“POTATO- RELATIVES”

In a small town if someone became rich, soon he would become famous too, soon every out-of-towns potato-relatives would want to claim their relations with him!

Written by Money Tai Tai

I have a friend who grew up in a very small town, eventually she ends up in meow city. She told me whenever she met someone especially from the bigger cities in our state, they would ask her, ‘Do you know so and so in your hometown? He is my uncle!’

    When my friend asked them for more details, she found out all of them are actually not that “close” to each others, they are merely “potato-relatives”, usually ended like this, ‘He is my mom’s cousin!.... Oh due to my mom and him have same surname, thus they recognize each other as cousins!’

   My friend of course kept quiet whenever  she saw her out-of-town friends declared proudly as a “potato-relative” of such rich businessman from her small hometown, but deep in my friend’s heart she sighed, ‘Snobbish and ignorant idiots! He is my “potato-relative” too but I don’t even dare to tell anyone about it, lest that I embarrass myself.’ 

    

Such businessman became rich due to he did smuggling business at first before he got into decent business, he was neither too decent of his character, in the dark closet such small town people knew that he attained to rape his sister-in-law and he had mistress but all his follies were all covered up by his “Chinawoman” wife, when someone informed her what her husband did behind her, she would tell them, ‘Oh no, that’s not my husband, my husband is a very good man he wouldn’t do such bad things and he wouldn’t do that to me!’

    

   And like most stereo-type “Chinawoman-wives”, his wife of course produced some highly educated professionals and successful bussinessman-sons to make small town folks zipped up their itchy mouths to reveal the truths,  instead they would keep quiet but admired his success without being caught red-handed by any authority. Diplomatically they would tell everyone, ‘He is a rare talent!’ thus whenever people from out-of-town heard such remark, indeed they would feel so proud that they are his children’s friends or as his “potato-relatives”!

    

   Any successful “Chinaman” must have a very forgiving and very “big heat” “Chinawoman” wife behind him, of course she admired him like a demigod, or else she wouldn’t tolerate and spoil such a pervert-husband. The “Chinawoman-wife” usually was the one who would boost and assure her husband’s confident, esteem and pride, so her husband would really think that he already had achieved his social status in the small town with his financial success, occasionally when a politician came to the small town for a social function, he would suddenly pop in the function hall sat next to the politician without approval from the organizer, actually that was the seat belonged to the organizing chairman and when there was a photo session, he would sit right next to the politician again, and actually that was the seat belonged to the organizing chairman too, this happened frequently that it became a very embarrassing joke amongst small town insighters!

So after you hear this story from me, when you want to inform your friends proudly of a rich man’s connection with you from her hometown, please think twice! Because you are an outsider and you are just a "potato-relative", you could truly embarrass yourself unknowingly to yourself even up the day to your coffin, because your friend would never tell you the truth of your “rich and famous small town potato-uncle” is actually “not that marvelous” in her and other insighters’ eyes …..  yet you felt “so proud” of him!