The Hao Women

I just noticed Yuan Yuan put a recent photo of her family on my desk right next to my computer. It must have been there for the last month but it only just struck me as odd. It's all the women in Yuan Yuan's family, of which there are so many that the photo could pass for a Wellesley graduation ceremony keepsake. I don't know what it's doing next to my computer, maybe so I'm frequently reminded that I definitely got the best bear from the flock. One of the women in the photo is a baby, terrible dating material, can't hold a candle to the one I got. Can't hold a candle at all, that would be irresponsible parenting. Plus, that would be parenting, so there goes the romance. Then there's Yuan Yuan's mom, who's a bit traditional for my taste, though I always poke fun at her that she's not traditional enough. She knows I'm joking but she can never decide if she wants to get the joke.

Me: dinner's ready!
(we all sit down to eat)
Me: wait! We can't eat until the food's cold! It's to remind us that these days of plenty are not to be taken for granted, and that even cold food is better than no food at all. It's a great tradition, trust me. You're going to love it.
Yuan Yuan's mom: ...(looks at Yuan Yuan for help)
Yuan Yuan: don't listen to him, mom
Me: hey, no respect for your elders! ...Another fine tradition from the wild wild West. You'll fit in great, honey!
Yuan Yuan's mom: can we eat?
Me: yes, let's eat, but as long as we make it a new tradition to break a glorious tradition every time we break bread.
Yuan Yuan's mom: well, we can keep the good ones

Yuan Yuan's oldest sister is a dear, or so I thought for the first 10 minutes of meeting her. I even had time to plant a sloppy kiss onto her ass, saying she seemed like the gentlest one of the pack. Of course, 5 minutes later I was flat against the wall from the shockwave when her eldest son did an no-no and got a strong dose of traditional child-rearing. I'm still a little deaf in those ears. I'm surprised neither of us did a no-no in our pants. It must be all the conditioning Chinese people get from their cellphones. A little tip for you, if you're getting bad volume from your cellphone, hand it to a Chinese person and step 50 feet away. You'll hear the other side just fine. Some kind of technological racism, Mario and I are still investigating the science behind it.

Yuan Yuan's older sister is a cutie pie, the kind you want to feed candy until they're fat enough that they lose their appeal. She's the skinniest of the four and her face is vaguely chipmunk-like. She always looks like she's about to nibble something. Alas, looks can be deceiving, and when she recently stayed with us for 10 days, I saw into the heart of the beast. She came here with her 1-year old baby girl (7 years old in China), and proved to us that babies are quite resilient creatures. They can take a beating at every meal and be just fine. To be honest, it's the baby's own damn fault. If she'd closed her ears when she got screamed at and hadn't gone deaf, she could have gotten safely screamed at for the rest of her childhood and her mother wouldn't have to hit her so hard.

Mario was shocked by all the verbal and physical violence. Shocked enough to have an opinion if you can believe it.

Mario: she just smacked the baby right in front of us!
Yuan Yuan: you don't beat children in the US?
Mario: of course we do. We just have the decency to do it secretly and then lie about it.
Mark: she didn't even look embarrassed at losing her temper. I'm kind of jealous.
Yuan Yuan: so what do you do if you don't beat them?
Mario: we just give the kid a dirty look, as in "when we get home...you're dead"
Yuan Yuan: does it work?
Mario: ...

I tried to stay out of it though I felt sorry for the baby, but I was involved against my will. Somehow they noticed that the baby would eat better in my presence, so they started bringing me in as a consultant whenever the baby needed feeding. Her sister would say something about Uncle Foreigner to the baby in their dialect and the baby would eat like a charm. Later I found out that the sister was telling the baby that I was going to yell at it if she didn't eat the food right away. I was used, and not in a good way, no handcuffs or oils or anything. I was used to scary some appetite into a baby. Anyway, my relationship with her sister didn't suffer. We're friendly as always and she probably doesn't even notice how I skip to the table like a unicorn whenever she says it's time to eat.

Yuan Yuan's younger sister, the last of the brood, is currently experiencing the dubious benefits of higher education. She's cute and friendly like the rest of them, but she also packs a temper like the rest of them (well, I got the mellow one), which I've luckily never seen firsthand. It's not her fault, she'd be a darling if she weren't so spoiled. And this is typical China - the youngest children get spoiled beyond all reason, in the name of love. If you see an obese child on the street, you can bet his spare butt cheek he's the youngest. One time I overheard during dinner that Yuan Yuan's mom loved her youngest daughter the most. I couldn't understand why she didn't love me more than all of them put together, but I stifled my righteous indignation and asked politely "why the f??" To which Yuan Yuan's mom replied, like I'd asked her why the sky is blue:

"Because she's the youngest."

Tradition. It even tells us who to love more. It's amazing how straightforward life can be.