How Hard Is It?

Image comes from here, a Chinese Roommates tumblr which is cracking me right up though sadly doesn't seem to have had a new post in a while.
 
The same stupid thing happened in our house in the same week. The first time this idiotic incidence occurred, it severely irked me. But twice in one freaking week? I'm mega-irked now.

We buy imported milk here. Always have. Even Jeremy doesn't want to drink the Chinese milk since you never can be sure what's up with it. Plus, imported just tastes better. Of the imports, we purchase what is on sale. Sometimes it's from Australia. Other times, it's from Germany. And sometimes, like this time, it's from Italy. The milk is shelf-stable until opened, at which point, it must be refrigerated. We usually keep unopened ones in the fridge too so that they are nice and cold when needed.

The first time this happened this week, we left the milk on the table for Jeremy, as he usually requests us to. He uses it shortly after we leave since he doesn't have to go to work until after we've gone. Normally, Jeremy is good about putting the milk back. Annoying as it is, I can forgive one slip of the brain in forgetting to return the milk to the fridge. What reignites the rage inside of me though is that MIL is here ALL day with the baby. And she leaves it out on the table. Because. Because she's a fucking halfwit. I mean, really!

But still, I tried to forgive her too. I sent Jeremy a stern message via WeChat and he promised he'd be more careful. And as for MIL? I snarled at her in Chinese to put milk in the refrigerator. I figured they'd both pay more attention after that.

You'd think so, wouldn't you?

But of course, men are idiots who do stupid things so it is no surprise my husband found himself in a rush and forgot to put the milk away when he was done with it. And MIL is a total moron, so should I be surprised that when I came home today, our lovely Italian milk was STILL sitting on the table? No, I shouldn't be. Just like she shouldn't be surprised when I get angry at her lack of attention to detail. Or anything, really.

At least I can find solace in the fact that we're leaving in 2 months and after that, it will be a long while before MIL can ruin our dairy products. WOOHOO!

The New Nastiest Bathroom In Qingdao

What's your biggest fear? Sharks? Plane crashes? My MIL and her cooking? How about having to go to the bathroom while you're out and about? And no, I don't mean #1.

Have you ever been walking around somewhere and suddenly, your stomach decides with an evil cackle of glee that it's going to drop and you realize that you HAVE TO go to the bathroom NOW? Hear me now, dear friends for I swear to you all that I will NEVER EVER EVER complain about any public bathroom in the US again. My worst fear right now is having to take a dump while out somewhere in China. There is a HUGE difference, believe me.

We went out to Taidong today to do some shopping for Raelynn's upcoming birthday. We went to the Babies, Women's and Children's store which has hundreds of vendors and lots of good deals. We'd noticed last weekend that Raelynn had outgrown her nice dress shoes so we thought buying her a new pretty pair would cheer her up. As we walked around through the different stores, I felt my stomach pitch. Crap, I thought. I'll try to hold it. But I realized that was going to be impossible. I turn to the guy manning the shop we were in and ask him where the bathroom is. He kindly points as he tells me to go left and then straight.

As it turns out, I could have found it based on smell alone. Chinese public bathrooms smell like death warmed over, rotten urine and low tide at the pier, and that's on a good day. Jeremy urges me to wait. "I can't," I tell him. I know I'm not going to walk into the Ritz or anything. I know it's not going to be pretty. I know it's going to be like one of these nasty bathrooms I've seen before. But honestly, I wasn't expecting it to be even worse than the worst ones I've seen.

I feel like I'm going to explode as I round the corner, Seoul curiously staring up at me from the carrier. "Sorry, girl," I tell her as we further immerse ourselves into the stench that had wafted into the corridor to welcome us to the bathroom. And suddenly, I stop short. There's a woman standing and waiting and as I line up behind her, I see the most horrifying thing a gal who needs to take a shit could possibly see in a public bathroom...NO DOORS ON THE STALLS. Not on any of them!

I found this photo here, from someone who apparently had a similar reaction to finding a bathroom like this. I didn't have my camera with me and even if I did, I had more pressing issues like trying to poop without being watched.

In the bathroom I encountered, the stalls were taller at least but there were no doors. If it were a matter of having to pee, I'd have held it. It was either poop here or poop in my pants. I scurried to the last stall because there was no stall across from it. A shred more privacy than the others, I thought. But as I hurried to do what I'd come to do, some of the others doing their business had spotted me and my darling baby come through and I could hear their commentary. Oh what a pretty baby! Look at that baby! All the while, I'm thinking, NO! DON'T look over here! I'm trying to poop in peace! Yeesh! GO AWAY! 

I guess I should be grateful that there were stalls at all. A friend of mine here had once told me about how she and her husband had been on a bus in a rural part of China and when the bus made a pit stop, she desperately needed to pee. She followed the other women to the bathroom and discovered the bathroom was no more than a room with holes in the ground. The other women all crouched down and pooped, talking to each other as they did. THAT would be the only thing more disturbing than what I experienced today.

To top the whole crappy (pun intended) experience off, there was no sink in the bathroom. NO SINK. Fortunately for me, it's not my first day in China so I am never without hand sanitizer. And because I have 2 kids I always have wet wipes. Still, the whole thing left me with a disgusted feeling. I'm not sure what was the worst part - having to poop like that while out, having to poop like that in a bathroom like that, having to poop like that in a bathroom like that while other people are actively talking about me and how pretty my baby is, getting ready to pull up my pants when some woman and her young son come to wait for the stall I am using and then start talking about me and how pretty my baby is, the lack of a sink...yes, I think ALL of this put together makes me say with certainty this is THE nastiest bathroom in all of Qingdao.

What A Pisser!

