Tag Archives: crazy Chinese family

Food Nightmares

July 3, 2017 CrazyChineseFamily 30 Comments

I bet you know already who this blog post will be about. Indeed it is about my dear crazy Chinese mother-in-law. In the previous blog post I wrote about her cooking skills or the lack of thereof. This is not so much about her cooking skills but her strange mind and the weird ideas she gets when it comes to combining food.

MIL is a special person with a very unique view of the world. I have written already too often how she creating something like an alternate reality in her head whenever she feels like it. Last year she suddenly got stomach problems and ate less and less. The person who usually ate non-stop, even woke up at night to prepare some food to eat, ate even less than me. My wife urged her to see the doctor but MIL didn’t want to until nearly a year passed by. Then the doctor found quickly the cause of all her problems as she had bacterial gastroenteritis and gave her medications against it. Because she had waited too long to get the checkup her stomach never recovered completely.

Apparently she told other people some interesting story on how she got the stomach problems. The reason for all her troubles is that whenever she had food prepared she had to wait till the food got a bit colder before eating it. This is because my wife is very busy and works often while eating/ needs to finish something before eating. The bit colder food caused so much troubles for her stomach that she got the bacterial gastroenteritis! It seems it never crossed her mind that the reason could be herself handling stray cats on a daily basis feeding them leftover food while not washing her hands most of the times. Perhaps another reason for her sensitive stomach could be her crazy food combinations she developed in the past years.

I do not know how she got the notion of combining certain food but whenever I see it or even think about it I lose all my appetite. Have you ever eaten tortilla chips and use coffee flavored ice cream as a dip? How about a pepperoni pizza and dipping the slices in chocolate flavored yoghurt? What do you think about throwing in some random ice cream into the rice bowl and mix it with some chicken? The list goes on and on and once again I don’t feel hungry any longer, perhaps thinking more about her eating habits will help me with my diet. The thing is that she is not only doing it at home but in restaurants as well these days. I remember last year eating at Pizza Hut in Xi’an and she was spreading the matcha tea cake on top of her pizza. Here in Germany she goes wild mixing different foods together at the restaurant such as using vanilla sauce on her salad.

Wonder how they taste when eating it together with ice cream!

Nathan was someone we worried about. We feared that he might pick up on her weird ideas on how to eat food but we worried too much about it. Right from the beginning he disliked her food or whatever creation of food combinations she ate herself, no matter what she prepared he didn’t eat it or only a little bit. However when we are eating in restaurants he eats so much, sometimes it appears he stops breathing just to eat quicker. Worst of all for MIL (and amusing for us) is that he eats everything even at the Chinese Restaurant while he does not eat the same dishes prepared by her.

Do you have some unique ways of combining food which no one else is doing?

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Guest Post

Guest Post: Tiger Mom & Eagle Dad

June 21, 2017 CrazyChineseFamily 20 Comments

This is a guest blog post from TutorMandarin – an online Mandarin tutor service that teaches students how to speak Chinese using an innovative mobile app and PC Software.

“Tiger Mom” and “Eagle Dad” are now both commonly recognized terms by Western and Eastern parents alike. These terms refer to a strict type of parent that are prevalent in both the Chinese culture as well as other Asian cultures. Today, we’ll dive a bit deeper into where these terms come from, what they mean, and what they say about parenting.

What is a Tiger Mom?

“Tiger Mom” came into widespread use after the Yale law professor Amy Chua published her book – Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011). Amy Chua is a second generation immigrant and was raised in a traditional Chinese way. Her book reflects on how traditional Chinese parenting affected her and how she applies a similar strategy her kids upbringing. Her book shows her attempts to use traditional Chinese parenting techniques with a modern Chinese daughter who frequently rebels – forcing her to decide whether to double down on her traditional parenting style or adjust. The book is a memoir of her transformation of being a mother of two daughters while bringing them up in the traditional strict parenting way.

How Strict is a Tiger Mom?

Amy Chua revealed in the book that she never allowed her kids to have a playdate, sleepover, watch TV, participate in a school play, or choose their own extra-curricular activities. The kids were also not allowed to “get any grade less than an A” or “not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama.” On the weekends, they were made to take piano and violin lessons, in which they had to reach certain goals or else they didn’t go a break or even dinner. Chua claims these strict policies are the reason that her children became so successful later on in school and music studies. She argues that this type of parenting is common in Asian families and acceptable.

What is an Eagle Dad?

In 2012, a video of a 4-year-old Chinese boy shivering in the snow with only his underpants went viral. His father was filmed while his boy trembled and begged for his dad to hug him. Instead of doing so, the dad made the boy lay on the cold, freezing snow first before he actually held him. The dad, Li Sheng is the former president of a bedding company from Nanjing, was given the nickname “Eagle Dad.” He didn’t just want his son to succeed, he wanted him to soar. “Like an eagle, I push my child to the limit so he can learn how to fly.

How strict is too strict a dad?

