Chinese parents come to America – No need to suffer, yet they find ways to make life difficult for themselves.

Clearly, both of them have high blood pressure and high blood sugar, but they keep eating rice, porridge, and pickled vegetables. And! Even though they buy fresh carrots and other vegetables, they refuse to eat them, instead cutting them into strips and pickling them to make side dishes.

Me: Rice is full of sugar, and pickled vegetables are loaded with salt. I really don't recommend you keep eating this.
My parents: Don't talk nonsense. How much do we really eat? We've gotten used to hard times. A simple meal of pickled vegetables and plain porridge is enough to get us through the day. We don't need to be picky. Do you think we don't want to eat fish, meat, and shrimp? We can't eat that every day. It costs hundreds of yuan for a single meal, sometimes over a thousand!
Me: But there are so many cheeses, eggs, shrimp, and beef in the house. Why can't you eat those? What about protein powder and smoothies with fruit? Why do I have to drive over twenty minutes to the Chinese supermarket to buy rice, eating whatever comes to mind without regard for your health, just to appear like you're good at saving money and managing life?
My parents: Ridiculous...

It makes me feel a little crazy...
And! And! And!
There are bananas in the kitchen, a whole bunch of them. My husband and I have them for breakfast, and after eating eggs and bacon, we head out. When the bananas are perfectly ripe, they won't eat them. But when they start turning black, they'll eat them and say: "Look, you eat the good ones, and we'll eat these that are about to spoil. Don't waste them. Ah, we clean up the leftovers that you don't eat or can't finish..."

The key is, if you want to eat bananas, why can't you eat them when they're fresh?
Occasionally, they'll eat the leftover dinner my son didn’t finish, and then start saying: "Ah, we only deserve to eat the leftover food from our grandson."
Me: ???

**In this house, apart from food, there is no other topic or anything else that holds any meaning for them. Every day they’re obsessing over what to cook, what tastes good, and I’m just like...???

Then they keep saying how they’re very good at enduring hardship, how pitiful they are, how they’ve gotten used to living poor...
Me: ???