This month is already halfway over and I realize I've been slacking on the posts. Sorry, I've just been a bit pissy about certain situations that I have little to no control over and am just trying to cope with that. But as a wise (or drunk) person once said, "It's better to be pissed off than pissed on." I couldn't agree more. And I'm sure the stairs in our building would wholeheartedly agree.

For the last couple of weeks, someone has been peeing in our stairs. I've mentioned before that our building is 8 stories with no elevator. On each floor, there are just 2 units. This is very typical of Chinese buildings that were constructed 15 years ago, like ours. The first time the pissing occurred, it was on the 2nd floor landing. I saw it when Raelynn and I had come home from school and it looked like someone poured powder laundry detergent on it but had otherwise not cleaned it up.

I later found out from Jeremy who'd been informed by his mother that the people on the 2nd floor were pissed off (and rightfully so) because they were, in a way, pissed on. The culprit? It is rumored that a young boy on the 7th floor is to blame. He's older than Raelynn by at least 3 years, probably more.

Just about every day, there's been a new puddle of pee in the stairs. Once, it was between our floor and the 5th floor. The other night when my husband came home, I was busy nursing the baby when I heard Jeremy come in and put his things down. Then I could hear him going up the stairs and calling out to the folks up there, shouting about who peed all over the stairs. No one would admit to it. What pigs.

While many people here just endure stupid shit like this, including my husband on certain issues, Jeremy did not sit back on this one. He wrote out an angry note and taped it downstairs on the 2nd floor landing where the most urination has taken place. I had an inkling what it said but to be sure, I asked him and he said it basically translated to say that this is disgusting, this is our building and whoever is peeing in the stairs needs to have respect for the others in the building. He also added some mild insult at the end, according to him. I see my Miami is rubbing off on him. Passive Aggressive Notes: China Edition, here we come. I'll try to snap a photo of it. When we went for our evening walk, he didn't feel like stopping to take a photo for me as we passed it.

As we walked, we discussed the territorial pissings. If this happened once or twice with a small child, I'd be more forgiving. But this boy is old enough to hold it and old enough to know better. And shame on his parents or grandparents for allowing this. Even more shame for not going to clean it up. Let's just say for the sake of argument that Raelynn peed in the stairs. I would go and clean it up. I wouldn't just leave a big puddle of urine for everyone to step around.

Jeremy says he's going to try to talk to the mom or grandma of the boy again but I say he should wait until Raelynn makes another pee in her little potty and then quietly creep up the stairs and pour out her pee in front of their door. He made a horrified face, and I must admit that is really nasty but you gotta fight fire with fire. Or in this case, piss with piss. Hopefully the note brought out enough shame for this bullshit to stop.

I guess we should be grateful though...at least it's not poop.

Chez Puke

On Sunday, after we left church early (much thanks to Raelynn's ultra-embarrassing behavior that caused us to scoop her and our coats up faster than Superman), we found ourselves in some truly ridiculous traffic. Trapped in the car with one bratty child and a small but sweet baby, we spent part of that time lecturing Raelynn about how she should behave and the rest trying to decide what to do once we extracted ourselves from the gridlock.

Jeremy suggested going out to eat but after the tantrum Raelynn threw, I didn't think it was a good idea to sit in a restaurant. Then he suggested we stop by the wholesale market near our home so we could buy a few cases of beer for Chinese New Year gifts for the relatives and also take home some street food. That was a good plan, perhaps the best plan of all simply because Seoul had fallen sound asleep so us gals could just wait for him in the car.

He's not gone long. He comes bounding back about 10 minutes later with a happy young guy in tow behind him, helping him carrying 2 of the 4 cases of beer. See, on the day after the big Chinese New Year celebration, you have to go around and visit the older relatives. Like we did last year.You have to bring some sort of gift or it's considered very rude, probably as rude as not going at all. All over the city now, gifts of cases of beer, baijiu (a very strong Chinese liquor), teas, fruits and all kinds of things are being bought up as quickly as they're sold for this occasion. You could wait until you venture out to visit these relatives but then you're at the mercy of whatever few stores are open and the incredible markups they put on their price tags.

As the young guy helps Jeremy put the other 2 cases in our car, he spots me. He asks if I'm Russian. No, she's American, my husband tells the guy. "Mei guo ren! Li hai! Li hai!" or "American person! Awesome! Awesome!" he shouts. Yeah, we are pretty awesome, us Americans.

It's now that I notice my husband has no street food for us. He explains all the vendors are nowhere to be found, likely because they've already taken off for the holiday. and then he says something horrible: "Hey, let's go to my parents' for lunch!"

Suddenly, I hear screaming. I realize it's coming from me. One of those long, slow "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" screams. The baby had already woken up when the beer guy was loading up the car. She was intrigued by this wailing of mine. "I'd rather eat out of that garbage can!" I sulk, pointing out the window at an overflowing trash receptacle. Jeremy pats my hand and tells me if we just have a casual lunch with them, he can get them to leave us alone for the rest of the holiday, excluding the big CNY dinner of course. He's off work now for the holiday so he doesn't want his parents intruding on our time together either. Knowing that I'm still sad about my parents having to cancel their trip, he also offers me the most blissful gift of all for having to endure a meal at their horrible home...he says he will take me out to Shangri-La later this week. Ok, I tell him, but if I wind up with diarrhea, you owe me 2 separate Shangri-La dinners. He laughs at this but agrees, knowing full well this might be a possibility.

I also negotiate that he immediately pour me some alcoholic beverages once we get there. I wanted to attempt to be cheerful and let's face it, being around them does NOT make me a very chipper person. As we clomped up the stairs to their stink shack, I remembered that I could at least amuse myself by taking photos for this blog.

I haven't been forced to dine at Chez Puke, also known as my in-laws' house, in a year. Not since the last CNY. They rearranged the furniture but it's still all kinds of gross. Have a look...

