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Unexpected Behavior

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So far my Chinese mother-in-law has visited us three times. The first time together with her husband staying for a month with us, the second time for three months when Nathan was born and the third time this year again for three months. Besides that we have been multiple times in China spanning altogether again roughly 4 months, not to speak of all the video chats over the years. You might think that after so much time that I would know about MIL and what to expect. No.

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MIL and bloated Nathan

Each time she visits or we go to China I learn a bit more about her. This is usually a good thing however in this case it results that all my prior “knowledge” about her becomes useless. Every time when I have the feeling that I know what kind of person she is and how her mind works she destroys it by doing something totally out of her normal behavior. For example I always thought for years that she loves to share everything she has with her family that she likes giving. This was true for many years but then suddenly she was the exact opposite. When my wife was still a beauty consultant at the airport in Finland she got many cosmetic products for free so of course she gave tons of it to her mother. In fact she gave so many things that MIL wouldn’t be able to use them all up in the next 40 years, several suitcases full. When my wife asked her mother to give her some creme as she had forgotten to take it with her MIL just refused. She needs it herself urgently, she has not enough and so on. Not enough? Alright…

I told you already about her magical ability to twist reality as according to herself she has never done anything wrong in her life. The toaster she broke 3 years ago in Finland?  Wasn’t her, it just fell apart itself. All the bowls she dropped? Wasn’t her, they just fell down themselves as someone else has place them in a bad position on the table. The ugly clothes she bought her niece? Wasn’t her, everyone else remembers the story wrong. You see, it is a bit strange with her. When we told her not to spoil Nathan so much and be more strict with him when he does something wrong she didn’t understand. My wife asked her then how she raised her up and MIL said that she did the exact same thing as with Nathan now. Lets just say I could see my wife’s jaw drop after that remark. When my wife was little her mother was pretty much what you hear about Asian Tiger Moms. Yeah, MIL had forgotten/ twisted her view on the reality that she has never been a strict mother, punishing if needed with a slap or two.

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She smiles but you never know what will happen next!

Another thing she surprised me with two years ago was how and to whom she expresses it when she is angry. There was this one time we went to the Muslim Area in Xi’an in order to get some nice food. Aunty, MIL’s sister, had the idea to take us to a certain restaurant with nice food whileas MIL wanted to go to a total different restaurant. They both did not argue but something very interesting happened once the food was served. I immediately digged in and loved the food (a cold noodle dish) however when MIL tried her noodles she started shouting at the waitress how they could dare to bring her so terrible food, the noodles were too hard and all in all it was the most disgusting food she has ever tried. Another jaw dropper…all the huge argument starting like a fire between my wife and her mother is another story altogether. While they had their argument I ate the delicious noodles and was wondering about MIL. Later I experienced several times her “anger” directed towards other people when something didn’t work out the way she wanted. Funny though that this anger is always unleashed on people who are on a bit lower social status than herself. I am saying this because once she returned bread in a very expensive supermarket. The reason was that the bread had tiny worms crawling around just a day after buying it. Both my wife and I expected another furious clash but no, she calmly talked to the staff and the manager of the store and even said it is not that bad and that no refund was needed. Once again a jaw dropper!

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The most disgusting food ever

My crazy Chinese mother-in-law is surely a strange human being. I am not condemning her for that but it is always strange as she is so unpredictable, you never can even guess what will happen next. Despite all of that we still love her, even though she is a bit crazy and her next three month visit is already been planned in order to help us as I am mostly not able to do much due to my health. Without doubt she will surprise us once again with some unexpected behaviour.

Do you know a person who always surprises you with unexpected behavior?

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Mom in Law

The World of Animals according to MIL

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Remember when I wrote about the Neumünster Zoo some months ago? Well, we visited the zoo again together with dear mother-in-law as I got a family year ticket from my brother for my birthday. I think I wrote at some point already shortly about some strange things mother-in-law is doing such as calling animals by the wrong name. I actually don’t know anymore when and in which post I wrote about it so here I give you now the complete insanity.

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Sea Lion

 

I know that there are always some animals where the average human doesn’t know the exact name or what the animal is exactly. My crazy Chinese mother-in-law is taking it to an entire different level. It all started with one of the first animals you see at the zoo in a big aquarium. When she saw the fishes swimming she was exclaiming something like “Oh, look at those sharks!”. Nope, it was just a bunch of sturgeon and they actually do look a bit like sharks so both my wife and I didn’t mind it. But then, it came, the disaster from which point onward we both listened very carefully what she called the different animals. We reached a big enclosure with a very big animal swimming around, MIL was like “Ohhh, look at that big sea-lion!”. My wife’s face was showing utter disbelief on what she just heard from her mother. The big animal swimming there and climbing out from time to time just to jump in again was nothing else than a damn big white furry polar bear!  How can she mistaken those two animals? I mean she even posed together with a sea lion a couple of years ago when we visited the Qinling Zoological Park!

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Big Fish

 

Some animals she actually got right such as identifying birds as birds, monkeys as monkeys and the big pig as a big pig. But that was pretty much all she got right. Going around we saw according to her many different kinds of dogs, a huge variety of goats, the occasional tiger and more dogs. We actually also saw a seal which looks a bit similar to a sea-lion but no, for her it was a big fish. I wonder how someone can’t distinguish deers from goats, groundhogs from dogs and  lynx from tigers? The last amusement of the day was when we saw few ponys which she pointed at for Nathan and told him “Look, more goats”.

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#Nathancuty with a goat

 

I offered already to give her as a birthday gift a children learning book about animals, perhaps she might get few more animals right at the next zoo visit. I hope Nathan won’t learn now any weird animal names thanks to his crazy Chinese Granny. It is just strange that she can’t recognize so many animals or just think that they are some goats, or dogs or whatnot. This whole thing is nearly as strange as a few weeks ago when there was a big rainbow in the sky and she was all excited as she has never seen any before in her life (even though even I saw few in China during my trips there…)

 

Do you have similar troubles as my Chinese mother-in-law when it comes to distinguish animals?

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Crazy Family, European Mom in Law

Guest Post: My Finnish Mother-in-law

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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.

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MIL at our son’s baptizing

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.

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MIL hiding behind my mother

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.