You can just imagine what the menfolk in his family are saying about him behind his back. 
Improved maybe, but still vein-poppingly slow, I’ll bet. I was (shock! horror!) visiting the in-laws last weekend and the new freeway was nose-to-tail all the way from Shalu to Houlong. Added almost an hour to the journey. :swear:
Well, I guess I can count myself lucky.
The inlaws are in Jilong, so it’s close enough that it’s no trial to get there, yet I can still say “I’d better get back, I’ve got things to do” the next day, and I’m away free. My mother-in-law’s got to be back running her restaurant by Day 2, so no going down to visit her parents.
My father-in-law is an only child, so there’s no aunts and uncles. Usually just 9 of us for CNY, and we all know each other well and get along fine.
My wife’s family don’t drink more than a couple of glasses, but stock up on some beers for me, so I can drink as much or as little as I feel like.
My mother-in-law’s a great cook, and always makes good veggie food for me.
Only on the first CNY, when I was meeting the grandparents for the first time was I the centre of attention. Now I can relax a lot more. (I think some of the stress for a lot of people’s CNY is that it’s their first time meeting some of the rellies).
I like games, and my wife’s grandmother loves mah jong, so after dinner I can keep myself occupied playing mah jong until the wee hours and knocking back a few beers, but if it gets too much, there’s always someone else to subsitute for me. We play with 10NT coins, so it’s got the added excitement without threatening to break the bank (Made about 400NT last time).
My wife’s family mostly speak Mandarin with each other, so I can generally follow the conversation, but I want to do a little study this weekend, and practice some Taiwanese too.
No kiddies in the family so we only need to fork for hongbaos for the parents and 2 grandparents.
I quite enjoy it really. I’ve still ogt another 10 days holiday after i get back, and can’t afford to go awayanywhere, so couldn’t really ask for much better.
Brian
I know it’s a cliche to speak poorly of one’s mother in law. That said, my MIL is pure evil. You know those blowsy old Taiwanese ladies that muscle and push everyone out of the way so they can board a bus first? You’ve likely just been shoved aside by my dear MIL.
Her hair is wigged out, a bit like boxing promoter Don King’s. Her clothes were purchased just before her escape from the Mainland. She hasn’t felt a need to update since then. She listens to no one. Her will must be obeyed.
Her drink is this vile home brewed fermentation of (steady yourself) hairless rat fetuses. She calls it “Chinese medicine.” I am not joking about this.
I’ve been dreading CNY for months now. I fear my life may actually be in danger.
WoMD - you’re funny! You should post more often. Give us an update of the MIL after CNY.
[quote=“Wanker of Mass Destruct”]Her hair is wigged out, a bit like boxing promoter Don King’s. Her clothes were purchased just before her escape from the Mainland. She hasn’t felt a need to update since then. She listens to no one. Her will must be obeyed.
Her drink is this vile home brewed fermentation of (steady yourself) hairless rat fetuses. She calls it “Chinese medicine.” I am not joking about this.
.[/quote]
And her daughter?
I feel lucky.
My in-laws are in Shit ze, I mean Shi Tze.
For me, its okay. I speak fluent Mandarin, and my wife’s extended family is entirely Hakkanese, so I STILL can’t understand the conversations…I kind of go into a medetative state until the meal, the eat like a pig and sleep the rest of the afternoon. Its been like this every Chinese New Year that I’ve been in Taiwan since 1990 
. Its pleasant in its own way. THIS year was painful because it was )#@@#@#$ cold 
.
Being able to speak Chinese makes it worse in some ways. When you do try to start a real conversation, not just answering daft questions, they just seem to clam up, make their excuses and disappear, or they may ignore your attempts altogether and revert back to daft questions.
The classic question is ‘Is it foggy in England?’ They always ask that one, and not just once! Funny thing is, they are never satisfied until I assure them that England is a very foggy place for most of the year. If I tell them that it’s foggy only some of the time they seem quite disappointed. Weird.
At least when I spoke no Chinese whatsoever there was that sort of ‘mateyness’ that you get when two people don’t understand each others languages and have to get by just using gestures and smiles.
It’s my 7th CNY in Taiwan. Jeez i’m lying it’s my 6th, two years ago I spent CNY at the factory my wife worked at, in Guangdong.
My MIL is pretty nice to me all the time and as she lives around the corner so to speak it’s easy to go there year round and for CNY. According to my wife she really likes me. My wife’s father died before we got married so I never had the chance to meet him.