Jeremy shows me where he sat for that ill-fated haircut of his. FIL has inexplicably covered most of the mirror on the wall behind Jeremy too. It made the place look bigger. Not anymore though.

This is their 2nd bedroom where the bed they gave Raelynn once was. Don't get me started on that bed again. And it seems all Chinese people's houses I've ever been to have a ton of random stuff that no one ever uses but they pile up for some day that will never arrive.

This tangle of cords on the floor is very typical style for my in-laws.

Here's MIL and FIL's bedroom. I looooooooove that they have this giant version of the insane acid trip sheets they gave both of our daughters. What, was there a special on this fabric? It feels like burlap, incidentally. I will never understand these people. Anyway, Raelynn and Seoul are playing and FIL is dutifully ensuring neither one of them falls off the bed. Their bed used to be up against the other wall but now there is space on 3 sides instead of just 2.

Oh, and check out what MIL is wearing!

She assembles the ugliest outfits ever. That green vest and those orange pants look like they were hurled into a vortex from the 1970s and somehow landed here in China. Gah!

Say, this looks familiar! At first, I thought it was the one they gave us. I thought they realized that we didn't like it when I'd casually moved it into our entertainment center shelf way in the back where it can't be seen. But I checked when we came home and ours is still there. So this is their very own evil bunny rabbit! I should just make hideous things like this and sell them here. I'd make millions because people here seem to buy the most atrocious of things...like that bed sheet that causes hallucinations from the other photos I just posted!

This is their table. Yes, they eat off of here and supposedly just ate before we came over. And now here is where we must eat. God. I can't even. And see the luo bo?!? Why do they cut up so many of them and strew them around?!? At least they do it in their own home too but it makes me insane that my in-laws and my own husband too will cut up several different luo bo and leave them around. JUST CUT UP ONE AND EAT IT ALL FIRST! GAH!!!!!!!!

FIL gave me this to try. It's some kind of Chinese alcohol. I expected it to be gross. It wasn't too bad though and it took the edge off, making it much easier to tolerate them and their house of mess. The funniest part was I offered to pour him some and he tells me that he's already had some. I was sincerely not at all surprised as I'd already suspected that to be the case. Of course he'd already had some! Sigh. Well, at least he doesn't smoke so there's that.

 And now for the food! She plops this mess in front of us...some cellophane noodles, cabbage and unidentifiable meat. Oh good. I grimace. I don't want to eat this. My husband deftly grabs a few pinches of this with his chopsticks and drops it like a bird turding onto a car right onto my rice. Ugh. It wasn't as nasty as I was expecting but in no way can I call this good.

 Zucchini and some sort of clam or scallop shellfish creature. This one wasn't bad. I simply feared for my stomach regarding the seafood. Had she stored it and cleaned it  properly? Well, if not, I would get another meal at the Shangri-La.

 OMG...MIL cleaned her kitchen! What? This is clean, for her.

 This is the floor along the kitchen wall by the way. Helppppp...

And now for some tomato, egg and shellfish. And slop! Ha! The slop is actually a primitive la pi dish. La pi is potato noodles in a garlicky, peanut-flavored sauce. It is very good. It's just very unattractive. Perhaps she's practicing for the big CNY meal because Jeremy asked her to make it for that occasion but to formally be la pi, it needs some vegetables tossed in there. The tomato and egg thing is just a typical dish Chinese people serve here. It's not a bad dish. But she has made it better than she did on this day. When I got my hair done, she made it then and that night, she made it awesome.

MIL also busted out a plate of that Western-style ham. Raelynn is happy. She likes this stuff. Most of the time, she eats whatever MIL serves her. You'd think maybe the kid has no idea what good food is but she really raves about Jeremy's cooking and mine too. As long as she's eating all kinds of food, I guess that's what matters.

Anyway, stay tuned for my big Chinese New Year post in the next few days. I will be documenting the whole holiday for your amusement.

I Can't Believe It

You're not going to believe this. I can't believe it myself. And I cannot even believe I'm about to say this but I must rescind what I said about MIL being the worst cook ever. She's not. She's now officially the 2nd worst cook.

I know. I KNOW. And just so we're clear, I'm not saying MIL is suddenly some 5-star chef. I'm simply saying that there is someone who is a much worse cook than her. Now that is truly tough to beat, isn't it?

So how did we find a worse cook than MIL? Gather around, my children and I will tell you the tale...

It all went down this weekend. Some friends of Jeremy's invited us to their home for lunch. They're a nice married couple with a new baby boy that's about 2 or 3 months older than Seoul (and incidentally, their baby is gigantic). The wife told us she wanted to make us dumplings and asked if we could come on Saturday, but we had plans to attend the big ISQ Christmas Fair that day so we told her we'd love to if it could happen on Sunday. So Sunday lunch it was.

But when we got there, there was an old Chinese woman just like MIL cooking away. It turned out to be her mom. The mom was cooking for us, not her. Regretfully, I did not take any photos. I was busy with Seoul who was fussy from not napping sufficiently enough prior to our arrival, but let me just tell you that they almost made MIL's bowl of barf look like a culinary masterpiece.

The dumplings looked even worse than MIL's. The casing was thick and floury like MIL's but what made them by and large far worse was that there wasn't much filling inside them. And the filling was gross on top of that. She made some other thing that looked like rubbery pig feet, something I wouldn't even eat on a good day. And she also made some cabbage salad, which honestly was the only slightly palatable option. The husband had picked up 2 dishes from a restaurant - sweet and sour pork, and some eggplant with squid dish. Clearly, the restaurant he chose these items from was sub-par. But the worst thing of all on the table was a large, whole fish. MIL makes one and I have mentioned in other posts that it is one of the few things she does rather well (click on this post and scroll down until you see the fish if you want a gander). This woman did not do this well. It looked dry, like someone had put it on to cook and somehow set it to cremate. It looked so dry that it might shatter with the touch of your chopsticks.

