell her the brand just “Oh, I saw this sofa here in the store and it says it’s from Germany so you MUST know it”. Yeah right, anything advertised in China by being Made in Germany must be known to my wife by now, can’t be that many products. After hours of sending messages Aunty basically wanted that we buy for her that sofa here in Germany and send it to China. Her train of thought was that the sofa costs in China roughly 2000 Euros so it must be much much cheaper in Germany and sending the sofa must be cheap as well. She was rather confused when she got to know that the sofa was only few hundred Euros cheaper here than in China and the delivery would be far over 2000 Euros. She hasn’t contacted my wife since then but I guess soon there will bet yet another ridiculous request.

family6 — Has nothing to do with the family but I believe in Angient Health

Oh, I realize my time is up already (wife staring threateningly at me as I haven’t done the dishes yet) so the stories about little sister will have to wait. By the way, stories about little little sister won’t be published any time soon anyways as truth to be told she is still too young to know better so perhaps in another 8 years I might bring her up again in case things haven’t improved.

Have you ever felt that one whole family is pretty much out of their mind?

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Chinese Wife, Crazy Family, Mom in Law

Real Competence

November 6, 2016 CrazyChineseFamily 21 Comments

For a long long time I did not write any stories about my dear mother-in-law or the rest of the crazy bunch. Sure I did mention some of it in the post “Three Months Survived” but that was more or less just the basic stuff you might expect anyways from her. It is not that nothing happened all the time but I just did not feel like writing about it. I can’t say whether is was due to the fact that it all is so ridiculous or that I might become just a lazy blogger.

You all have read over the past years that my mother-in-law is a bit unique. She has her own view towards how the world functions, she is always right about everything and she brings chaos wherever she goes. Guess how it is to have such person also being responsible for some of the distribution process of our business activities in China. Yes you read it right, SHE is responsible and as you might imagine it is not going really smooth. To describe her tasks in a short and simple way: She receives boxes from us in which different products are already sorted in a way that she just needs to put them into a new smaller box and sends them to the customer according to the instructions given by my wife.

boxes2 — I have everything under control!

There is really no way anything could wrong, am I right? I mean it is all sorted already and never anything went wrong when FIL was still doing it (he started working again this August so he can not do it any longer). I guess both my wife and I were just too positive and spoiled with the great work FIL was pulling off. There is currently really no week without at least two things going horribly wrong when MIL is doing the work. Remember everything is already sorted in those boxes we send to China and all she has to do is follow the instructions my wife sends her via WeChat about who receives what products and what little gifts to pack. I don’t even know where to start describing this whole disaster which brings my wife near insanity. I will give you only few examples which I can handle right now as thinking too much might give me another migraine attack.

I do everything right, even this dog agrees!

So how can dear crazy MIL do anything wrong? Oh that is so easy with her! Remember I just mentioned that she simply needs to follow the few instructions my wife sends her via WeChat such as which of the pre-packed products belong to which customer and the address. Nearly every single time it happens that some products end up at the wrong person as she never really reads the entire instructions. To make it worse she even has the nerve to tell my wife that she didn’t tell her good enough and it does not help that my wife even resends the same message again to show that everything was explained. Of course then MIL just blames her husband, even when he wasn’t around because it can never be her fault.

LostTreasures — Look at FIL’s hairs, at least now we know why he lost them all ever since getting married…

Another classic is that she just takes stuff out of the sorted products and gives them to some other people. Yes, she just takes out some items and gives them to others not even seeing any problem that might cause for us when the customer is missing here and there some bought stuff. Her excuses are usually “No no, it was not with the other things, it was just alone there so I thought it is not meant for anyone”, or “I gave it to X and Y so they can try it out, they might buy them also later”. With these fine ideas she has made my wife always so happy. Whenever I see this kind of disbelief in my wifes eyes I know that it has to do with her mother. That woman has a real competence in driving other people insane.

Last but not least of her showing real competence is that she does not even send some of the boxes, just keeps them at home. Then it is either the customer complaining after a while that nothing has arrived or actually FIL asking my wife why so many boxes are still at their home. When asking dear MIL why she hasn’t sent the boxes it is either “You didn’t tell me where it should go”, or “I didn’t realize that there are some boxes here”, or even “You stupid father has been hiding them!”. In the end it is always either the fault of FIL or because my wife didn’t tell her what to do. It is just amazing to see what she is messing up all the time with this. We really would love FIL doing MIL’s job again but he started working full-time because “I can’t stand being whole day with your mother”. We know what he means so we can’t say anything about him working again at some company.

Do you know a person who can mess up pretty much everything?

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Crazy Chinese Family

Sunday of the Dead

Family is the Best

Real Competence

My crazy Chinese Family I married into…