Cultural differences between Kiwi son-in-law and Chinese mother-in-law amuse thousands of viewers in China
- Immigrant grandmother transforms son-in-law’s garden into a vegetable patch and asks if she can have fish in the swimming pool
- But it’s all good fun, family says
The cultural differences experienced by a New Zealand-Chinese family living in Sydney, Australia, have attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers in China, amused by the interactions between the Kiwi son-in-law and his Chinese mother-in-law.
Yang Yang, originally from Beijing, has been uploading videos to the streaming app Kuaishou since the middle of last year. They range from Yang learning about life in Australia to her husband Peter trying Chinese foods made by mother-in-law Li Jinshan.
“I didn’t expect them to be this popular. Maybe my family expresses traditional Chinese values better than others,” Yang said in an interview.
“Many people relate to the daily experiences shown in the videos and think they are funny … the east-west cultural differences.”
Yang, 42, and Peter, 55, met in New Zealand 15 years ago when she was studying there and Peter was working. They moved to Sydney 10 years ago for Peter’s job. The couple have two children, four-year-old Ella and two-year-old Eric.
“I’m at home looking after my children most of the time. Kuaishou gives me an opportunity to share my life experiences,” Yang said. “This is a way for me to express myself. It makes me happy.”
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Yang’s mother Li moved to Australia from Beijing about five years ago to help care for the children. The 69-year-old tries to maintain some of her Chinese way of life, such as growing vegetables and cooking her favourite foods, like stinky tofu.
Li transformed the family garden, where Peter, who asked for his surname not to be published, had grown flowers, into one that is full of vegetables such as chillies and tomatoes. Videos showing the fruits of her efforts and Peter reacting to his new-look backyard were the first to go viral, attracting almost 6 million views.
Viewers were amused by Li’s efforts and some felt sorry for Peter, as he seemed upset by the transformation. Some even criticised Li for being insensitive.
“I think he is feeling hopeless,” a user commented on the video, which is uploaded to the Kuaishou account YangYang1977. The channel has 335,000 followers.
“The son-in-law may feel the mother-in-law doesn’t respect him,” a user wrote on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like service. “They should communicate beforehand since foreigners and the Chinese think in different ways.”
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Peter, however, said he was not upset. He spoke fondly of his mother-in-law and said she had told him about her plans for the garden. He said that while it was unusual to see the garden full of vegetables he did not mind.
“She’s better at gardening than me, so that’s fine. I think people should be growing more vegetables,” he said, laughing. “She chopped a tree down with a meat cleaver. She’s a force of nature.”
He did draw the line at Li keeping fish in the swimming pool, however.
He said he thought the popularity of the videos was testament to how interested people are to connect with one and other.
Despite being an immigrant herself, Li refers to Peter as Laowai, which is Mandarin for foreigner. She said that when she first heard about Peter from Yang she did not approve as he is 13 years older and did not own a house at the time.
“Westerners have different values to Chinese people,” Li said. “In China, you need to own a home. If you don’t have an apartment, there would be a lot of burden in the future, so I didn’t approve for a long time.”
But Li said she changed her mind after seeing the way Peter treated Yang.
“Laowai helps Yang a lot,” she said. “He is very civilised, the way he speaks and he does things that show he’s cultured and polite. My daughter said she would not find another man as selfless and kind.”
Li does not speak English and Peter does not speak Chinese. When Yang is not around they communicate through gestures.
“Most of the time we’re just waving our hands and shouting at each other,” Peter said. “I think that’s probably what people find funny, watching us trying to communicate.”
The miscommunication and cultural differences can be confusing at times, but it was a normal part of their family’s life, he said.
“It’s not an issue. Any family’s weird right?” he said. “At a very basic level, we all respect each other.”