I thought maybe I was just being picky so I politely ate some of the food (but slowly so it looked like I was eating more than I was). Except for that fish. No way was I eating that thing. When some space opened on my plate after forcing myself to eat 5 dumplings, the mom piled more of them on my plate. Nooooooooooooo!

When we had sat down to eat, the wife had brought this weird sugary yogurty drink that Chinese and Korean people alike love to give to kids. As a teacher here, I've been given them before too. They are SO nasty. I'm not a fan of them. Raelynn likes them enough but never begs for them. If they're offered, she'll accept. Jeremy told this woman not to give it to Raelynn, but she insisted. Raelynn drank it and then ate a few dumplings. She picked at her food which is unlike her when dumplings are around.

I should have known something was wrong when the wife offered Raelynn a piece of cheesecake from a nearby bakery. Raelynn refused it. Raelynn loves cake, especially cheesecake. She went and sat on their floor to play and then she threw up all over the play mat and herself. The good news was she felt much better after vomiting. The bad news was that it was everywhere. I began cleaning it up and the wife helped me, which was really nice of her. I hoped she didn't hear Raelynn tell me that she threw up because she didn't like the food.

If I didn't have much of an appetite before the barfing, I surely had none after. I just drank my beer politely and prayed we would go home soon before I was made to eat more of this truly vile food. I noticed Jeremy wasn't eating very much either. I would later learn that he too felt the food was gross. So at least MIL doesn't cook as badly as this woman does. Though their house was cleaner. The mom of this woman lives there with them and the baby. You know I would have run away and never come back if I had to live under the same roof as MIL, right?

Honestly, their house was nicer than ours. From the stairwell to the flooring to the layout and decor. We did the best we could with what we were given though and if you have seen my earlier posts, you know what we had to deal with. What I don't understand is how their house is cleaner but as Jeremy pointed out, they knew we were coming. He said the wife probably made sure everything was cleaned up first and that the mom probably makes as much a mess as his own mother does. 

By the way, let me tell you about their giant baby. Jeremy and I were stunned that this baby is as fat as he is. And she's breastfeeding him! But apparently, not exclusively. That sugary yogurty drink? She gives that to her son. And she feeds him food too. Not in a beginning solids kind of way either. She asked me a ton of questions about breastfeeding and foods and such and I told her everything I know. How did I learn all of this? By researching it. But people here don't do stuff like that. This girl, and the hoards of others like her, just do what they are told. Don't question anything. I'm seriously amazed this culture has endured for over 5,000 years. How is that even possible? She seemed to be very interested in the process of properly introducing solids, yet a short while later, she brought out watermelon slices and tried to feed that to the mammoth baby. Then her mother was giving him apple which she was scraping off onto a spoon. Oy.

In any event, fat babies and terrible food aside, it wasn't a completely awful experience. But the next time we meet up, I pray we will be at our house or a good restaurant instead.

WTF Is In My Kitchen?

In case you're wondering, "shagua" means "stupid" in Chinese. 

Just once, I would love to come home from work and find my house up to par with my level of clean. It's a pipe dream, I know, but I still secretly hope each day as I unlock the door that when I walk in, I will find Mary Poppins instead of Trollzilla holding my baby and greeting me with a sparkling house that doesn't reek of the lingering greasy smells of fish she fried for lunch, and left out alllllllllllll day on the counter.

After working all day, all I want is to spend time with Seoul, and once she's sleeping, hang out with Raelynn. I also wouldn't mind something that wasn't nasty for dinner. Instead, I get things like barf in a bowl and a psychotic mess of random napkins on the floor, sofa, table, chair, under the table, under the sofa, on the kitchen counters - basically everywhere except for the garbage can - that I am now either forced to clean up or leave in place which only enrages me more and also encourages my in-laws, as if to say, "Hey, I like garbage on the floor. Please throw some more down there. Also, add more vegetables and dishes to the countertops because I can still see some of the counter peeking through. I'll just prepare dinner on the floor on top of your garbage pile."

Jeremy had a work meeting this evening so once MIL finally buzzed off, I was left with the aftermath of her whirlwind half-assed cleaning spree. Which, as you probably know from previous posts, means I had to clean up after her. While Raelynn played with some of her toys and Seoul slept, I began tidying up the kitchen to MY standards of clean, not hers. And I found some interesting things because my mother-in-law is Chinese and apparently, that means I should just tolerate her bizarre-borderline-insane habits of leaving out things like this...

 This is a plate of fried tofu. It has been sitting out since yesterday. I left it to see what would happen and I was not at all surprised to find it still there today. I know, I know. I expected a miracle I guess since I thought someone would dispose of it. Why leave a whole plate of food out like that? Why make it if you're not going to eat it? It's this cultural confusion I can't get behind in this country. I've lived here 4 years and I still have yet to figure this shit out. It's as mystifying as those bloody Chinese characters themselves.

I told Jeremy I was going to throw it out and he implored me not to. See, because if I do, then MIL will be all like, "Hey, where's my mummified tofu?" And he'll tell her I threw it away and she'll get angry. But if he TELLS her, "Hey, your tofu has fossilized after sitting out for so long. You should throw it away because if you eat it, you'll get sick," it's less upsetting to her. I asked him why she doesn't eat it and he said, "Are you crazy?!? She could die!" And that my friends, is when I facepalmed. Seriously. This. Culture. Makes. Me. Nuts.

 Half an apple. WHY would you do that?!? Why wouldn't you just eat the whole thing?!? She cut half up for Raelynn because every day she HAS TO do this. Because she's an old zombie who can't do anything different a day in her life. The world will go to pieces if Raelynn doesn't have an apple! And that bag? That is a dirty bag full of raisins. Urgh. I want to cry.

