Chinese Seniority: Putting Family in Place
Now that my brother is here, it is interesting to see how much importance others place on knowing which one of us is older. Often, the first question a new acquaintance will ask is, “Who is the older brother?” if we weren’t already introduced as Clark, the older brother, and that other guy. I’ve noticed that, after the hierarchy has been established, people tend to direct the rest of their questions towards me. I’m the one who matters, after all!
Clearly, seniority receives a lot of attention, as the Chinese language is very specific about family placement. While there are general terms you can use to describe relationships (like xiongdi for brothers), things get complicated once age is factored in… and it always is. For instance, jiedi refers to a brother and sister, where the sister is older. Xiongmei, on the other hand, refers to a brother and sister, where the brother is older. I’m not even sure you can say “brother and sister… period.”
Looking at my brother and me again, it would be more appropriate for us to call each other didi (younger brother) and gege (older brother). If, however, one of us was a girl (and that’s completely hypothetical, mind you), this distinction would be mandatory. I don’t think a girl can get away with saying xiongdi, unless she is talking about someone else’s brother. And when talking about (or rather, to) their own family members, people will usually use these terms instead of their siblings’ names.
Interestingly, Chinese people refer to their cousins as brothers and sisters, too, which is confusing when someone tells you they have no siblings but keeps talking about a mysterious older brother. It took a while to realize my girlfriend really did come from a one-child family. She also tells stories of how her cousin used to twist her arm until she would call him gege (which means older brother, if you’re too lazy to look at the paragraph above), much like how we bully our peers into calling us uncle. It’s all about being older, but at least I’m already on top!
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Responses to “Chinese Seniority: Putting Family in Place”
Comments RSS Feed – All CommentsMark — 20 September 2009 @ 6:55 am
In the West where individuality is prized, a person’s name is their most definitive social identification. In China, where social constructs are based on the family unit, one’s name isn’t terribly important (or unique for that matter), so their position in the family is their identification. My Western mentality would bristle if I was always being referred to as “little uncle” or “2nd brother” but here it’s not demeaning. And I’m the oldest of 4 boys so I’d be top dog anyway :-).
Clark — 20 September 2009 @ 7:02 am
Yeah, I don’t take offense to it, either, I just find it interesting how quickly people want to establish who is older than who.
Mom — 20 September 2009 @ 2:16 pm
You could really confuse them and tell everyone you are the “middle” brother.
cr7cr8 — 4 January 2010 @ 5:59 pm
“It took a while to realize my girlfriend really did come from a one-child family…”
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You got a Chinese girl friend now?
Clark — 7 January 2010 @ 8:46 pm
We have been together for quite a while now.
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