The Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award

November 22, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 25 Comments

You might have noticed that lately I am not that active in blogging anymore due to my health issues. Most posts I had during the entire summer and early autumn were in fact the ones I had already prepared beforehand and only needed little editing. It is not that I am out of ideas now just that I don’t get into writing them down due to very little time at my computer. So it was very surprising and honoring when I had been nominated as a honary sister for the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award by Betty from Betty has a Panda.

She included in her nomination the favorite post of the people she in turn nominated. This means of course that I will also add my favorite post from her blog which is strikingly similar to the one she selected as her favorite from my blog “A method to strengthen your immune system from early on”

I guess it is time to answer the questions.

1.Why do you blog?

I can’t really answer this as I do not really know it myself. It all started back in 2013 just after my in-laws flew back to China as they had spent more than a month with us in Finland. My brain had to deal with so many oddities committed by my in-laws that I suddenly had the urge to share them with the rest of the world. I never expected to go on so long as I thought in the beginning that I will be done with writing those stories down within few months. Who would have thought that especially my crazy Chinese mother-in-law is never stopping to do weird things and thus there will be still many stories to share. I guess it is very similar for me as with Betty as this is some kind of therapy!

2. What is your favorite post from your blog and why?

My favorite post is Our Story: “How we met”. I had this post planned for a long time but it never felt right when I started writing it so it got postponed by nearly an entire year. Sitting down and thinking on how everything started was a very nice experience as I kind of relived everything again. Now over a year later it is still enjoyable to read the whole blog post again.

3. What are your favorite topics to write about?

I guess you now it already, of course MIL’s insanities! Besides that I also enjoy writing about the few travels we do as I get a chance to look at those pictures again and think back how it was there. Since this year I also added few post about cooking but sadly I didn’t get around this topic anymore for the past six months or so. I do hope to get back to it starting next year but lets see.

4. What inspires you to write your blog posts?

As said already in the previous post it is all thanks to my mother-in-law and the rest of the Chinese family. There are just so many things I experienced over the years that I needed some kind of outlet which became this blog in the end. Each story regarding my Chinese family has a lot of “back story”. I realize this only when I start writing as I suddenly see that there is so much more about the whole thing to add/ write more posts so yeah, it is very inspiring.

5. What is your favorite animals and why?

I don’t know. I guess I like pretty much all animals but I don’t have any favorite. I like dogs, cats, bunnies, even shrimps and fishes but I can’t say what my most favorite is from all of them. Right now we have two bunnies and several fishes. However I can say that I really dislike snails…

6. What is the craziest thing ever happened to you?

My Chinese mother-in-law…really I am not kidding. There are of course many other things which happened to me over the past years such as having a car crash together with my wife on an icy road without getting hurt at all or even damaging the car but nothing compares to the craziness MIL has brought to my life. There are so many occasions with her that I wonder how it is even possible. For example who on earth would challenge the security guards at the airport or destroy half of our apartment and say it wasn’t her fault?

7. What is your favorite childhood memory?

When my parents took me for the first time to our cottage in Finland when I was around 5-6 years old.

8. What do you like to spend your free time with?

Playing computer games, editing videos and pictures and of course reading nice books.

9. Where do you see yourself in five years?

Hopefully healthy! Besides that I see myself with my great family and perhaps with a little brother or sister for Nathan (me hopes for a brother while my wife wants the opposite…). I doubt that MIL wil stop doing stupid things so the blog should be also still going strong in five years.

10. If you could meet other bloggers you like in person, what would you talk with them about?

This is a hard one as it pretty much depends on the blogger. With some it might be about their experiences with Chinese families, with others about their favorite travel destinations, then some food topics or about being an author.

Who to nominate?

This is not so easy as I just saw that nearly every blogger I follow has been nominated already! I will just nominate a handful and hope that not all of them have been nominated before.

Kiwi in Korea with Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival

Sue’s Fabulous Travels by Sue with The Amazing Terracotta Warriors

The Fourth Continent by Tanny with Travel Greenland on a shoestring budget

Marta lives in China by Marta with Chinese Fashion: 10 Epic Fails

My 10 Questions:

How did you get into blogging?
What is your own favorite blog post?
Did you learn on other blogs something which helped you later?
What inspires you to write blog posts?
Have you ever been asked about your blog by family or friends?
Are you able to blog on a regular basis?
Which country you want to visit?
How did you come up with the name of your blog?
What are your favorite books?
What tips you have for other bloggers?

Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family, Mom in Law, Travels

Going around Helsinki

November 15, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 32 Comments

I just recently realized that I have no blog post about Helsinki and what you can visit there at all! I mean I got Xi’an covered, Stockholm, Tallinn and also several North German cities but nothing about Helsinki, the city I lived for so many years. Thankfully I did not forget yet everything so I will give you a small impression on what you can visit there within a day. All pictures were shot few days before our wedding going around the city with my in-laws and also few days after the wedding taking some friends around.

First of all some info about the city. Helsinki is the capital city of Finland with a population of about 625 thousand. That might seem pretty small but you have to think that the entire nation only got a bit over 5 million inhabitants so it ain’t that bad suddenly anymore. Finland has been for many years under the rule of Sweden and later under the rule of the Russian Empire. Only after 1917 Finland got its independency. It was under the Russian rule that Helsinki became the capital city of Finland and in the city center are many neoclassical buildings. In fact it happens often that tv shows or movies are using the city center of Helsinki not in order to have Helsinki itself as the setting but St. Petersburg! But more about that you shall see in some pictures.

