Rant about being confronted with stereotypes and issues about China

Something that's really making me angry these days is when people shove their very offensive opinion in my face, mostly about my husband or him being born in China.

Today my coworker told me she heard I wanted to visit China in December or January and I said that it's true, that I haven't been there in years and so on. Then she asked me which city in China we're visiting, and I said "Taiyuan, it's my husband's hometown." and she googled it and said it looks nice. I told her where we went last time I've been there and so on. Then, all of a sudden, she starts: "Well, I think that China is interesting, culturally..." and I already thought: "Ugh, here we go." As expected, she went on like "BUT... I just don't like the political situation! It's so bad" I kindly told her that when I was there, I have not faced any issues with the political situation, but she still angrily told me "But the people in China aren't allowed to do what they want, that's just not okay!" In German it sounded even angrier, I can't translate it properly... I suddenly felt hurt because I thought...

Why would people, knowing that my husband is Chinese, just tell me that the country he's from is basically shit in their opinion?

Especially when they've never been there. I know that China does have some political issues, but the problem is that German media displays China in a very bad light. And people who are easy to manipulate believe it. They probably think that you'll be shot on the streets in China if you speak badly about a politician in public, and that people there are living in constant fear, which is just not true. But then again, they won't change their opinon, or simply think before saying such things. I honestly didn't know what to say to her. It would've been no problem if she simply asked me, in a normal voice "Is it true that in China...?" but the fact that she wanted to see pictures and then just angrily told me that she thinks China is a horrible country proved me that she had no intentions to learn something about the country, but simply wanted to talk shit. I felt disappointed.

Please do me and everyone else a favour. Whenever you meet someone from a foreign country, or someone whose friend/boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife is from a foreign country: Do NOT aggressively confront them with every single stereotype you've heard about that country. If you are honestly interested, you can ask. If you're not, please keep your mouth shut.

You have no idea how often people confronted me with stereotypes about Asians in the past years. Just YESTERDAY someone made a joke about my husband eating dogs. It is not funny. I heard these "jokes" so often that I have no energy to keep explaining myself or my husband's culture anymore. How would you feel if everyone would constantly joke about the person you love? Or if you had to explain over and over that they don't do this or that? 

I had a wonderful time in China and visited a lot of nice places, I can't wait to be there again!

It's also the country my husband was born in, and his whole family lives there - all of them more kind and generous than people in Germany ever treated me. I love the country with its flaws.

And speaking of Germany and flaws. If you wish to complain about political issues, how about we start right here? What about the horrible racism going on right now? What about the refugee shelters that are being set on fire on a nearly daily basis, without media really talking about it? Do you want others to confront you with that. like it is all your fault? Like you are a horrible person for living in Germany, or - god forbid - even liking to live here? Think about it.

Cherry blossoms

Today Xin and me went to Primark to go shopping for spring/summer clothes. We went really early in the morning because Primark is always so crowded in the afternoon. Unfortunately we haven't found anything except a sweater for Xin for 3€, haha! I was looking for a cute chiffon blouse, maybe with a peter pan collar. But the ones I found at Primark had a weird cut and were completely transparent... I guess I'm not into the trends that are going on right now. Xin said I should buy clothes next time we are in China, but that wouldn't happen before next Winter. Maybe I'll just order clothes from Yesstyle as soon as I have the money~

We were a bit disappointed because we couldn't find clothes we liked, but at least we spotted these beautiful cherry blossom trees near Primark! Cherry blossoms make me so happy, I mean they are pink and so pretty to look at. It truly feels like Spring has finally arrived when the cherry blossoms start blooming.

Happy new year!

I know I'm pretty late with this, but I hope everyone had a nice start for 2015! ^.^

I celebrated with my parents, brother and my nephew, so it was just a small party.

Midnight was special to me, because that was the moment when Xin and I became a couple - 7 years ago! He's currently in China to visit his family, so of course I felt a little blue on New Years Eve, because we couldn't spend this anniversary together. But he promised we will celebrate as soon as he's back! =) Which is pretty soon, too! I can't wait for him to be back. It's tough when you spend every single day together, and then you're seperated for a whole month. I do enjoy being with my family though, and I'm happy so is he. <3

Oh, and he bought me a really nice gift in China! I will show it to you as soon as I get my hands on it, hehe. But Xin has already sent me some photos and I'm really really excited!

Another wonderful thing is that I was able to meet my best friends again. <3 They live far away and I can't meet them all the time. T_T So I enjoy the few days we can spend together.

Franzis and me trying on weird hats, haha! The ones on the first photo don't even look that bad? Aside from my bangs which look horrible due to stormy weather and wearing a hat all day.

But what is going on with the animal hats? Do people actually buy these? Well, you can find them at New Yorker if you're interested! :D

After going shopping we went to have a drink...

They look cute, right? But they were freaking strong! I wish they would've tasted more fruity. -_-

By the way, I've burned my finger on New Year's Eve, by lighting fireworks. -_-

That's the lowest I can move my finger now, even after more than a week.

