I adore my Chinese mother-in-law, four feet eight inches (1.4 meters) of pure spunk and energy. True, when I came to China as a new mother, we did have a few culture clashes, notably over the bathing of the baby. I tenderly held Baby in the crook of my arms while gently massaging baby shampoo into her scalp, rinsing it in my cupped hand with water heated to the perfect temperature. Nainai (granny) took a more direct approach, grasping Baby by the ankles and dunking her head up to the eyebrows in and out of a bucket of water. Mercifully, it was not hot. I of course was horrified, especially as I had seen my Aunt Ona prepare a chicken for plucking in exactly that same way. (Baby was fine, by the way, a bit surprised, but far more calm about it than I was.)
We differed in other approaches too: a former Army nurse, Nainai swabbed everything in pure alcohol so no one could get sick from my foreign germs, once going so far as to swipe a bottle of grandpa's treasured alcohol to disinfect a toilet seat I had just used. There are times when I think that's still the best use for that brand of Chinese liquor, but grandpa disagrees. In his opinion, we should have tossed back a shot each and forgotten all about the fact that their son had the bad taste to marry a foreigner who didn't even know how to play mahjong yet. I didn't mind the continual mopping up after me: My mom was also a nurse, and the scent of bleach still reminds me of home.
However - and this was a big one - the issue of pest control reared its ugly head our first spring together. My mother was not a woman of science, other than in her addiction to slopping bleach into the washing machine and hoping for the best. I grew up in a household where there were no screens on the second-floor windows as my mother thought the atmosphere was too thin for the bugs, evidence in the form of mosquito bites aside. Nainai knew better. Our Beijing apartment had screens on every window, screens across the doors, mosquito netting over the beds. Doors were opened and closed at the speed of light, lest a bastard mosquito swoop in and kill us all with one viral payload. I'm not so sure if she would have minded if the adults, particularly grandpa and my husband, were carried off by a case of malaria, but by God, her granddaughter was not going to have a single bite on her.
From April to October, Nainai never put down her fly swatter, even in sleep, constantly on the alert for the buzzing that indicated the enemy had crossed the border and was ready to attack. We were prepared for the perimeter to be breached at all times, fly swatters and cans of expensive mosquito spray at the ready. I did not want my darling baby to suffer from a bite or any resultant diseases, so I too took up eternal vigilance, often racing Nainai to the door not to let in a guest, but to ensure no mosquito had the audacity to zoom in uninvited. Some families play pickleball, we played Swat. I don't know if it was the energy she devoted into keeping us safe, or the mosquito coils that burned 24/7 in the hallway just outside the door, but no mosquito crossed that Maginot line... except one. Once. Like Bigfoot, I didn't see it myself, so I have to take her word for it. One early morning, maybe 3:30, well before the family wake-up time of 5, Nainai heard something. Something evil. Something whiny and shrill. She sat bolt upright and peered into the night. Yes, there it was, a mosquito, sitting on the outside of her mosquito net. The nerve! She reached out, smashed him into the netting, jumped up, disinfected her hands with bleach... and then set off no less than twenty mosquito coils.
Semi-comatose from the lack of oxygen and poisonous fumes, I finally emerged well past the usual time, eyes swollen shut, lungs burning, only to find Nainai and Baby seated at the breakfast table, gas masks in place, calmly playing pat-a-cake. Peering through the fumes, all I could say was, "Mosquito?" Nainai nodded happily and pointed to the mangled corpse on the mosquito netting. No hunter was ever more proud of a trophy.
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