Meeting The Family

A week or two ago, or maybe more I met Pi Chi’s family. When you work six days a week in a country where most foreigners work four the days all just blend together. She had been after me to meet them for some time and I had been putting it off as much as possible. My reasons were selfish and practical. I knew that once I met them I would be expected to participate in more family activities, and I have never known that not to be a gigantic pain in the ass. I also knew that I would only have one chance to make that first impression and no matter what I did or said later on they would always know me as whomever they decided I was when we first met.  

This becomes more important when you live in a place where the foreigners have a deserved reputation for banging the young locals and skipping town and country. These people love our overpriced products and inferior cars, but they tend to be a little suspicious when some slacker who works two hours a day and dresses like a Venice (CA) surfer dude with one of those idiotic goatees is knocking boots with their daughter. When your daughter is dating a foreigner you will face one of two outcomes. He will either use her and throw her away, possibly with child, or worse, marry her. Like most racist people Chinese parents want their daughters to marry one of their own kind. The goal is to find a young Chinese man with a good job and a reputable family. If he drinks too much and stays out at KTV all night and slaps her around a little that is ok. Tradition is tradition.

Pi Chi’s father was a career soldier. He spent his entire adult life in the military. His two oldest daughters are married to Chinese men with stable jobs and reputable families. They own their own houses, cars and children. His youngest daughter (who recently received her PhD in chemical engineering) is engaged to an “astronomer”. They have bought a house together and are waiting for it to be built before they get married. His youngest child, and only son, recently entered the military. Pi Chi is the middle child. Having five children is extremely rare around here and a source of pride for the father. As the head ICU nurse at a very large and possibly famous hospital she has already broken with tradition to choose a career over a husband. Her younger sister will probably continue with her career when she is married, but Pi Chi was the trailblazer. She is already a bit of a rebel, but bringing me into the fold cannot make her parents happy.

Or so I thought.

Her mother likes me. She said I am handsome. She is older and, like almost all Chinese, has poor eyesight. And to be fair she is likely comparing me to all the Chinese men her daughters brought home. She speaks no English, but has been friendlier to me than any mother of any woman I have ever dated. Most of them did not care for me all that much. And the fathers usually wanted to see me roasting on an open flame with a spit up my ass and a shiny pinch of Washington apple between my cheek and gums.  

I had already met Pi Chi’s younger sister so I knew that she was friendly, although usually pretty busy as chemical engineers are for all I know. This particular family gathering was to celebrate her birthday. I had intended to score some major points by offering to pay for the entire lunch, which would have been a generous offer since this was a fancy restaurant in a large building overlooking the river. What made it more expensive was the fact that these people ate like the government was going to ban food tomorrow. Having been to two Chinese weddings I have seen how they eat at celebrations, but those occasions were a ritual fast compared to this. The food just kept coming and the family just kept shoving it into their pie holes. After two hours of constant eating we all left the restaurant and went to the parents’ house for birthday cake and more food. Amazingly none of these people are grotesquely obese. The way they eat they should all look like Americans.

I did not pay for the prodigious meal because, as I was told, it is tradition that the person with the birthday pays for everything. That worked out well for me since there was such an endless parade of food. I have no idea what it all finally cost, but it must have been considerably more than the egg sandwich I get in my town. I just have to remember not to let them invite me out to eat on my birthday.

Most of Pi Chi’s family do not speak any English, which should really cut down on banal conversations about the weather. It is hot and humid. It was hot and humid yesterday. It will be hot and humid tomorrow. It is always hot and humid. Her father made no effort to say anything to me, but I really did not see it as a personal slight. He was old and tired and barely spoke to anyone the entire afternoon. Her younger sister speaks rudimentary English; advanced by local standards. Her oldest sister’s husband speaks some English, but he cannot tell the difference between a gerund and the Grand Canyon. I found him amusing anyway. I was sitting between him and Pi Chi. He is the kind of person who likes to take charge of a situation, so he was the self-appointed welcome wagon. He could easily be an American car or insurance or car insurance salesman. He was very proactive, and his motivational paradigm was clearly outside of the box. If such business babel exists in Chinese I am sure he uses it. He also said that I was attractive, although I chose to assume that he meant it in the most heterosexual way possible. Separately, and through my interpreter (Pi Chi), both of Pi Chi’s older sisters said I was attractive, making a total of four such observations in a two hour period.

Further proof that the Chinese are batshit insane.