dinner: instant noodle lunch while on the high speed rail in china
i'm in china visiting family. i'm staying with my grandparents and extended family. the aunt that i'm talking about married into the family, and her husband (my mom's brother) is currently living in the US with my family. he's living with us in the US because the USD is stronger than the RMB Yuan, which means he can better support his family. I like my uncle a lot! He's a really chill guy and hes really fun to be around. My aunt and him have two children, a 20 year old girl (in college) and a 10 year old boy. i think its important context to add, since my aunt is functionally a single mother with her two kids and a full time office job.
The 10 year old is the worst. He spends all day glued to a screen. I have never personally witnessed a case of iPad baby this bad. He cannot go even 5 minutes in a car without tiktok or a video or a game in front of him. My aunt lets him stay up until midnight on the screen and in the morning he is screaming, crying, bc caterwauling bloody fucking murder that he needs to wake up and brush his teeth. Whats even worse is that prior to meeting him in China, my other aunt (my mom's sister) wanted to buy an iPad for him. I said, "we have my brother's old iPad (that he handed down to ME😭) that we can give him then. we won't have to spend a couple hundred on a new one". i was unknowingly complicit in this behavior
He refuses to eat home cooked foods. It must be outside food. He constantly begs his mom for KFC and she fucking just gives in?? He asked his mom for braised beef noodles at 9pm at night, something that would be like a 10-15 minute drive one way. When my mom was like: "this late? no, stay home, it's dark and really late. we have ramen at home. just make him a bowl of instant ramen if he's still hungry". they told him he was going to have ramen, he threw a screaming fit. they made him the ramen and he refused to eat it.
Meal time is also a struggle because if its not something he wants to eat (usually either fast food or fried food or spicy food) he is screaming and crying. actual fits with tears. he will beg US not to eat a certain meal bc he doesn't want to eat it (meals are all family style here) and if begging doesnt work then he resorts to tears. he also refuses to eat vegetables at meals. i'm just flabbergasted that his mom and the rest of my family just allows this.
apparently it's mostly because his mom defends his behavior and tells off anyone who says otherwise. her reasoning is that he is "still a child".
i'm at my limit because tonight at dinner, we were eating grilled fish. his mom is at work late so shes not present. in china fish is served whole with bones. it's just the norm here, we're taught from toddlerhood how to eat around the bones and how to pick them out. apparently there was something in his mouthful that he couldnt swallow or maybe a bone poked him, so he spat the entire thing out on the raw table, spit and half-chewed food and all. no napkin (it was within reach). it was not like he was choking, he spits it out on the table, and then my mom sees and gags and runs to the bathroom to throw up. he does not ask if she is okay, he doesn't apologize or have any embarrassment. he only says "something got caught in my tooth!" and then runs upstairs to play on his ipad. this is a TEN YEAR OLD. i understand that the fish bone in a mouthful would have been uncomfortable, but its the fact that he didn't check up on my mom (his aunt) after is what is realllly irritating me.
this is the second instance of him having horrible table manners. he gets food and sauce all over his face/cheeks when he eats. when my mom tells him to wipe his face he responds "this is just what i'm used to!". one time at roast meat skewer bbq, when the skewers arrived at the table they were sizzling hot. the adults say to him, "wait until it's cooled a bit!". he disregards them and grabs a skewer and bites into it, and then spits the chunk of meat onto his plate. covered in his spit. he then blows on the chunk of meat on his plate then eats it. this was like 2 weeks ago and everything has been escalating since. i'm looking into hotels i'll be able to stay at for the rest of my trip (abt 3 more weeks).
this was never allowed in my family so like. idk. this type of behavior isnt normal for chinese families either 🧍🏻♀️