Hello everyone, I’m Ruowei the wife of Timo and the guest blogger for today. I will tell you about my weird mother-in-law. No my MIL is not some crazy Asian woman but an elderly European woman who acts pretty strange sometimes.

So this is how an European MIL is through the eyes of a Chinese girl. My MIL is an old and weird lady, I guess you can use weird for every MIL despite the nationality. She is a very kind person, not getting in middle of our marriage life which is very good compare to many Chinese MILs, however, my MIL sometimes can be really–how to say, funny in a way? Here are just some examples which make me laugh every time I see it.

These are some of the basics about my mother-in-law that you should know. She is a quite stubborn lady, she doesn’t want to learn anything new, especially when it comes to electronics. The worst nightmare for her is that the old remote control is broken and she needs to switch to a new one. It is not simply about changing to something but also to learn all the different buttons ones again even though she only uses three buttons on every remote control : On/Off, Volume +/- and Channel +/-. Really, these are all the buttons she needs but whenever she has to use a different remote control it is like the end of the world for her. Then there is the matter that she does not want to learn anything at all about modern technology. Let’s take a mobile phone as an example. All she can do for the past 20 years is to type in the numbers and dial them and also she knows how to answer a call. Phonebook, text messages, calender etc. are as alien to her and strange as flying pigs are or Mämmi to me! To this day she writes down what she wants to say in a text message on a piece of paper and her husband has to type it in.

Every time Timo’s father is buying something big, like a tv, he always tells her a much lower price so she wouldn’t start complaining about that the old TV was still working perfectly even though the picture was only half visible…Whatever somebody buys, she always complains how expensive it is and this resulted that everyone tells her a much lower price these days whenever she wants to know about it. Timo got a new racing bicycle last summer  from his dad. Both were struggling on how to tell my MIL about it so what they did is not telling the her about the bicycle until she saw it in our apartment this spring. As she started to complain about it, Timo and his father told her “But you know, we discussed this already last year”. This is enough to confuse her and after a while she even believes it….my poor MIL always gets tricked by the evil husband and son.

Then there is the matter about food. She just does not want to try out any new food (just as new technology). So just imagine how hard it was to figure out what to eat when my in-laws visited for their first time China for over a week! It was not easy this I can tell you. Even MIL’s sister said to us how impossible it is to find anything nice to eat for MIL. You might think it is because of the strange spices in Chinese food but no, she also doesn’t like/ wants to try any German or Finnish food she hasn’t had before. This results in very standardized dishes we get served whenever she makes food. Boooring!

As a last story I have still my favorite. It is both funny and sad so I never really know how to think about it. The one sentence MIL is using always and with always I mean nearly everyday we are over at her place and are about to leave “This might be the last time we can enjoy this together you never know when I’m dying!” According to Timo she has been saying this as long as he can remember, so at least 25 years now. Great way to cheer up your son MIL!

I hope this gave you a small idea about my mother-in-law. I can sum her up as kind person who is against anything new may it be technology or food. I tried to find better pictures of her but she always runs away when I appear with my phone pointing her direction.