Keeping In Line with Your In-Laws Over CNY

Mina Yan Jingkids

If you think falling in love is the hardest part, wait until you need to meet the in-laws and the extended family. For those who’ve yet to spend a Chinese New Year with their local relatives, you’re in for a culture shock.

Although I’m American, I have extended family in Harbin, and the first time I brought my husband to meet them over Chinese New Year was an overwhelming and insanely stressful experience, and my husband’s a Beijing local who was already expecting the onset of chaos headed his way.

Now I don’t know whether you’re familiar with Dongbei (Northeastern) hospitality, but it’s intense. If I had to describe it in one word, it would be excess. According to one of my aunts, Dongbei people give their guests the best that they have to offer which, in my family, translated to the most expensive baijiu, extravagant meals breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and non-stop smoking even for my non-smoker husband. According to my husband, it’s impolite to turn down gestures of hospitality, so for a week, he became a smoking baijiu day-drinker.

The shock of Dongbei hospitality aside, what surprised me the most was the line of interrogation questions they fired at us.

Over dinner on the second night of being in Harbin, out of the blue my more distant aunts asked my husband“how much do you make a month?”as the table fell silent. All the small side conversations ceased to exist and all the attention was on him. My husband made a joke about my family with three generations of lawyers and judges not being able to get out of the habit of interrogations, and that was that. End of awkward discussion for about an hour or so until the next awkward question popped up.

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Fast forward a few days into our visit to when another aunt decides to pull me aside to tell me that that I need to be in charge of his bank accounts. I tried explaining that it was outdated and unnecessary, but all I got was a lecture on how I was a 傻孩子 (a dumb kid).

After a little over a week of being in Harbin, I left with the conclusion that there are just some topics that we find inappropriate to ask in the US that aren’t off-limits when it comes to the older generation here.

How much money do you make?
How much money do you have saved in the bank?
When are you getting married?
When are you having kids?
How many properties and cars do you own?
Who controls the money in your family?
What nationality will your baby be?
Who cleans the house?

My takeaways from these large gatherings with the extended family is the realization that, 1. They mean well and they’ll never change. There’s no point getting offended or annoyed by awkward questions. Just go with the flow. 2. Be honest and tell them that in your culture, you don’t ask these types of questions, and 3. Always have gifts and extra hongbaos prepared. It’s impolite to visit someone’s home without bringing a gift, and you never know when someone will bring a young child to a dinner party unannounced. Having been that auntie who only prepared enough hongbaos for the kids I knew were going to attend, watching my cousin’s friend’s kid disappointedly shuffle away empty-handed was a heartbreaking experience that I never want to repeat again.

Photos: www.asiancrush.com, unsplash.com, giphy.com, chinadaily.com

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