Therefor the family always went to the oldest brother for CNY, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews where there for CNY dinner or visited during the 4 days of CNY.
It’s always been a little boring as everyone else liked gambling, play dice and mah jong. In the beginning I joined but just lost to much money, what they absolutely liked but I didn’t though.
The first couple of years I used to get a hongbao but this has been skipped since last year as the older brother has got some investment trouble and lost most of his (family) money.
And since he actually lost the families money there are no more happy CNY’s in the family.
3th brother isn’t welcome anymore, all nieces are married and have to go to their inlaws, the younger brothers are or were in military service. It’s a strange bunch now.
y.
After the first year I would stay a few hours and gamble a little, watch TV and when I started to get bored just headed for home which was easy as it’s nearby. Everyday the same, have lunch, TV, gamble, go home. Except for the wife, she played mah jong all night, for 4 or 5 days straight. And they didn’t play for 10 NT, it’s big bucks.
But not speaking Chinese it could be very difficult for me to communicate with the mother and brothers. Although the nieces have had a university education and speak pretty well English, one of them actually has learned French and spent 1 year in Paris. The nephews are dumb sucked and aren’t interested in anything. And there used to come a friend, who ran an export business and spoke English pretty fluid, visit every CNY for afternoon tea so I could catch up with him on the year gone b
This year was completely different though, CNY evening my wife and I spent at home, eating hotpot. Second day afternoon we went to one of my wife’s aunts which was OK as my wife’s cousin, who still lives there with his wife and 4 children, speaks English very well. funny point, we had lunch at around twelve at home and dinner at four at aunts’ place.
Second day we went to my MIL’s place. After giving her hongbao, we had lunch, I watched TV for a while, and then at around 2:30 PM I went home.
My wife stayed as the sisters and nieces dropped by.
It really got crowded and I don’t like to much of a crowd. You must know that my MIL lives in a part of the old ancestral farm. She only has a small kitchen and tiny bedroom, so it’s not comfortable at all spending the day there with the bunch.
What I really hate on CNY is the dreadful weather, cold and wet.
What’s special though is that we have a 6 days “night market” going on here. And on the 6th day the we have the “big pig” festival.
Anyway, I really would like to leave Taiwan for once on CNY, go to the sunny beaches for scuba diving. I try to plan for the occasion but always at the last moment something prevents me from going.
[quote=“Spack”]No matter what coping strategies you adopt while staying at the inlaws for CNY, 90% of the time you are sitting around bored out of your freakin’ mind.
.[/quote]
Spack,I agree 100% with you and M.Theresa too. To be honest though, the third visit,things got better for me and so maybe next time I’ll have an even better time. Can you believe my GF threatened to commit suicide (not joking) if I didn’t go to her countryside hometown with her?!I refused to go weeks in advance(I refused to go back ever since I left the first time!),knowing how horrible it was the last two times and tears poured as she begged me so I gave in(I agreed to go for 2 days max.) However she tricked me and I ended up staying an incredible 6 days!I’m so proud of this feat!It was like a challenge-just how much can you take? The trick is to get really drunk as soon as possible and then you don’t care. Having satellite tv helps incredibly so you have movies while everyone speaks hakka. One hard thing is being a guest for more than a night and having my GF’s mum bellow at her every morning when we want to sleep in.My GF’s mum is pure countryside Hakka woman and gets up at 4 and starts banging pieces of metal,making a racket downstairs.I even felt the bed shake due to her heavy snoring from her room below. Staying there is tolerable for a day but when you’re coming from faraway you can’t just stay for one night. The good things I realized last week is FREE,DELICIOUS FOOD available at any time,BIG TV to watch FREE American movies(who cares if nobody can speak to you!),getting away from the pollutedness of the city and appreciating the simple things in life,such as having your own clean bathroom(GF’s mum always leaves her tattered bras hanging around in her bathroom-yuck).These are good things! Since I can’t speak to GF’s family,they probably think I’m an alcoholic the way I was guzzling beer after beer.
My in-laws are great. My FIL served in the Japanese Army and lived in Vietnam during the US war there. My wife grew up there with one sister and both of them went to American schools. The youngest sister, one of those “(OK-we-wanted-a-boy-but-we’ll-stop-at-three-girls”: daughters works at JAA airlines as a manager. All three daughters speak excellent English, and about two dozen other languages (my wife clicks along in six alone). My FIL is also a skeptic and professes not to believe in anything supernatural. My MIL is extremely accepting, but doesn’t know how to talk to me. After 13 years of marriage I am very accepted, they complain about the other family members to me, and my FIL bitches at me like he does everyone else when he is not pleased with my behavior. MY in-laws are really wonderful people and I love them all very much.
pics of my recent trip were are here. I am a bit grungy, as it was too damn cold to shower.
