My mother called on Saturday night with some strange tale that my father has been kidnapped by the Chinese government. He has been in China for the last 2 weeks on business. He has been there many times and always enjoyed his trips. He was set to come home on Sunday, but Friday morning he came down with what seems like food poisoning. On Saturday, some sort of health officials came to his hotel and insisted that he go a hospital. Before he was taken to the hospital, he called my mom. I pointed out to my mother that if he was being kidnapped that they would not allow dad to call home, but my mother overreacts to everything. The problem is that my mother has not heard from my dad since Saturday and was not on the flight home. I am actually quite concerned, not of his being kidnapped, but if he is too ill to come home, it must be quite serious. My mother can not handle this sort of crisis, which means that I have to take charge. I am used to my mother’s histrionics, but I am recovering from an illness myself and wish she would act like a mother.

i don't mean to alarm you, but i think it's vital that you make contact with the US embassy, or mission, or whatever they have over there, to check in on your father. i've linked to an article of an incident that happened to a friend of mine. please read it. it's been a terrible nightmare for her friends and family - and they wish they had an opportunity to do something about it or alert somebody ahead of time.

Yeah, def. get in touch with the consulate.

Fortunately my father works for a huge multi-national and they was able to locate him today in a Bejing hospital. It appears to be just food poisoning, but they have isolated him and given him a SARS test. His work has taken charge of the situation, but my mother is now convinced that Dad has SARS.

I think the word mother comes from an old latin root that translates out to "Drama Queen". My mother sounds so similar to yours.

I hope your dad is okay by the way!