 Look how dirty. WHY is it here?!? Go back to MIL's house, you!

Finally, we have a tupperware filled with an assortment of plastic bags, garlic and luo bo. FUCKING LUO BO! You know, I went through this tupperware and I found 4 - yes, FOUR - completely different cut up luo bo. That means she cut up one, ate some of it, then cut up another...oh! And she left some out on the counter too in another bag and I threw that in the refrigerator. WHY CAN'T YOU JUST EAT ONE WHOLE LUO BO AND THEN CUT UP ANOTHER ONE??? WHY DO YOU KEEP LEAVING RANDOM PIECES OF LUO BO AROUND MY KITCHEN AND HOME??? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?????????????????????????????

Hey-la, Hey-la, The Barf Is Back!

For tonight's dinner, as I approach the table, I find chicken wings and a seaweed salad.

Nothing wrong with those items. But our large serving bowl is out, with the lid on top. Gingerly, I lift the lid, and this is what I find...

The barf! It's back!

Well, to be honest, it looks like a different kind of barf. But it's still barf. Blech!

I Am Not Alone

Have you ever read my blog and wondered if my Chinese in-laws are the only mess-making slobs or if other Chinese people behave similarly?

Well, wonder no more, because today's post revolves around a photo my friend/Western boss, Patrick, gave to me. See, we are both official members of the unofficial Chinese Spouse Club. Sometimes during our breaks, we wind up trading horror stories about our in-laws. I'm not sure who has worse in-laws...Patrick or me. I'll let you decide. One thing is crystal clear though as I scan our apartment for more dough in random places...I am not alone in my suffering of incompetent boob-brained Chinese in-laws reeking havoc on my personal habitat.

Let's take a look at this photo of Patrick's kitchen. He explained that he has given up on cleaning the kitchen because moments after he cleans it, it resembles Chernobyl once more, as shown below.

There is SO much to discuss about this! Where to start? The green onions and other assorted vegetables on the floor. And is that a cigarette I see?!? Random green pepper on the window sill. Oh look! They have a luo bo on the counter too! Garbage on the floor. Every dish in the cabinet out on the counter, probably with food in it and even more probably left out for days. Geez! Patrick, I feel your pain, bro.

Apparently, this is what his in-laws consider to be clean. Only in China! Also, Patrick's MIL has some foot condition and when he gets angry with her about something, his wife gets upset and worries that his telling her to clean up after herself will make her die. Just like MY husband worries about his mom breaking into pieces should I happen to ask her to not treat our home like a pigpen.

Even though Patrick has the aggravating task of hiring a replacement for me when we get approved for Jeremy's visa, I think he's secretly rooting for me to escape the hell that I must endure with my husband's parents. Meanwhile, Patrick is surely counting down the days until he and his family go to the US for winter vacation, aren't you? Thanks again for sharing your kitchen katastrophe with us!

Long Time, No Yuck

I've been up since 4:30am so I'm going to get right to the point.

May was the last time I found a yuck in our home. Not counting MIL's cooking. Yucks are generally hidden somewhere. Today's yuck was hidden in a cabinet, much like the first yuck.

Unfortunately, I have no photos of this. I was reaching into the cabinet, which, as it turns out, was the same cabinet I'd found the first yuck in, groping for a large Tupperware container to hold crab shells. See, MIL made crab for dinner, which was mighty kind of her, so we needed something we could toss the shells into as we ate. I grasp a rectangular one and yank it out and suddenly, SPLASH! My feet and the floor are bathed in some sort of liquid. It's opaque and slightly resembles chicken broth. There's no smell that I can detect and I'm surely not going to put my face close enough to check it out. I scream. Jeremy runs in and sees it. He just shakes his head and tosses me a rag. Shouldn't he be the one cleaning up after his troll mother? Yeesh. What the hell was that in there anyway? Someone help me.

But wait...there's more! After dinner, I have Raelynn clean up. I'm helping her and that's when I discover THIS on my sofa:

What. The. Fuck. Do you know what this is?

It's d'oh! I mean DOUGH! Yes, dough. Stupid cow left a blob of dough on my sofa when she was making her baozi (those retched steamed stuffed bun things).

Dough.

How does one leave shit like this on someone's sofa? I'm not upset about the sofa as it's pleather and coming apart. I'm just upset that I seriously almost sat in it and that she makes messes like this and couldn't be bothered to clean it up. No, no. Really, that's ok. I'll just work all day after getting up at 4:30 in the fucking morning to feed a baby and put her back down to sleep and have her wake up 30 minutes later wanting to eat her little hands and roll over and laugh and play and all kinds of cute shit while I feel like I might drop dead from the exhaustion AND THEN I'll clean up after you because Lord knows you can't possibly put the baby down in the crib for 1 minute to clean that up. Or do that while she sleeps. Oh no. It's so hard FOR YOU to watch a baby AND cook food.

And you know what sucks? She left one of her ugly scarfs on the sofa because heaven forbid she would use the fucking coat rack by the door and I was thisclose to using it to wipe up the dough. I should have just done it but me and my big mouth had to tell Jeremy what I was plotting to do and although he laughed, he turned to me quite seriously and told me not to do that. Ruin my fucking fun why don't you? Gah!!!!

Busted!

Wanted for uncivilized behavior: this stupid woman...

My husband snapped these photos while we were out in Taidong on Saturday. What you are looking at is a woman holding her child over a sewage grate so the little girl can pee. IN FRONT OF A RESTAURANT. Which likely has a bathroom.

Yes, this is not in some remote place, far from any buildings. This is on a busy street lined with eateries. And they have bathrooms within.

