Family Structure or An Introduction to Terms

One of the things that always confuses me is when people ask about my family. Are they referring to my nuclear family? or all of them? To me, family means parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, great-aunts, great-uncles, etc.With all the asian cultures I've come in touch with (korean, japanese, chinese, indian, vietnamese). We tend to refer to the extended family structure as all just family.

Any elder of the same culture but not within the family is referred to as Auntie or Uncle if they can reasonably be considered a part of one's parents' generation. If the elder is a part of the generation older than one's parents, the term has no English equivalent, but it conveys more respect than Auntie or Uncle.

We don't refer to elders in the family by name because we refer to the person by their relation to us. This doesn't turn out to be as confusing as one might think because the relationship is often condensed to 2 or 3 characters which is unique for each relative.

Here is an explanation of terms. I can only give an in-depth explanation of the Chinese versions since I haven't studied the other Asian cultures but I'm told they also do something similar.

There are 3 broad categories for names in the family

Immediate Family:

Mother and Father are the same as in English, but there is a distinction between an older or younger sister/brother.

Older brother is ge ge (哥哥)
Older sister is jie jie (姊姊)
Younger brother is di di (弟弟)
Younger sister is (妹妹)

Mother's Side of the Family:

Generally speaking all the terms on this side of the family denote that they do not have the same last name as you followed by their relative family position to you. The mother's side of the family is not considered to be as "close" because they do not share a family name. To illustrate I will give a few examples.

-Grandma is wai po (外婆) the first part means that she does not have you family name and the second part is that she is your grandma.

-Your female cousin that is older than you is biao jie (表姊) again the first part means that she does not have your family name and the second part essentially says that she is your older sister. So, we have brothers and sisters in this extended family instead of cousins. You can also refer to her by name because she is within your generation, but because she is older, there is a tendency to add "jie" to the end of her name as a sign of respect.

-Your mom's second oldest sister in a family with 3 sisters is er yi (二姨). The first part is the number 2 which signifies that this aunt is the second oldest girl in her family, and the second actually serves both to say that she does not have the same last name as you and that she is your mother's sister (aunt). Her husband is not really called an uncle and is instead referred to precisely as the husband of the second oldest female immediate sibling in your mother's generation, which can all be fit into 3 characters in chinese er yi zhang (二姨仗).


Father's Side of the Family:
Generally speaking this side of the family is referred to by the fact that they have the same last name as you and then the family relationship. This side is considered to be "closer" because they have the same last name. I won't belabor the examples because the terms on this side are similar in format as the ones on the mother's side of the family.