For the past month, me, my girlfriend and my dog have been staying with my girlfriend's sister, brother in-law, their dog and her brother as we moved from the city we were previously living and working in, where we first met four years ago, to her home city where all of her family live as we plan to get married in the very near future.
Living with a Chinese family is definitely different, we're all in our twenty's so if I were in England we would probably have beers on the weekends, a lot of pizza and movies, music on and casually go in and out the house quite a lot doing our own things.
But of course China is not at all like England with it's very different history and culture so let me share with you what it's been like :D (basically everyone with their faces glued to their phones and talking about which food is delicious haha)
In China people never seem to do things by themselves as I've come to realize over the years. Even before I came to China, I travelled in Australia for a year and I always thought it was strange that I would always see big groups of Chinese people all walking, standing or sitting very closely together (safety in numbers I guess :D) everything we do here in this house has got to be a team activity which is unusual for me and in my opinion isn't healthy at all. I always see Chinese families walking around outside arguing with eachother and now I understand why haha my girlfriend and her sister argue with eachother constantly! And Chinese people are looooooooud even when talking normally :D Then the sister's husband recieves the built up anger from his wife and I recieve my girlfriend's built up anger and then everybodies unhappy! The plan was to find an apartment as soon as we arrived but everybody WANTS to stay together in the angry house haha it's bizzare. The brother in-law keeps insisting 'It's Ok! This is China!' meaning this is completely normal, but for me it seems very unhealthy and stressful. I can feel the tension and my girlfriend seems to get more annoyed with me everyday the more her and her sister argue.
As we're this wierd little team now, everything has to be shared, we went to the cinema last night and I asked my girlfriend if she wanted an ice cream but she said if I get her one then I have to buy everyone else one. (and there were a lot of cousins there :D)
Anytime anybody buys ANYTHING they have to buy the group even if you don't want it and saying no isn't very polite..... You can't get a glass of water or smoke a cigarette without offering it to the group first. It seems nice but after a few days it becomes exhausting and I'm a guy who likes his alone time but I haven't had any for a long time. The only time the team breaks is to go to the toilet and sleep haha.
All I want to do is go on a walk alone for an hour but the team will insist on coming and I can't just sprint away like a maniac haha It's not so bad though I'm a patient guy and I enjoy new experiences! China is difficult, so strange and different but that's why it's so interesting :D I hope you enjoyed the post! :D