Here is a better angle so you can see what this lazy woman is up to. Why do people still do this here?!? Totally nasty. As a mom, I'd absolutely have sympathy if there was no place containing a bathroom around but as you can see in these photos, that is simply not the case.

It boggles my mind that people STILL do this here. WHY?!? Please stop! Gah!!!

Someone Made Me Eat This: S.O.S. Help Me

I haven't done a S.M.M.E.T. post in a while. I've just been too lazy to keep track of all the crappy food MIL makes for us. Thankfully, none of it has been as THIS meal. Lately, she's made things I like but the problem is she makes those same things over and over. Like every day. To the point where I just want to cry. If I wasn't breastfeeding, I was just starve myself, but Seoul needs me to eat, and thus, my torture begins.

Today I decided that no matter what, I'd be sure to photograph our meal. So here you go...

 Augh! What is that? Vomit soup? No, it's just MIL's cabbage and egg soup. It looks far more disgusting than it tastes, which I guess is a positive. Still, it's not anything I seek out to eat and I resent being told it's delicious and I have to eat it. Tell me it's delicious and I have to eat it one more time and watch how quickly you will be wearing it.

 Um...what? Are those random picked-clean bones in there? It's scary, isn't it? It kind of reminds me of the owl barf pellets that we had to pick through in middle school science class.

What's extra funny about this is that last Sunday, I'd made roasted chicken with vegetables using the poultry seasoning my mom sent. It was perfect and Jeremy and Raelynn devoured it. Jeremy told me 5 times while he was still in the process of eating it that I should make it again as soon as possible. So I did yesterday but with pork because MIL has been overdoing it with the chicken lately. And again, it was heavenly. I guess my husband relayed this information to his mother who did her best to duplicate my special Sunday dinner.

Can't blame her for trying, can I? The good news is that it only looks disgusting. It tasted great (though nowhere near as wonderful as mine did). The bones you see are from the chicken she cooked in there, which she cut up into pieces and scattered throughout the dish. Why leave the bones then? So weird, but then again, so is she.

 Close-up of chicken bone. Mmmm...not!

And here we have fried and greasy fish with lots of bones in it. I hate how people eat these tiny fish here. I'd use this to catch a big fish. The worse part is my husband makes me eat it because "fish is good for you." Yes, that's true, when it's not fried in gallons of oil. At least he picks out the bones for me. But I resent having to eat this. I like cooking and it makes me happy when I get to cook and eat things that I like. Instead, 4 days a week I am forced to eat Chinese food, which I used to like until I had to eat her substandard retchtacular puke on a plate. When Jeremy cooks or we go out to a good Chinese place, it's amazing how much happier I am to eat the cuisine from this country. I promise I'll blog about that very soon but for now, Mommy duties are calling.

Hurricane MIL Destroyed My Kitchen

Hurricane season just ended in my home state of Florida, but that doesn't mean I'm immune to Category 5 disasters right here in Qingdao. I cannot even begin to stress to you all just how happy I will be when my kitchen no longer winds up looking like this:

Or when we live in a place with a whole different kitchen. One that doesn't suck. One that isn't constantly being invaded by people who do THIS to it.

Please note that the above photo was taken AFTER she did some cleaning. Yes, AFTER. I had tried to snap a photo before but got caught up with the baby. She must be catching on that when I say, "What the fuck is this shit?!?" I'm talking about the unholy messes she's created.

Let's discuss this mess, shall we? She's piled a ton of cookery on the stove. She's left 2 giant containers of oil out. She left an assortment of dishes on the counter, next to her jumbo board she uses for rolling out dough for dumplings and that sort of shit. And that dirty rolling pin...memo to myself: go check the fucking drawer of kitchen utensils because you know old batshitcrazy MIL has probably thrown it in there without washing it. Oh and dig the dirty oily rag on the counter. I was just discussing that with an avid reader of my blog in the comments on another post. No matter how quickly Jeremy and I snatch up dirty rags and throw them in the wash, she will even more quickly grease up and grungify another one. If we didn't do that, I shudder to think how long she would go without washing a rag. Hang on. I almost threw up thinking about that. I think that will be what I use when I feel myself overdoing it on sweets. I'll think of the rag and I'll gag. And then I won't want to eat anything. Hmmm...it's just crazy enough to work! Goodbye, last bit of baby weight!

This is the other counter. The dish rack has been moved here, thanks to Jeremy. Don't ask. I hate it here. Although it DOES free up a lot of space on the other counter. You know, so MIL can stick random shit by the sink.

Anyway, just look at this shit. She never puts anything away. A bag of flour. A bag of peanuts. A pot filled with some meat dish. She served it to Jeremy but didn't even think to serve it to me. Pity, because it actually looked and smelled decent. No, no, no. Better serve Jennifer the baozi I know she hates. Baozi and cucumber sticks. Yes, my lovely daughter-in-law won't lob them at my big, fat lopsided head. NOT. You can see some of the baozi (those are steamed, stuffed buns by the way, in case this is your first time here) in that bowl by the electric kettle. And hey, by the blender, dig the beer mug FULL of green tea leaves. No joke.

 I moved it to the kitchen table to take better photos and show my husband. Lest anyone ever complain about the price of tea again. Or have any questions about who is wasting it. I'll give you a clue...MIL!

Just look how much tea is in there! Sweet Lord! And why are you using our beer mugs?!? My in-laws are so bizarre. Instead of using the countless coffee mugs we have, they use beer mugs or a glass I'd use for cold water to make their tea.

Half of that beer mug is filled with tea leaves! Gah! I give up. I'm going to throw in the towel. Or in this case, the oily rag.

Mooseknuckle, Anyone?

Who's hungry? Well, if you are right now, you certainly won't be when you take a look at this creation by MIL.

