Tag Archives: Chinese mother in law

Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Family, Mom in Law

Poor little cousin

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Let me tell you a story of my mother-in-law. I know, there have been many stories about her in this blog but she just gives me so many things to write about. I do not know how she does it but somehow something happens nearly every day to write about and I believe she is far from being done with crazy.

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Uncle, distant relative, Granny and Aunty

This particular story happened last summer when we were in Xi’an. It was once again one of those days when we visited my wife’s grandmother. Not only is the grandmother living there but also her uncle with his wife and daughter. This little girl is about four to five years old and the younger cousin of my wife. Basically every time we visit MIL has something to complain about such as granny is playing too much Mahjong, granny is not drinking enough water, granny is spoiling the little girl too much, and granny is not doing enough for the little girl. In case it’s not granny’s fault it is either MIL’s brother, or my wife or father-in-law who has done something wrong.

 

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My wife feeding her little cousin

Where did I stop? Oh, everyone is doing something wrong. Alright, so we visited last summer once again. We were playing with my wife’s little cousin and MIL noticed the clothes of the poor little girl. She took a closer look at the girl, turned her about and then said to her brother “What are these for ugly clothes, how can you make her wear something like this?”

 

As you can see MIL is very delicate when forming accusation and taking always the highest care not to make anybody feel bad. Naturally all people were looking at the little girl and her clothes, then at uncle who looked confused and then at MIL who was still poking the girl and observing the clothes. What came then would be pretty weird for other people but is just another usual day for MIL.The uncle just looked at his older sister, smiled and replied “But older sister, you bought these clothes and gave them to her last time you visited”…

Of course MIL just tried to deny it as she never ever does anything wrong and has much better taste than this but father-in-laws comment about his wife makes more and more sense “She has water in the head” 脑子进水了 or “She has fishes in the head” 脑子养鱼了.FIL is indeed a very wise man.

 

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MIL with her niece

This brings me to MIL and how stubborn she is. However she must have gotten her stubbornness and weirdness from somewhere and  granny comes into the play here. Grandmother is also really weird and stubborn, sure no competition for MIL but still playing in a high weirdness league. For example one of the main discussions they have when visiting granny is that she should not cut the little girls hairs anymore. For unknown reasons she always cuts the hairs of the girl very short and very unprofessional. The result is that the girl always has some really crazy hairstyle when we visit. Everyone is telling grandma to stop doing it, she then agrees but as soon as the girl’s parents are out at work she goes back to practice her hairdressing techniques on her. Thankfully the little girl doesn’t seem to mind it yet but I have the feeling that the combined influence of weird and stubborn grandma and MIL visiting will create yet another crazy family member I can write about in a few years.

Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family, Mom in Law

Our new Home

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The renovation of our new home started in April during our trip to Germany. Perhaps new home is only a half-truth as it is on one hand our new place to be but on the other hand it is also a totally rundown apartment from 1972.

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Beautiful, isn’t it?

The previous owner lived there since 1976, tried to keep all useless junk in the apartment and to make matters even worse, he smoked there the entire time inside and in the end even up to 3 cigarette cartons a week! I believe now you may start to create a picture on just how messed up everything was there when we started. Sadly I don’t have pictures from before we started throwing stuff out but the several in the gallery might give you some idea how we struggled. These pictures were taken after most stuff had been thrown out and only some basic furniture was left.

 

I can’t give you any blueprint of the layout (sure I could draw one myself now but I am a bit too lazy for that) so I mention only the basics, 90m²/~968ft² with bedroom, children room, kitchen, bathroom, dining room, living room and most importantly for our little bunnies: a balcony.

