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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nThe correct appellation does not only\u00a0show\u00a0your respect to others, but also represents your cultural awareness. Let\u2019s\u00a0talk about kinship terminology in Chinese today for you to make use of soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chinese Kinship System<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As we know, Chinese people have paid great attention to the distinction between males and females(\u7537\u5973\u6709\u522b n\u00e1nn\u01da y\u01d2ubi\u00e9<\/strong>), the senior and the junior(\u957f\u5e7c\u6709\u5e8f<\/strong> zh\u01cengy\u00f2u y\u01d2ux\u00f9<\/strong>), the internal and the external(\u5185\u5916\u6709\u5206 n\u00e8iw\u00e0i y\u01d2uf\u0113n<\/strong>). Traditionally, we take male as the core of the family. Chinese classify relatives according to the 5 principles below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Chinese kinship system has used a lot of descriptive terms. If we look at it according to age, only for males of the same generation as father\u2019s, we have five appellations: \u201c\u4f2f\u7236<\/strong>\u201d, \u201c\u53d4\u7236<\/strong>\u201d, \u201c\u59d1\u7236<\/strong>\u201d, \u201c\u8205\u7236<\/strong>\u201d and \u201d\u59e8\u592b<\/strong>\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are as many as eight appellations for\u00a0our own peers, namely, \u201c\u5802\u5144<\/strong>\u201d, \u201d\u5802\u5f1f<\/strong>\u201d, \u201d\u5802\u59d0<\/strong>\u201d, \u201d\u5802\u59b9<\/strong>\u201d, \u201d\u8868\u5f1f<\/strong>\u201d, \u201d\u8868\u54e5<\/strong>\u201d, \u201d\u8868\u59d0<\/strong>\u201d and \u201d\u8868\u59b9<\/strong>\u201d.\u00a0Our next generation is also divided into\u00a0\u201d\u7525 sh\u0113ng\u00a0<\/strong>(nephew or niece of mother’s side)\u201d or \u201c\u4f84 zh\u00ed\u00a0<\/strong>(nephew or niece of father’s side)\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we count it according to the maternal parent, we have other different names in the mother’s family. Mother’s parents become \u201c\u5916\u5a46\u00a0w\u00e0i g\u014dng<\/strong>\u201d and \u201d\u5916\u516c\u00a0w\u00e0i p\u00f3<\/strong>\u201d\u2026etc. In a word, Chinese appellation is too detailed…<\/p>\n\n\n Western Kinship System<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Have you wondered if we can just sum up all Chinese relatives in a word like “uncle” or “aunty” in western countries?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n People from different countries\u00a0have different definitions of kinship. While Chinese appellation uses\u00a0descriptive way, western cultures prefer \u201cclassificatory method\u201d which\u00a0divides the\u00a0family members by position in the family hierarchy based on five class:\u00a0grandparent, parent, children, brothers and sisters, grandchildren<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All relatives of the same generation use the same appellation. For example, \u201ccousin\u201d could be father\u2019s brother\u2019s son, or mother\u2019s brother\u2019s daughter. Whether they have the same surname or not, as long as they are our \u201cpeers\u201d, we call them \u201ccousin\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why Chinese kinship so complicated? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The evolution of Chinese kinship system is very different from that of westerners. In ancient times, the relationship between father, his brothers, or his nephew and son was not obvious. It was only in\u00a0Wei, Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties<\/em>(220-589) that people gathered and gradually formed into big families to protect themselves\u00a0due\u00a0to frequent wars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to war, another factor is about the tradition: it is very impolite to call someone’s name directly. In order to accurately address a particular relative without calling his or her family name, people should divide them into different titles according to age, seniority, lineage\u2026etc, and add \u201c\u5927<\/strong>\u201d, \u201c\u4e8c<\/strong>\u201d, \u201c\u4e09<\/strong>\u201d and \u201c\u5c0f<\/strong>\u201d in front of them to indicate the ranking.<\/p>\n\n\n Although China’s kinship system is one of the most complex in the world, due to the decline in the number of population by industrialization and urbanization, and the influence of western culture, this system is gradually disappearing…<\/p>\n\n\n Meeting each other is a kind of destiny.\u00a0I hope during the New Year, you can get together with the people you want to see and cherish the time of reunion!\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chinese New Year is coming, there will be a lot of visiting among relatives if you have a Chinese partner or family. Facing the strange faces that look alike, sometimes you do not know how to call each of them. The situation is just overwhelming, and it may put you into embarrassment if you \u201cmisname\u201d someone in the family…Well, we understand that you are not impolite.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[7,5],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/online.mandarininn.cn\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/online.mandarininn.cn\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/online.mandarininn.cn\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/online.mandarininn.cn\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/online.mandarininn.cn\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/online.mandarininn.cn\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":827,"href":"https:\/\/online.mandarininn.cn\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions\/827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/online.mandarininn.cn\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/online.mandarininn.cn\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/online.mandarininn.cn\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/online.mandarininn.cn\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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