utopia

Yui,

You are facing a situation that what my mom is experiencing at this moment in Asia.
She lives with my grandparent and my grandmother is very sick and barely can walk.
Yet, they never wear anything new even we bought them tons...... and the whole apartment, I seen it this year, I feel so sad that my mom seems like living in "lung uk area" or ..........like a begger..............

1000 times worst than your lai lai ............. the only thing my mom can do is clean clean clean and clean everyday (because my grandmother cannot control herself, so pee and poo poo everywhere in the apartment) ..............because they will never hire a maid; worrying that the maid will kill them and steal all their money..............

ai......... the best way is just live separately .to avoid conflict and argument..

big_tooth

Yui,

I don't have any suggestion as I don't see how changing their lifestyles is an improvement to their lives.  Improvement for your sake definitely, but....

Alcoholic

Yui,
your lai-lai is kinda like my 嬤嬤 in hk。她已前細個偷盜落香港。我嬤嬤最鍾意收集膠袋, 紙袋，橡根，報紙，雜誌，各酒樓既牙籤，繩，布碎   一個字：HAN (aka 不浪廢）嬤嬤從來都唔著新衫。。。 if you buy it, she will wear once, then neatly save it in the deepest corner of her closet, 唔拾得著。once, buy her shoes, let her pick, she 乜都up頭話好... wear it once, & forever put aside. when we ask her many many times, she finally say she don't wear it because 刮腳。 so we ask her why agree to buy it, she always 笑笑口得個hole.  my dad & uncle gives her alot of allowance each month. yet, 她兩磚"腐yu" or one small piece of 鹹魚送一碗飯就當一餐。最多煮多兩條菜，咁就可以食多一餐。工人煮，她又話唔岩胃口，叫她自己落街買野食，又唔制。when we go back to hk, we never touch her leftovers in the fridge because for sure over 3 days +

our solution:
講，tum, 罵(by my dad only) 係冇用既~ sorry to say, but daddy 有次落order, when grandma is out, we all have to throw out some of her "collections"。 we approximately threw out 40% of each type of collection   when she come home, of course, she notice la! but when dad is in hk, she will keep her murmurs low. when dad is out for business....HA! 我同媽咪，老公，細佬妹就有3日說話聽喇。。。 space is limited in hk, so we had to do it because there's just no more space. about the clothes etc...都冇辦法，因為她係唔著，妳都吹唔脹~

back to Yui's troubles:
- the hanging wet bags on windows... MAYBE you can try to tell her that it's not good to do that because if it blows off, then neighbours can complain that you're littering? aiii
- tv.... when she 南麼阿彌陀, is she really watching tv, praying out loud & listening AT THE SAME TIME? oh god.... if she can multi-task like that...then can't really do much because she actually knows what is going on on the tv wor....
- as for your lai-lai's collection... maybe try to convince her to recycle the bags etc... since she grew up in rural area...maybe say it will help nature? hahahaha... aiya... sorry ar, your case is physcially tough, where us other girls have personality tough situations~

worse come to worse.... the same 宗子that we all use & find effective: 後埋，忍，& 算

Alcoholic

big tooth,
then please define what group your wife is in. let us have an eye opener.
also, why are you always saying that people are not welcoming advice & construction criticism when we're doing case studies here? my suggestion to you would be to accept other people's differences, & accept that people use a different method than your wife's, and things are still working out. like your wife's style... trying to explain people's "illogical" deeds is good wor, but what's wrong with not wanting to make up an excuse for the "illogical" but yet still solve the problem? besides, unless the lai-lai say so clearly herself, otherwise, what your wife explains to herself is subjective, just for her own comforting...something that makes some sense to her. and isn't that what we all do here? besides, as i say, if we don't want to think of some "logical" reason, as long as we solve the problem is fine. it doesn't matter what the "reason" is, because you will never know, because you will never be that person.

CWong,
because this is a specific topic. if you want to discuss about other relationships... open a new thread, & us C9's will jump right in

Catpiano

  I just heard .. there is a TVB series .. called 野蠻奶奶大戰戈師奶 ...       (what an ugly name! )

Is it because some people watched those kind of TV so much?  and then concern about 奶奶 problem ??

Alcoholic

咁岩我第既個係同D奶奶某些方面唔係咁夾姐。。。
maybe people have problems with 老爺，或者其他親戚呢。。。
but seems like wive VS lai-lai is most common of them all for some reason~

華美子

Alcoholic，我奶奶唔只慳，仲係環保之星，好少用膠袋不特只，保鮮紙洗完再用。有次想用我包過生豬肉既保鮮紙包飯，好在我立即dump左張保鮮紙。

奶奶走左，唔洗再食一pat pat既野囉，今晚整左蜜汁蒜子骨，老公食到 lam lam 利。

big_tooth

原帖由 Alcoholic 於 2008-1-9 20:14 發表
big tooth,
then please define what group your wife is in. let us have an eye opener.
also, why are you always saying that people are not welcoming advice & construction criticism when we're doing cas ...

