In general, “Family” means a lot more in China than in my native U.S. The “we,” as you know, is more important than the “me” here, especially when talking about family.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t dysfunctional families here. And I recently met a doozy.

I’m changing a few details in the following story “just in case,” but the essence is the same.

We were invited to a birthday party for a family patriarch recently–I’d met some members of this family before, maybe two or three at a time, but was never really sure which one was married to which one, or which one was their child, and so on.

I somehow ended up at the large head table, a couple seats away from the guest of honor and surrounded by members of his immediate family and some spouses and friends. Other spouses and cousins and friends were at other tables, my Wife included, so I couldn’t really ask her who was who and so on until later, and I didn’t want to seem clueless and rude and ask them myself. In retrospect, this turned out to be a good decision.

I went into this knowing that the gentleman had one surviving son and four daughters, all older than the son. The first son died from illness as a child, and the parents kept trying for another son, having these four daughters instead, until finally having another boy. (It’s a common phenomenon: a string of daughters until a son comes along, as is the case in my Wife’s family.)

Anyway, throughout the evening I was trying to guess which were daughters, which was the son, which were cousins and so on.

The results startled me.

Out of a group of gregarious, fun-loving thirty-something fellows, I’d picked a certain one, the most successful of the group I gathered, as the son, and a gentle, beautiful woman with deep soft eyes at another table as his wife. They seemed like they’d make a picture-perfect couple.

A rather brash woman at another table I’d decided must be the eldest daughter, for some reason; she was bossy, I could tell, and both she and her clothes seemed a bit too loud and tacky. Just seemed to scream “oldest daughter” at me.

An oddity I noticed, however, was that the guest of honor was there without his wife, whom I know to still be living, and he didn’t eat a single bite the entire evening, despite there being plenty of dishes.

Afterward, my Wife filled me in:

His wife did not attend because she hasn’t left their house in years. No one remembers how long it’s been anymore. The daughters bring food and clothing to the mother’s house for her, and each chip in a little money each month to help sustain their parents. Though not as much as they “could,” I understand.

The one I’d picked as the son was but one of the sons-in-law, and the one I thought was the son’s wife was actually the gentleman’s youngest daughter.

Here’s where it gets weird. There was a quiet, distant fellow in the far corner of our table (if a round table can be said to have a corner). He dressed more commonly than everyone else, also didn’t eat a bite, said nothing to no one, was essentially ignored, didn’t raise a glass to toast anyone, and no one raised a glass to toast with him. I assumed that maybe he was someone’s driver or an acquaintance who simply felt uncomfortable and unworthy to be at the head table.

But this turned out to be the son.

And the brash, brazen woman at the other table, she turned out to be his wife.

The bitter history is that some years back, the son made a foolish business deal in another province–his first and last attempted real business deal, it turns out–that suddenly put him a couple hundred thousand RMB in debt. Problem was, he didn’t have a couple hundred thousand RMB, so his parents used their life savings, plus some more money borrowed from other relatives, to pay off his debt. (I gathered that this wasn’t the kind of debt one would want to leave unpaid, lest one end up “swimming with the fishes” near Guangzhou.) And perhaps this is why the daughters don’t give as much as they “could” now, having perhaps already contributed a great deal to the cause.)

This meant that the parents probably wouldn’t be able to buy or build the bigger home they’d been dreaming of, not be able to retire comfortably like their friends, and so on, unless the son somehow bounced back and made a better go of it.

He didn’t. He started his own business, but it’s only slightly better than a hot dog vendor cart would be considered, and even many non-locals have come in and done much better than that.

Of what he does make, his wife spends too much of on herself.

And so all the daughters have their own businesses, and all their husbands are quite successful in their undertakings.

But the man and his son neither one ate a bite, didn’t say a word to each other the entire evening, and the man’s wife hasn’t left their house in years.

I feel bad for them, honestly, but after getting the details from my Wife, I couldn’t help but think that here’s a story just waiting for Zhang Yimou to put to film, starring Ge You as the patriarch, with Zhang Ziyi, if China will forgive her, playing the role of “Youngest Daughter.”