Duoduo, the shivering boy, who was born several months premature. The doctor announced that he might suffer from cerebral palsy. Due to this, his dad made him undergo extreme physical and mental endurance to build up his strength. At age 5, he became the youngest person ever to fly a light airplane, covering a distance of 30 km. At age 6, he completed a 5.5km marathon with his father wearing only a red underwear as well. Now age 8, Duoduo has signed up for sales management courses at Nanjing University. Duoduo is home schooled by a private teacher along with his Eagle Dad. Waking up at 6:30 every morning covering studies such as art, math, music, business and finance, languages, technology, 3D printing, robotics, and even military exercise training. He’s even going to participate in a world-class robotic programming competition in the UK soon.

Does strict parenting work?

People might argue that strict parenting is against nature. Children should have the right to have a happy childhood without too much pressure. However, others might argue that making certain rules since they are young is an effective way to train them for the future. We are going to break down into two parts, upside and downside.

The Advantages of Strictness

Like the movie Whiplash, as the professor once said “I was there to push people beyond what’s expected of them. I believe that’s an absolute necessity.” Some believe that by pushing people to their limits, parents must be strict. Amy Chua truly believes that strict parenting is necessary for her children’s success. Eagle Dad believes that Duoduo will thank him in the future for what he did for him. At the heart of it, they harbor a belief that children are too young to know what is good for them and what is not. By following their past experience of success, strict parenting seems like a perfect model to follow. However, is that the only path to success?

The Disadvantages of Strictness

Children brought up through strict parenting often turn out either extremely obedient or wildly rebellious. Also, it is noted that children of Tiger Moms and Eagle Dads are so afraid of upsetting them, they are prone doing whatever it takes to avoid punishment or trouble. This includes lying, concealing their feelings, and more. Also, a lifetime of the following order hampers both their critical thinking and creativity.

To be strict or not to be strict?

It is the number-one question among all parents. Children’s personalities and abilities vary and change over time. Parents can start from either authoritarian or permissive method, step by step observing how your kids adapt to the style. Once you’ve made the decision to parent in a certain way, make every effort to stick with it. Whether you get advice from the people around you or follow the academic research, you will have to decide what is going to work best for you, your family, your child, and the society in which you live.

What do You think about Tiger Moms and Eagle Dads?

Cooking, Mom in Law

My food is much Better

June 18, 2017 CrazyChineseFamily 36 Comments

Dear Chinese mother-in-law is honoring us currently with her presence and thanks to that I have no shortage of stories to share with you. Originally I had something else planned for today but this blog is like a therapy for me and I really need to get this out. You have read it probably too often already but my MIL is certainly something else. She knows everything better than anyone else and she does everything better than anyone else, at least that is how she sees the world. The reality is very much different but she would never accept that.

Before coming to Germany my wife gave her mother a little food shopping list. To be precise this shopping list was all about Liangpi 凉皮 the best noodle dish ever created. There are specialized restaurants in Xi’an which offer these noodles in a box to take away and mix the noodles and sauce yourself. You should consume the food within two weeks otherwise it might be not that good for you any longer but two weeks are more than enough. When we were last time in China we brought home 16 boxes for just the two of us. I think they didn’t even last a week and I don’t even feel bad about it as they are just too delicious. When MIL heard that she should buy them for us her first reaction was “They don’t taste at all, they are terrible, I don’t buy them!” (She has never tried them before). Her second reaction was “They are too heavy, I don’t buy them!” (She wanted to take more of her weird stuff with). However my wife insisted that MIL would get them and her third reaction was “My homemade ones are much better!”. In the end my wife won and MIL took at least a few boxes with to Germany.

And even more of that, I am so hungry now

Now coming back to “My homemade ones are much better” I have to say that her Liangpi ain’t bad. They are actually pretty good as soon as you add some salt and spices (something she never does, she never uses salt for anything). But they are still no match for the takeaway Liangpi yet alone to the freshly made ones in certain restaurants. My mother-in-law believes that her food is so much better than in any restaurant. Last year she tried to proof that to me and my dad when we were in China by making Pizza for us. She had never made pizza before and had no clue what to add. She even tried to put in Durians and Bananas, thankfully my wife stopped her from that. I can’t remember the taste but I do know that my stomach was upset for the next two days.

Our kitchen looks a bit different now with MIL being here

MIL is preparing food for us now every day, same as she had done during the past visits over the years. While her noodle dishes are rather good, the other dishes are barely eatable. Whenever she made some dishes to be eaten with rice I prepared myself for the worst. The good thing is that my wife concvinced her mother to make noodle related dishes at least five times a week. No matter how much my wife complains about the cooking skills her mother still believes she is the best chef who has ever walked this (round) earth (MIL kind of believes that the earth is flat). In fact MIL does not even like most of the food she prepares but she won’t admit to it but we can clearly see it when she suddenly stops eating after one or two bites. Her explanation for that is usually that she doesn’t want to eat too much so that we have more, yeah right.

How are your cooking skills?