 Dear Lord! What IS that mess? It looks like she melted a whole entire yak into that pot. Thankfully, I didn't have to eat it. She knows better now that I will not eat unrefrigerated creature. She left this out on our stove. Shame on my husband for allowing that too, but he likes eating boiled mooseknuckles or whatever the hell this is, even if it's been sitting out on the counter overnight. Or for days. And according to my other friends with Chinese spouses, this is a very typical thing Chinese people do - the whole leaving the food out thing. It totally freaks me out.

Also, loooooooooooove the wonky dumplings she probably left out all day long with this decomposing carcass. On a plate. In a plastic bag. Because Qingdao people love their plastic bags. Ugh.

Blargh! I should totally print this photo out and tape it to the cabinet where all my candy bars from my mom are. That will keep me from snarfing them all down at once. Actually, that will keep me from eating anything again. Ever. This looks like a cauldron of death, doesn't it? It's like she goes out of her way to make her food extra gross.

Despite this disgusting mess in my kitchen, I was at least able to make a normal dinner tonight. I waited until Seoul fell asleep before I began cooking and MIL kept pestering me that she wanted to hold the baby. MIL, you were with Seoul all day. I get only about 2 hours - if that - of her being awake when I get home and I'm NOT giving her to you for that time. Dinner will wait until she sleeps. No one will starve if we have dinner at 6:30pm instead of 5:30pm. In addition to nagging me every 5 minutes about getting to hold the baby, she kept singing stupid Chinese songs. SHUT UP! No one wants to hear you sing, especially not me. I gave her the death stare and she put a lid on it. Thankfully she left soon after that. Of course, when Jeremy got home, he served himself up a side of yeti soup here to go with my offerings of cheesy pasta, tofu salad and roasted cabbage. I had to look the other way while he ate it so I could try to ingest some of the meal I'd prepared.

MIL - ruining food by cooking it her way since at least 1950.

Gross!

So here's a quick post to share the grossness that I was subjected to earlier. Because I can't keep this shit to myself. Why should I be the only one to suffer? And yes, I already told Jeremy. In case you were wondering.

My in-laws have been watching Seoul while Raelynn and I are at school. When we get home, I go enjoy my cuddly precious baby by feeding her, talking to her, playing with her, singing, dancing...whatever she's up for until she falls asleep. To help me be able to have this time with my tiny baby before she suddenly poofs into a big girl like my darling Raelynn, MIL cooks...yes, STILL. And my apologies incidentally on not photographically documenting it. I'll try to do that again soon. I'm just exhausted this week as I get used to being back at work and most nights, am busy holding my sweet Seoul while I eat so I can have more time with her. Anyway, MIL also bathes Raelynn for me, which is truly a big help.

I heard Raelynn screaming and some general discussion in Chinese regarding smelling bad. Which I found ironic, considering who was saying it. I finish feeding Seoul and come out to find MIL bathing Raelynn in the bathroom while FIL is in Raelynn's room folding up the dirty clothes she was just wearing and trying to put them back in her closet. EVEN THE UNDERWEAR.

Please let that sink in for just a teensy moment, won't you? MIL is bathing Raelynn and FIL is putting the clothing she was wearing all day - running outside, playing on the playground and getting dirty in pottery class - back into the closet DIRTY. AND he's putting her underwear in there too! Now, I'm all for putting some things back in the closet if they haven't been subjected to the kinds of things a toddler is subject to at school, but never ever ever is it OK in my book to put underwear you've worn all day back without washing it. Or put it back on right after you bathe. DEAR LORD! And these people had the nerve to tell her she was stinky and needed to take a bath. Yes, she needed a bath but I've lost count of how many times I've wanted to tell those 2 they smell like they've been playing with wet dogs. At least we can understand WHY they smell so badly...they wear the same things day in and day out, including their underwear, and do not wash them! And they do not bathe regularly! Gah!

Oh! Oh! And my husband told me something very interesting this evening. We were discussing visa things and he told me that his father told him that he didn't want to come to America to visit us whn we move there. Rude!

I asked why that was and Jeremy said his father likes Qingdao and doesn't want to go anywhere else. Bats in the belfry, man. Now, I don't really want him (or MIL!) to visit, but I'm sure I must allow it at some point once we're settled in over there. MIL wants to visit of course and you know that old cow will try to stay with us FORFUCKINGEVER and I am hoping her tourist visa would not be valid for a long period of time. GOD. Don't let this woman come stay with us. We'll just come back and visit them. Anyway, I'm kind of pissed about what FIL said. Not because I'd miss him but because his only grandchildren will be living in their home country and he won't even go visit them. What a dick. His loss. I have to at least give MIL points for wanting to come. She's never even been on a plane. Ever. In her whole life. That should be interesting trying to explain to her how airports and airplanes work. Or how to get her tourist visa from the embassy when we're ready to entertain her. When that happens, count on me blogging about it. For sure!

Barf: It's What's For Dinner

What would you do if someone served you this for dinner?

Why, is that barf on rice with a side of overcooked green beans? It IS! My favorite. NOT!

Here it is with flash on:

 Doesn't this look like something you'd step over at the last minute on the sidewalk because you were almost too drunk to notice it before it was too late? This dish is like a visual interpretation of my college years.

But don't worry. I didn't starve completely. She made steamed shrimp which were great and oddly, steamed potatoes, which were just ok. Chinese people steam their potatoes whole while Americans bake them. They don't taste as good steamed, in my opinion, but a little bit of butter helps make it tolerable. China: ruining food for over 5,000 years. That should be the tagline. I can hear my friend Aaron Gordon howling with laughter from here after reading that one.

