When my daughter was born
My wife's parents came to stay with us for a bit to help us adjust to having a wee one. She's Chinese and we were living in Beijing, so pretty much standard practise. What I did not expect was the boxes of food they brought (they clearly intended to do all the cooking, which was nice although a bit of forewarning would have been nice), and the bucket of eels. Now eels are a Jiangsu delicacy, and served in a nice sauce they are delicious. But live fish in a bucket in your kitchen seemed a bit much. But hey-ho, you're in China and weird shit happens all the time, so no matter.

Fortunately the in-laws didn't stay too long, as the wife and I somehow managed to feed, change and bathe our daughter. Once they'd buggered off back home, though, a dreadful fishy smell remained in the kitchen. It seemed to be coming from the drains. I tried bleach - the smell remained. Mr Muscle and all the - still the smell. Bicarb and vinegar - motherfucking what? STILL STINKS OF EELS.

I was practically taking the kitchen apart by now. At last I looked behind the oven, and found he horror of a decomposing eel rotting away there. How had it got there? How can you lose a fucking eel?

I don't let them bring live animals of any kind into my apartment any more.
(McChinaman banned, Sat 18 Jan 2014, 15:11, 3 replies)

"my drain smells of eels" is the first phrase I ever learned in mandarin.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Sun 19 Jan 2014, 10:46, closed)

eels can climb out of a bucket and slither quite a long way
It was a bid for freedom.
(the other guy not the one that gave you coochie warts, Sun 19 Jan 2014, 15:03, closed)

A likely story....
Were it not for the fact that (owing to the typically tiny Chinese kitchen), I had a toaster oven which sat on a kitchen worktop.
(McChinaman banned, Mon 20 Jan 2014, 9:13, closed)