Snap happy?

Foodography – where photos are taken in restaurants of the cuisine then shared online with friends – is huge in China. But in the case of 22 year-old bride-to-be Liu Xiaomen, it would prove her marital undoing.

According to Hunan Daily, Liu’s 29 year-old fiancé was well accustomed to her fetish. Whenever they dined out, he held off with his chopsticks until she had photographed every dish meticulously. When he took her to meet his parents he probably hoped his mother’s cooking would impress too. But to the bafflement of his folks, his girlfriend turned this homecooked meal into a prolonged session, ordering her future in-laws not to eat anything while she snapped away.

Liu’s future groom tried to smooth things over by saying that she was admiring his mother’s culinary skills and taking photos to “make her friends envy her”. But his parents began to lose their cool as the family first had to watch her take the photos and then upload them online. And when her friends started to praise the images online, Liu went back to her smartphone to chat, ignoring everyone else at the table, which Hunan News said led to an “awkward atmosphere”. The irate mother told the newspaper: “She ate a few mouthfuls of dinner and then kept playing with her phone. If we did not call her, she would not take the initiative to speak to us.”

After the meal, the son was warned by his parents that Liu was “naïve and childish”. He decided to call off the wedding.

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