It’s true that 90% of the time you’re bored. But you know, what I hate about New Years – we always go UP to Tai/pei – is not the boredom or the traffic, but the (@#$*& freezing rain and &@^#$% low temperatures. I just can’t stand being wet and cold. I fucking HATE Tai/pei – can’t understand why the city just doesn’t empty out from Jan to March. When I was a newbie many years ago I remarked to a wiser long -termer that if they could just get rid of the KMT they could build a paradise here, and he laughed and shook his head: “Nope. There’d still be the weather.”
The posts to this thread have been great! I have enjoyed them immensely.
Vorkosigan
I was really dreading visiting the out-laws this year, as last year (my first “enjoying” the holiday with them) was not an overly pleasant experience. However, I was pleasantly surprised this year.
Much of the time my bf and I spent time in the bedroom, which has heat, TV, DVD player, PS2, etc… I surfed the internet while he played video games or we watched TV/DVDs. When we had to be with the family, for bai-bai or meals, we just wrapped up in sweatpants and sweatshirts and toughed it out. I actually had small (very brief) occasions to talk to his mother, with her even helping me with my Mandarin one time. That was nice, 'cause in the past she usually would just laugh when I’d try to speak Mandarin or complain I didn’t know enough after being here over a year.
I decided this year to give his parents a hong bao. I know I didn’t have to, but I thought it might be good for “international relations,” as it were. I don’t think his parents hate me, but they are not happy that I’m “preventing” them from having grandkids, by “keeping” their only son from getting married. 
Even so, they’ve always been civil to me, including me in family gatherings and dinners (even dinners out, which they pay for) without complaining – at least not that I’m aware.
My bf has said, and I’m actually starting to think he’s right, that they like me more than they like his sister’s bf. :shock: And, he’s the right gender and the right ethnicity. Of course, having met her bf, I can see why. But, I digress.
Either out of guilt for being shown up by their sons’ foreign bf, or just plain Chinese propriety, the next day they gave me a hong bao in return. It was actually more than I gave them, which was nice. :mrgreen: I was also surprised to get a hong bao from my bf’s grandpa. I’ve never talked to the man, as he mostly speaks Taiwanese and my Mandarin is limited. He told me, through my bf, that he wanted to give me one 'cause he knows I’ve never had one. I thought that was really nice and thanked him appropriately. 
Though, my bf was a bit miffed 'cause his grandpa gave me the same amount of money that he (grandpa) gave him (bf).
Since I hadn’t expected the money and they pay for me a lot, I invited the out-laws, including his sister, her bf and one (cute 
) cousin out to dinner. The outlaws were busy, but the sis, bf and cuz’ joined us for a nice Italian dinner.
The only part I found difficult, and this is not exclusive to CNY, is spending time with the extended family. His mother has 8 siblings and his father have 8 siblings. So, there are 16 aunts & uncles on both sides. Add to that all the cousins and I can’t keep any of them straight (pardon the term ). Actually, my bf says he can’t either. Most of them speak no, or just a little, English. So, much of my time going to this aunt’s house or that uncles house is spent being bored – if I remember I buy a paper, do the crossword puzzle or read a book – 'cause most of the relatives are busy watching Taiwanese variety shows, playing mahjong or playing cards. His relatives, even those I know can speak English, rarely talk to me.
My bf tells me I should make an effort to communicate more with the ones I know speak English or try speaking to them in Mandarin. But, it is difficult when you don’t know when to break into a conversation without being rude, 'cause you can’t understand what is going on. Besides, I have an aversion to always being the one to make the effort. In my experience, if there is a guest in the house, it is the job of the majority to make that person (or persons) feel welcome. Not, the other way around. So, it is a tough battle to fight to force myself to always make that effort.
Anyway… It went well enough for the 6 days of CNY, that I’m not dreading being with them again… well, not as much. However, after 6 days “straight” with them, I think I’ll avoid any family gatherings this weekend. :mrgreen:
Great pics. Good lookin’ kids. I wish I knew how to put pics on th web like that. My folks would love that.