It hurts whenever I curve my finger a little. Not too bad, but it's extremely annoying.

On this photo ypu can see how swollen it is. (The finger is shiny because I put cream on it).

I hope it'll heal soon! T_T

This was my start of 2015 in a nutshell! ^_^

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Trip to Hamburg + my first Purikura!

Last weekend we made a one-day-trip to Hamburg with our friends. ^_^

We planned to go to Heidepark, an amusement park in Soltau and since it's close to Hamburg, my friends figured we can spend a day there as well!

On Saturday we started our trip with a ~3 hours drive to Hamburg.

After checking in to our hotel we went for lunch at "Jam Jam", a running sushi restaurant.

It was so much fun! They had dim sum, vegetables, sushi, mochis and much more.

I think the four of us were taking aaaall the good stuff away from the other customers, haha! 

I went totally crazy over the avocado sushi. I haven't had sushi for a long time so I took this chance and stuffed myself with it. :D You should've seen the huge stack of plates on our table! We felt very sorry for the employers who are in charge of washing dishes.... ^_^" 

They also had bubble tea! I chose almond bubble tea with tapioca pearls, it was sooo good!

After lunch we walked to the J-Store, which is a shop for manga and Japanese merchandise... and most importantly it has a purikura machine (which was the main reason why we wanted to go there)!

My first purikuras ever... ;__; 

This one was one of our first tries and Xin wasn't fast enough to get in the picture. ;_;

Halloween theme, perfect for October. <3

We keep saying that we girls are bunnies and our guys are pandas. :'D

The small puri in the upper left corner was our very first one and it was a huge fail. :D

Also, "nusae suseu" was just gibberish that we were typing in a hurry when we tried to figure out how everything works...

I don't even want to upload the full body pictures because I look so fat in them. :D I had to stand in the front and SQUAT so Xin would fit in the pictures... he's too tall. T_T~

We also took couple puris. <3

I'm only allowed to upload this one because Xin thinks he looks weird with the eye enlarging effect, altough I told him he looks handsome, but he won't believe me. ;_; But it does look like he's wearing circle lenses or something.

The J-Store itself wasn't impressive to me at all... it's rather small and besides mangas they had a few backbacks, Dragonball plushies and One Piece T-Shirts. Also some expensive school Lolita dresses... so the shop unfortunately wasn't too interesting for me.

We then walked around the streets of Hamburg, towards the sea. Afterall, when you're in Hamburg, you gotta see the harbors!

Last but not least we visited the Miniature Museum, which exhibits models of several big cities.

Every now and then they turned down the lights in the museum as you can see!

We had a really good day in Hamburg, even if we were exhausted at the end of the day from all the walking. ^_^ There's so much to see in Hamburg that one day just isn't enough. I hope we can go there again some time!

Chinese mid autumn festival - mooncakes and hot pot

Do you know about the Chinese mid autumn festival?

"The Mid-Autumn Festival is an official harvest festival celebrated by Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese peoples. The festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar and Vietnamese calendar, during a full moon, which is in September or early October in the Gregorian calendar, within 15 days of the autumnal equinox. The holiday is also celebrated in Korea [Chuseok] and Japan [Tsukimi]." - Wikipedia

Altough we are living in Germany, this year we also celebrated the mid autumn festival. My husband suggested we should invite some friends and make our own mooncakes (it's Chinese tradition to eat them with your close friends and family on mid autumn festival).

We got all the ingredients, but unfortunately it was impossible to find a mooncake former in our local Asian supermarkets. But you know what? It was even more fun without one! We planned to just make round cakes without a certain shape or extravagant pattern, but our friends were really creative as you can see!

I love this photo because it made me so happy to see our friends (who didn't even know each other before) were being so creative together, drawing cute patterns on the mooncakes and even even making them shaped like flowers!

This is what they looked like after frying them:

Sadly the patterns disappeared after frying, but hey, we knew they were there!

They didn't exactly taste like actual mooncakes, but they were still pretty good! haha

We made a red bean paste filling with several kinds of nuts. Some had egg yolk in them but I didn't like those. >_<

We also had mochis, look how cute they looked!

Altough the mochis on the second photo had an artificially sweet taste. -_-

In the evening the six of us went to Essen because there's a Chinese restaurant with hot pot buffet and oh god, we were eating so much!

Selca with my friend~ we look so pale, haha!

Today is her birthday, hope she'll have a lovely day! ^.^

After this huge dinner we all went home tired and full, it was a very nice day! We already have some plans for this week as well since today is our 5th wedding anniversary! Waaa 5 years already... time sure flies! It sure didn't feel like such a long time. To be honest we don't have certain plans for today yet. Xin has to work and I don't need to go eat at a fancy restaurant just for the sake of an anniversary. Especially since we already went out last weekend, and this week we'll also go out to celebrate my friend's and also Xin's birthday, so... As long as we'll have a comfy and romantic evening it doesn't matter to me if we eat KFC or at a fancy restaurant, haha~