One main thing to visit in the city is the Helsinki Cathedral. It has been built from 1830-1852 and was known until the Finnish independency as St. Nicholas Church (Grand Duke of Finland, Tsar Nicholas the First of Russia). it is not an incredible big cathedral but it has a very interesting design and interior decorations. Standing in front of the cathedral you have a wonderful view towards the Senate Square and can even see a bit of the South harbour. Passing by the Senate Square is the street Aleksanterinkatu which is a shopping street where you can find pretty much everything, there is also Stockmann located, a big department store. The street is also very interesting as it is heated during winter time and thus there is no snow. A short distance away is Temppeliaukio Church which is famous for its design. It was built 1969 into solid rock and is known due to this fact also as the Rock Church. Due to its design and the rock walls it has excellent acoustics and is often used for small performances.

From the Helsinki harbour you can take a ferry to Suomenlinna, an old sea fortress which is also a UNESCO World heritage site. The island is inhabited by some 900 people and all around are the old remains of the fortress including huge cannons. It is also a very popular place to go for Finnish people to enjoy the rare summer days to have some BBQ and go swimming in the ocean. At Suomenlinna is also the last surviving Finnish submarine Vesikko. From the Helsinki harbour you can take also another ferry to the Helsinki Zoo Korkeasaari. The ferry used to be the only means of getting there however these days there is also a bridge leading to the zoo (only by walking though!). It is a small but nice zoo with animals from around the world. There is also an Africa and a South America House with small animals running partly freely around there.

All these places you can pretty much visit within a day. Of course there are also many other places you should visit as well. The best way to get a good look around is to take one of the sightseeing buses or taking Tram Line 2 and 3 as they go pretty much around all major sightseeing spots. As you might have seen I did not include much of the city center here such as the museums, the famous Railway Station, the city hall or the Parliament House. These are all places you can easily visit by walking around the city center as they are just minutes away from each other by walking. To my shame I must admit I do not have any pictures of them and thus didn’t include them now in this short tour.

Have you visited Helsinki already or plan to go there one day?

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 Chinese People, Crazy Family, Dad in Law, Mom in Law, Our cute son, Uncategorized

The Silent One

November 8, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 30 Comments

Last week I wrote about the often unpredictable behavior of my crazy Chinese mother-in-law. In the comments I was also asked how her husband is dealing with it all and I have here something like an answer.

NathGrandpa — First time carrying his grandson #Nathancuty

All the general info about him I wrote already down in two other posts About Father-in-law and The Love for Table Tennis. For the ones who don’t want to read it all I give you some short summary. He is in his mid fifties, loves to play table tennis, eats tons of sweets, as an OCD when it comes to cleaning and is able to eat about double the amount of food for lunch and dinner than the rest of the family combined. In the post About Father-in-law I wrote that he is working as a driver in one of the city’s bureaus. This is no longer true as the whole department has been shut down by the government to safe some money. Now he is unemployed and bored as hell every day at home. For him it is not about being unemployed and not earning money but that he has too much time on his hands out of nowhere. Worst of all for him is that he is whole day home and so is his wife!

Wheras MIL is a very strong person he is more the weak one. He easily gives in when his wife has something to complain about and most of the times I think he is doing so in order to escape the endless annoyance of MIL by making her think she won once again and shuts up. I know this might sound mean but once you heard one of her charades you will understand. Come to think of, his wife always has something to complain about him but usually it is actually something she did wrong herself. She pushes down by accident some vase? His fault because he placed it there and so on. So how can he partially escape the madness called his wife? He plays with his phone some weird farming games or does so on the computer whenever he is not cleaning the apartment or watching sports on TV. The good thing for him is that MIL loves shopping and goes dancing and thus is often gone for many peaceful hours. I think he is always looking forward when MIL stays with us for three months…

Though he is very invisible when going around as his wife wants to be the center of everything he still shows his presence when needed. When we need something he goes off and gets it for us in an instant. When we want to cross the street he will go ahead and wave to the cars to let us through. When he sees my wife looking at something in the shop window he will immediately gives her money (though my wife always takes the money she returns it before flying back to Europe without anything spent). He is very caring but sometimes way too much as he gets afraid that something is not good enough. Everytime before buying something he will carefully check the item he wants to buy to make sure that everything is 100% fine. When going out to eat he will clean each cup, bowl and the chopsticks. At home he is cleaning the apartment twice a day, each time done three times. Because he is so worried all the time that everything works fine he has high blood pressure and from is former afro hairstyle nothing is left.

Of course we want to give him sometimes some nice presents but that is a futile effort. Not only does he not want anything but when he actually gets something from us he will store it safely away because he wants to wear/ use the old things first until they are broken. During MIL’s days as a model she often got some nice clothes and also gave him some. These days are over twenty years ago and still the clothes he received are originally packed and stored in his closet. Few years ago we bought him a new shaving machine, it took over a year until he used it and only because MIL threw away his old one as even threatening him that she will give the shaver to me would make him use it. In the end all I can say about FIL is that he is a very reliable person who prefers to stick to the background and is thus the exact opposite of MIL.

Do you also have a more quiet person in the family who is always there when you need her/him?