Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, oh my!

In Chinese culture, family is perhaps the most important aspect of daily life. Unlike American culture where god is first, country second, and family third. Because of this dedication to family, the naming of your family is equally important. Each member of your family, has a name, and the name tells how the particular member of your family is related to you. (Note: I'm using mandarin here for consistency, I'll explain when and if I use a Taiwanese term)

For example, there is a different word for brother, depending on whether the person is your older brother, ge1-ge1 (哥哥) or your younger brother, di4-di4 (弟弟). These are the informal words for brother - there are also formal words, but you are wouldn't call your own brother by the formal terms. Likewise your older sister is jie3-jie3 (姐姐), and your younger sister is mei4-mei4 (妹妹)

The spouse's of your siblings have specialy names as well. An elder brother's wife is sou3-zi3 (嫂子), a younger brother's wife is di4-mei4 (弟妹), an elder sister's husband is jia1-fu1 (姐夫), and a younger sister's husband is mei4-fu1 (妹夫). So Michael is my mei4-fu1, while Marie is of course my mei4-mei4.

In Chinese culture, your first cousins are also considered your brothers and sisters, but there's a special designation to their titles as well. For short hand you can call an elder male cousin ge1-ge1 (哥哥), but there's more clarification available than even that depending on whether your common grandparents children were brothers, brother-sister, or sisters. So if your cousin is your cousin because your dad and his dad are brothers, then he's your tang2-ge1 (堂哥). But if it's his dad and your mom, or your mom and his dad, or your mom and his mom, then he's your biao3-ge1 (表哥). It's the same term for your second cousins, that is if you share sibling grandparents (rather than sibling parents) that are female, or male-female (biao3 表) and common sibling grandparents that are male (tang2 堂). The rest of the sibling relationships should be easy to figure out from here, for example, a younger female cousin with brother-brother fathers is a tang2-mei4 (堂妹) and likewise her husband is tang2-mei4-fu1 (堂妹夫). The younger female cousin where your parents are sister-sister, or sister-brother is your biao3-mei4 (表妹), and her husband is your biao3-mei4-fu1 (表妹夫).

Each of your aunts and uncles have special designations as well, depending on whether they are on your mother's side or your father's side, and sometimes whether they are older or younger than your parent. So when someone introduces a person in their family in Chinese, you almost immediately know how the two of them are related, and who is older or younger.

Your father's older brother is bo2-bo2 (伯伯), his wife is bo2-niang2 (伯娘), and if he's the eldest brother, you can also call him da4-ye2 (大爺) and his wife da4-niang2 (大娘). Your father's younger brother is your shu1-shu1 (叔叔), and his wife is your shen3-zi3 (嬸子).

Your dad's sisters all share the same name, whether they are older or younger than your dad. Informally, your paternal aunt is your gu1-gu1 (姑姑), more formally you can call her your gu1-ma1 (姑媽). Her husband can either be called gu1-fu1 (姑夫) or gu1-zhang4 (姑丈)

On your mother's side, your uncles are jiu4-jiu4 (舅舅), and his wife is jiu4-ma1 (舅媽) or more formally, jiu4-mu3 (舅母). Your mom's sisters, your aunts are yi2-ma1 (姨媽) and their husbands are either yi2-zhang4 (姨丈) or yi2-fu1 (姨夫). Now some of you may be confused because you know I call my aunt "ai-yi" and that's because that's the Taiwanese word for aunt, and I call her husband "yi-diun" also a Taiwanese term.

Now what about your grandparents? Your dad's dad is your ye2-ye2 (爺爺) or your gong1-gong1 (公公) or more formally your zu3-fu2 (祖父). We called my grandfather ye2-ye2. Your father's mom is nai3-nai3 (奶奶) or more formally your zu3-mu3 (祖母). Your mom's dad is wai4-gong1 (外公) or lao3-ye2 (老爺), and her mom is your po2-po2 (婆婆) or wai4-po2 (外婆). In Taiwanese you'll have heard us refer to our mom's mom as our "amah" and our mom's dad as "ah-gong".

Your great aunts and uncles are just derived from everything else I've already given you. Your dad's father's older brother (your great uncle) is your bo2-gong1 (伯公), the younger brother is your shu1-gong1 (叔公), their wives, bo2-po2 (伯婆) and shu1-po2 (叔婆). Your dad's father's sister is your gu1-po2 (姑婆), and her husband is your gu1-gong1 (姑公) . Beyond this you borrow as necessary, for example, my mom's aunt (my great aunt is also my gu1-po2 (姑婆).

Since I've told you everything else, how can I leave out the two most important people, mom, ma1-ma1 (媽媽) and dad, ba4-ba4 (爸爸) or more formally, mu3-qin1 (母親) and fu4-qin1 (父親). I'm already running long, so I'll save your kids and your grandkids for a different post.

Now how did I even get on this topic? I met up with Tony for lunch today. Tony is my aunt's best friend's son. Although he's not actually related to my dad, he called my dad Chiu-shu1-shu1 (邱叔叔). My dad corrected him and said he should be calling him Chiu-bo2-bo2 (邱伯伯). I asked why he wasn't called Chiu-jiu4-jiu4 (邱舅舅), since he was my mom's sister's friend's child. My dad said that the term "jiu4-jiu4" (舅舅), is only used for real blood family, whereas friends of family always use the paternal terms. So I learned something new today. And maybe you did too reading this.