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Every room is full of junk

In April we managed only to remove all the old stuff including furniture, wallpapers, carpet flooring and tiles in bathroom and kitchen. Especially the wallpapers proofed to be very hard work as nearly every room was decorated with Ingrain wallpaper, a nightmare glued to the wall…

Mother-in-law and my wife also helped a lot during the renovation process by cleaning the old radiators (there are several old cast iron ones!) and repainting them several times until they reached once again a nice white surface color. As the ceiling was very yellow due to all the smoking for so long time we had to prepare it before painting. This preparation meant we had to “scrub” the ceiling several times with a brush and washing soda until we could paint on few layers of special anti-nicotine color. At least my wife had some fun already by choosing the new wallpaper for each room with special focus for the baby room. Sadly we had not time to start put new wallpapers on the room for little Nathan as some guy still needed to fix a huge crack in the wall! (40 years ago the roof was leaking water in and that part of the wall settled a bit resulting in a crack in the wall…)

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Bathroom after I ripped everything out and had fun with the tiles for several days

Now during our time back in Finland some professionals are installing new windows and water pipes as those two things are the original setup from 1972 and not working anymore as intended. In September we will then finally move to Germany but we will have to stay with my parents for at least a month as the apartment is far from ready. Tile and wood flooring are still missing and not to forget that there is no bathroom or kitchen yet. After all that we will have some busy time buying new furniture as we are selling most of our old stuff here in Finland to make the whole moving process a bit easier to handle.

 

Crazy Chinese People, Dad in Law, Mom in Law

Eating out with my Chinese Family

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Eating out with my Chinese family or mostly with my in-laws is always a very special occasion. Not because it happens so rarely but due to their interesting behavior which includes that mother-in-law is always right and father-in-law is very careful.

There is something like a pattern to the way everything works out. It usually starts when deciding where and what to eat. Of course I get always asked what I would like to eat but somehow plans change and I get for example not my visit to my favorite BBQ place a second time during our stay! (So evil people, oh how I suffer). This is due to one simple reason, we get invited out of nowhere by other people for the evening or next day so my beloved BBQ is on hold until there is a time slot available.

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After all this is settled we need to arrive in time which never works out. Somehow we are always late, for example we should be there at 1pm but we just start leaving by 1pm. But here again it has one very simple reason. Mother-in-law is the one who gets to know what time we should be there but tells us that we should leave by 1pm. So when we arrive she says that she thought it was agreed to leave by 1pm and not to arrive by that time! Sounds weird and it certainly is without being able to provide any further information on why this happens every time (my wife is also confused).

The next hurdle begins when sitting down at our table. Here it starts immediately with father-in-law taking all our tableware and clean it with the wipes he took along. These wipes are dry so all what happens is that in case there was any dirt or similar on them he just spreads it evenly out. Next it’s the turn for mother-in-law by putting the chopsticks into the tea to kill the bacteria. That the tea is already on a temperature to drink and thus not that suitable to fight of germs does not matter. Even better, she fills up one cup of tea and “cleans” each other cup by pouring this very tea from cup to cup resulting once again in a very nice spreading of dirt if it ever was somewhere.

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Mother-in-law has her tea ready

As I wrote in another article so long time ago the most important step is actually before we sit down. In here I have to observe where exactly mother-in-law or any other aunty or grandma is sitting and from there I have to choose the seat furthest away from them. The importance of this step can be explained in a very simple way: survival! Whenever I sit too close to them my plate just keeps on piling more food and whatever I try, I cannot eat up everything. As I was raised in Europe you usually learn to eat everything on you plate which can be in China very quickly be a death sentence (for your waist).

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Grandma is very quick to pack up my plate with food

In case there are some leftovers my MIL has always few plastic bags with her or just asks the staff for some food boxes. This might strike you as pretty normal but this food is not for us, nono, it is for the wild cats she feeds in the yard. No matter what food it is or how spicy, she brings it to the cats. These animals are fed so well that they already ignore the occasional mouse sprinting by them but what am I saying, there are of course no mice according to mother-in-law!

After all of this is over the paying starts. When it is just us with the in-laws it does not really matter but as soon as other people are there the battle starts who has to pay. As this is very common in China I won’t go any further detail besides that I have already seen mother-in-law racing one of her friends through a restaurant to see who will be first able to pay…

 

And now some pictures just to make you a bit hungry

 

What are you experiences when going out to eat?