Chinese Mothers

Due to the nature of my work, I usually deal with companies and people who work in them, thus managing to avoid the insanity that comes with dealing with individuals and their family members.

There are a couple of exceptions to this rule, but after today, maybe I will make some exceptions to my exceptions. Am handing a matter now for a doctor regarding his late father's property, and I wrote him yesterday to ask for a number of documents. He called today, we chatted about them, then he asked me as a favour to call his mother to ask for 3 documents. I understand this sort of request because, look, he's busy, I'm supposed to help him with his personal matters, so I'll spend 3 minutes on the phone doing it.

I call his mother, and she sounds (a) surprisingly alert and very healthy; and (b) surprisingly pissed off. Like "Satan on a bad day" pissed off. She says "okay I'll get the documents" through what sounds remarkably like clenched teeth, and then (just like my mother) hangs up without saying goodbye. I even wondered for a moment if I had called my mother by mistake.

10 minutes later, she calls me back, and now she sounds completely enraged. YOU TELL MY SON THAT IF HE WANTS ANY DOCUMENTS HE CAN CALL ME HIMSELF OTHERWISE I AM NOT GIVING YOU ANYTHING *CLICK*

Good grief.

I called him and as I told him what happened, I had this sneaking suspicion that I really didn't need to explain very much. He just sighed, said he'll call her, and then hung up. Five minutes later, he called again to ask me to write to her as she was not taking his calls.

Jesus.

She's just like my mother.