Alocholic,

I really like what you said.  "Accept other peoples difference and accept that people's method", it applies to the discussion you and I are having, and also applies to relationship with inlaws.  

I'm not imposing my wife's method on people, but I guess when I post it, it's as you said to Blueprint, I'm not being understanding and I'm  making it like you guys are immature.  And clearly I must belong to either group 1 or group 3.  No way a group 2 person would say what I've said.  We're not group 1, and definitely not group 3.  Where will you put me and some others then if our comments make us not belong to group 2?

I can tell you, when my wife think of the logical reasons, she is not trying to comfort herself, but she is protecting the other person, giving them the benefit of the doubt first.  And that is my point, to give others the benefit of the doubt (as oppose to finding ways to comfort yourself).  I agree it is hard and complicated living with people, but any method we apply to better the situation need to come from the heart.  If it's not from the heart, eventually people will get sick and tire and blow up.  Giving a happy face at home then come onto the internet and vent is telling me that happy face is not from the heart.

What is logical and illogical is also subjective.  I'll give you an example, my dad one day said to me in front of other family member that I shouldn't be taking advantage of my wife.  At the time I thought my wife and I were nothing like what he said. Very illogical as it seem at the time.  But then one day as I was doing the exact same thing then I remember what he said, and I realized that I was doing it while my wife and I both not even realized it.

Alcoholic

big tooth,

just because i claimed that we are "mature" has nothing to do or suggest the fact that we think that you think that we're immature. as you mention, this is sorta like a discussion between me and you. discussion... NOT arguement. i'm not mad, or mun at you or anything. so please don't make it toned like we are biting on each other. it's just a pleasant talk. so don't take it too personally.

and i never said that you tried to imposed your wife's method on us either. i think i said pretty clear that it's fine, it's just that we didn't choose to take that method ja wor.
the groups are how i think. & since i hear that you don't fit yourself into the groups that run into my mind, i did offer you to define the group that you feel best describes you.

and also, when did we not give our lai-lai's actions doubt? the "lai-lai examples" from me, Yui, 華美子 are clearly because the lai-lai's are han, religious/lifestyle habbits... there is no doubt for that wor.

as for the example that i gave about my lai-lai relating me stepping on my hubby, i already suggested the fact that she probably doesn't like my white-washed thinking/preference, that's why she said such thing to bring it up. if i add to my "doubt" that [ MAYBE my lai-lai wants me to become more traditional chinese/honger, so that she can get along even better with me ] <-- would that make you feel i have more doubtful space to "protect" my lai-lai? but even so, sorry. no can do. that's the way SHE grew up. this is the way I was bought up. pui her do things she likes, understanding her needs, speaking more chinese etc is already good enough. it's not like i needa transform myself to her likings, revolve around her. besides i am who i am.... THIS is the person that HER son married for. as people said in this discussion, i chose my hubby, my hubby chose me. but none of us chose my lai-lai. kinda mean to your ears right? but it's true.

so, did we not try to give our lai-lai's space for consideration?

i hope that you have never faked a smile in your life, or held back your emotions infront of other people in order to keep the situation cool. cus that ain't coming from the heart either. if everyone displays everything true from the heart/ take it all out, it will end up hurting even more. that's being inconsiderate, & selfish. of course, people have the right to display all your feelings, but that's not the way to interact socially. there's a difference between being "fake", and "hiding your true self"... if we did that, that would be self-centered.  a better way to put it rather than "hiding our true selves" is: we are just displaying our best socially accepted qualities.

as for your example, that's great. but as i mentioned before, there are times that i feel that some elders comments are correct. it doesn't even need to take the next time we're doing it to realize it. as for venting... how do you expect people to like differences that you're not accustomed to from your heart? you just accept that fact, work it out by smoothing out the corners & get used to it when it comes again. some things, people can adapt to. but other things, no matter how hard you try, just can't happen. & that's how we deal with it.

[ 本帖最後由 Alcoholic 於 2008-1-10 09:29 編輯 ]

Yui

原帖由 華美子 於 2008-1-9 23:33 發表
Alcoholic，我奶奶唔只慳，仲係環保之星，好少用膠袋不特只，保鮮紙洗完再用。有次想用我包過生豬肉既保鮮紙包飯，好在我立即dump左張保鮮紙。

My lai lai has a habbit of reserving and recycling tissue papers, she would unfold the crumble wet tissue and flat dry on the table (she said they are clean, just water).When my hubby and I see these sad wrinkled tissue papers, we just toss them.

Lai lai's latest strategy is to put them back to the tissue paper box, so that we would not notice and throw them away.