My girlfriend's parents seem somewhat apathetic to me. We've been dating for 7 months and I met them last month. I've been going to their home for lunch on Sundays for the past few weeks and it's a mixed bag.
On one hand, her 17-year-old sister really likes me and it's fun to hang together with her. There's also been a few other family members around and they've been fun to hang out with, too. But the parents themselves are seemingly not particularly interested in me.
Dad tends to listen to the radio in a room after lunch, and Mom usually watches Chinese soap operas while doing something else. I thought it would be fun to talk to them, get to know more about them and so on, but they've kinda ignored me. In a previous relationship, I had a really good relationship with the dad. We would play chess and talk about anything.
My girlfriend's parents are much more reserved and speak Mandarin in their home. I can write, read, and listen to Mandarin pretty well, but my spoken Mandarin is trash. So there's this language barrier in addition to kind of a distance between us.
They also mostly keep to their Chinese community.
I really like that my girlfriend is close to her family and committed to spending time with them. I would like to keep attending these lunches but it is a bit awkward to not feel fully welcomed by her parents, or maybe there's some misunderstanding going on.
What should I do moving forward to connect a bit better with them?
tl;dr: Girlfriend's parents are seemingly apathetic to me and there's a bit of a language barrier. What should I do moving forward to connect better with them?