Maybe I should give MIL a break. I mean, I am trying to lose the last bit of baby weight here. Then again it sucks ass to be breastfeeding and feel constantly hungry every hour of the day. Like right now. I just ate and I am so hungry I could eat a house. But I could not and would not eat a plate of barf on rice. No way, no how.

This has been a Someone Made Me Eat This post. For previous Someone Made Me Eat This (S.M.M.E.T.) posts, please click here.

S.M.M.E.T.: That's The MIL We All Know!

You can check out previous S.M.M.E.T. (Someone Made Me Eat This) posts here. 

Aha! I knew it wouldn't last. I'm just surprised she had such a long winning streak. And now I'm sad it's over actually. It was nice to sit down to dinner and truly want to eat what was served to me. Even last night's dinner was decent. Let's look at that first...

On the left, the dish with the green stuff is celery with tons of a garlic-soy sauce mixture on it. She served that recently. Not bad. Then in front of that, steamed shrimp, which is always good. In the center, a big plate of roasted duck. She didn't even pretend to make that (not like she did with the roasted chicken) as everyone here buys roasted duck. It's the equivalent of being in the US and stopping at the supermarket for a rotisserie chicken on the way home from work. In front of that, cauliflower (again). And off to the top of the photo, more tudou bien (potato bread) which I'm now getting sick of because she's served it so much lately. Oh, and check out the xifan. It's a white version with corn in it. Which would have been so much better had she 1) seasoned it and 2) made it less gloopy. It seriously reminded me of craft paste, but with a corn taste. Hey, that could be the tagline!

So maybe it wasn't the best meal ever. But it wasn't the worst. This next photo shows my nomination for one of MIL's worst meals ever.

THIS was what she served us for dinner tonight. Ignore the glass dish with grapes in the back. Raelynn and I had been snacking on those a little while before dinner. THIS is our dinner. There are 3 bowls of the typical kind of xifan that she makes. And 2 plates full of this greasy, fried tofu patty. Just look at the oil on the plate! The tofu patty consists of 2 layers of silky tofu with a middle layer of some ground pork. This wasn't horrible but to be served just this and a bowl of shitty xifan pissed me off. Didn't Jeremy tell her to stop serving so much fried food? And where was the vegetable? She brought cucumbers, I later discovered. Why didn't she serve them?!? She also made a plate of dumplings but those were for Raelynn so I didn't take a photo of them. But they were gross too. She asked me to try one and I thought for one glimmering second that perhaps they would be good and I wouldn't starve after all but no. She put a filling in it that I cannot stand and I secretly wished we had a dog so I could throw it under the table to have snarfed up immediately. Then again, that would have been animal cruelty.

Even Jeremy was not very pleased with this meal. When he got home, I was already done with my xifan and forcing myself to eat 2 of those greasy messy things (and the one dumpling). I was starving though. To offset our hunger, he steamed us some potatoes and as I was attending to Seoul, I couldn't believe that horrid woman began eating the potatoes! You don't get any potatoes! Eat your oil-slathered crap and your fart-filled dumplings, you old bat! Gah!

Maybe I should market this as the MIL Diet. Food so gross you can't bear to eat it. Your extra weight from having that baby will just melt away! Of course, your stomach will start eating itself, so there's that, but hey, you'll look great once you can get past the sad shrieking sound that wails out from your abdominal area. Or, when she doesn't cook something properly (or doesn't clean the dishes with hot water), you can lose weight via diarrhea. That's fun too. Who's joining me on the MIL Diet? Anyone? No? Sigh. Thank God my mom is sending another package with food, glorious food. You rule, Mom. I love you!

Someone Made Me Eat This: Another Fried Night

Tonight's dinner was only slightly better than last night's dinner. The difference was there were 2 things I was willing to eat without being coaxed into it.

Let's start with the plate of cucumbers on the left. Yay! Something not fried. But of course, she's served it with a bowl of garlic doused in salty soy sauce for dipping (just behind it, with the spoon). Sigh. Next to that, you've got chicken on a stick. She didn't make this herself. These come in a big bag in the frozen section at the supermarket. They aren't horrible, but they aren't that good either. Unless you're drunk. She made these for us on Monday and Jeremy had let her know then that he wasn't all that thrilled with it. Plus, she'd made enough for the entire Chinese army. He made her take home the excess and only allowed her to leave 6 of them.

When Jeremy saw them again today, I heard him complain to her that these are poor quality and he wasn't happy to see them again. I hope she never serves this crappy chicken on a stick again either but as lowgrade as it is, it's way better than most of her cooking.

Except the fried shrimp, to the right of the chicken. That shit's good. It's just fried.

Then there's that crappy fried, greasy pancake from last night. This isn't leftover from last night either. She just felt the need to make it once more. And what do we have next to the pancakes from my nightmares? I have no earthly idea. I conveniently ignored it. It smelled like a wet dog and it looks greasy and gross to boot. For once, my husband didn't insist I eat it or even try it. He's hanging his tail in shame once more today because he lost his Samsung phone. I swear, every summer, there is some shit like this. Remember the watch incident? Ugh. I hate when he loses things. This time, he wasn't drinking though. He was just working. I blame that Y chromosome again. And maybe the heat of summer helps trigger something with that damn chromosome too. Why can't he lose MIL somewhere instead? That would be fanfuckingtastic. He could replace her with someone who can actually cook Chinese food and not cause me to despise an entire country's cuisine. Now there's a thought!

Oh, and let's not forget the xifan! This is my stock photo of xifan. I'm sick of photographing it. It looks like the same murky shit every single day. She rarely if ever makes a different variety. Though unlike the xifan in this picture, she didn't add enough water so it was goopy and gloppy. Urgh.

If you would like to see more of Someone Made Me Eat This, click here. Will tomorrow's meal feature the same chicken on a stick crap? Or more fried funness? Get your TUMS ready and stay tuned!