I found this.

The parents live in a slightly remote part of Shanghai, only accessible by bus or taxi, and they always refuse to take a taxi because its too expensive (even if I offer to pay). I told JJ to tell them to just stay the night at our house, that made the most sense and it was totally fine by me (and of course by JJ). We do have an extra room and I did buy this couch bed for this very reason. So it only made sense for them to stay, especially since it was holiday and JJ was not working.

Here comes the kicker. They were at first totally against it. Why, you might ask? Well it was not for the normal reasons you might imagine, such as 'we don't want to intrude', 'we have plans tomorrow morning', we simply want to get home', 'we don't like the couch bed'. None of these things mattered to them. Instead, the issue at hand was literally:

We don't know if we want to stay because the toilet paper I buy is too soft for them and they really don't like using it.

Now lets get the facts straight. I am not a freak or anything. I buy what I consider to be normal toilet paper, you know the middle-of-the-road priced roll you buy in packs at the store. I don't even go top of the line (because I'm too cheap). So what in the world could be wrong with my toilet paper?

Well, it turns out they really cannot use the 'Western' style toilet paper. They only use the toilet paper sheets that are a darker shade of brown, more rough and stacked on top of each other. A good comparison would be the toilet paper you'd find at a public restroom in a gas station, you know, the ones that require a key and have the toiler paper dispenser that spits out paper that resembles paper towels more than toiler paper.

So not only do they prefer to use this kind of toilet paper, but they went to the extreme of this opinion and considered traveling an hour on a bus all the way back home at 10:30pm to avoid using my 'soft', more expensive toilet paper, if, heaven forbid, they needed to take a trip to the WC. Fortunately, they are not just totally insane (I say that with the best intentions). They decided that if they could find a local convenient store that sold their 'favorite' style toilet paper, they would agree to spend the night. And what do you know, they found such a store, purchased a little travel pack and was ready to go.

My only comment is that he's wrong. They're Chinese parents. They are so definitely totally insane. It's a given.

Some commenters on the blog say that it was just an excuse because they didn't really want to stay. a) i don't see how saying your toilet paper's no good is really a 'saving face' type of excuse to give and b) i'm confident in Chinese parents around the world to come up with a much better, guilt-inducing excuse. Now, my parents wouldn't even bother. They'd tell you they much prefer their own bed to your crummy one and so goodnight.