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Q: What do you call your in-laws?
After getting married, my wife started telling me she wanted me to call her folks 'Mum' and 'Dad' (or Muqin / Fuqin, Mama / Baba, or whatever else names there are) and I flatly refused. It's not that I don't like them, I do, but that's a big deal to me, something earned through labour pains and difficult births, through years of struggle and support, and i'm not about to hand it over for free. So instead she told me to call them 'Sishu' and 'Sishen' which I cannot remember the meaning of and in fact got muddle up with the first time I tried to use them and ended up calling my father-in-law 'Susan'. I just don't get why it's such a big deal in the first place, as long as i'm respectful when I address them. It's not like I get their attention by shouting "Oi" and throwing a cup at their heads, what's wrong with first name basis's's?
First name. They are not my parents, so mama/baba does not apply. Last name is too 17th century, so that leaves first name. I don't understand why parents call their children either something too cutesie like "bobo", "sisi", "dodo" or they go Fmailyname+Firstname.
They're not my in-laws (yet?), but the girlfriend's got me calling her parents Bomu (伯母)and Bofu (伯父). Not sure if these names will change when/if we get married.
shushu and ayi before i m married, afterwards i dunno. i always try to avoid calling them anything :/
mostly try to act dumb and cant understand chinese 
I just call her ma if I need her attention, and I call my partners sister jie. If I'm talking about them with my partner I say ni de mama, or ni de jiejie.
I don't see a big deal, ma isn't something I use to refer to my mum, so I don't have any reservations calling her that.
I struggled with this as well, and still do from time to time. I used to always call them Shushi and Ayi but since our wedding I'm expected to call them Ma and Ba. At the beginning I would accidently still call them Ayi and Shushu but they were understanding to my face. I'm now very paranoid and conscious of this and make an effort to call them Ma and Ba but it never feels natural to me. But hey, it's a harmless, small adjustment to get used to and I think it'll feel more normal over time.
Never learned their names - given, pet, familiar or otherwise. So I call the MIL "Ayi" and the husband "Daisy". They cotton to the nomenclature. Ayi is a great cook and swabs the floor better than a sailor on deck of an aircraft carrier. Daisy is a gardener and loves playing with dirt, spades and planting flowers. Ergo the name. He digs it.
Ma and Pa they ain't...
mArtiAn:
You call your father-in-law Daisy? Am I the only person who thinks that's odd? Call any London bloke Daisy and you're going to get one of two very different reactions: a smack in the mouth or a pinch on the bum.
Red_Fox:
Marty - Why should you think it odd? After all, we're not in London, are we? My wife's papa - who isn't from London and doesn't speak English - digs the name I gave him. Daisy. It has a nice ring to it and he knows it's a flower. No shame there. And I concur with you. I would never address a bloke in London or a homie in the States as "Daisy". Who wants their ass kicked? Not me.
what happens when they are younger than you. or maybe one of them
