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.

White People Just Don't Understand

I have friends that aren't asian, and of course my other asian friends had friends who weren't asian. This really shouldn't come as much of a surprise. What these non-asian, generally white friends had in common was not understanding how our home life was different. Many of them understood that it was different, but would attempt to apply solutions which were relevant for their situations rather than ours. Amongst the asians this is really brushed off as just "white people don't understand." We would tell our white friends that they just couldn't understand the enormity of the differences.

Now, I feel that this was unfair and lazy of us. We used this as an excuse rather than try to explain it more thoroughly. I do still believe that to some extent the understanding can't be had without actually having lived through it, but a close approximation of understanding can be obtained. I hope to give an explanation of the situations here and give other asians a basis to explain their own situations.

Doing something that is considered inappropriate. That basically sums up all the transgressions an asian could have.

This includes staying out late, dating, smoking, drinking, not greeting elders appropriately, making faces, getting bad/mediocre grades, being loud, not being manly enough, not being girly enough, being lgbt(qqa), living with the opposite sex and any number of other shameful things. Now, these things in various white families are also considered shameful and can't be discussed especially the lgbt population. The difference is in an asian's attitude toward the problem. We must hide any and all deviant behavior from our parents because to reveal to them that these things are going on is not opening a door to any sort of discussion. It is in fact opening a door to lectures, shame, and guilt.

I'm not talking about your average I feel bad that I've done something wrong kind of guilt. Guilt and shame here equate to your whole family being bad people. Let me unpack this for you. Most people agree that they don't want to be a bad person and that their family is generally nice with some crazies here and there. In an asian family, what you do is a reflection of who you are (this is pretty standard in non asian settings I know). What you do and who you are is a reflection of what kind of people your family is(I'm talking you, your siblings, your parents, your grandparents, your aunts, your uncles, your cousins). Now when you do something wrong, it is ingrained from birth that it's because you are not good enough. If you were good, you would not be doing things that were not good. This means you are a bad person. Because you are a bad person, your parents must not have done a good job in raising you. Therefore, your parents are bad people and none of their kids could be particularly good. Follow this logic, and suddenly you've tarnished everyone in your family. Everyone in a family is connected

Another part of this guilt cycle is that respect is very important. By not acting in an acceptable manner, you are being disrespectful to your parents who deserve respect because of all they have put into raising you. They in turn are unable to show their parents (your grandparents) that they've lived up to what is expected from them and have in essence failed your grandparents. If you can picture the amount of weight and pressure this has, then you can begin to understand why we don't just talk to our parents about these situations.