称呼 / Addressing

[kiasimom]

Interesting.


The youngest member in my paternal family is my tangdi.

He is of the same age as my DD

[autumnbronze]

I only realized the importance of addressing aft I had my DS and esp when he started learning how to talk. Character education ie values, manners, respect etc.. became an important issue to me. Because I want him to imbibe these, I made an effort to find out the correct name to address my DH's brothers, uncles etc...


Surprisingly, my ILs aren't too perturbed abt this issue. In fact, DH's youngest brother insisted my DS not to address him correctly as it was ... yes you guessed it ... 'old fashioned'.

I put my foot down and told my DH and MIL that as his mother, I get to choose/educate how my DS should address family/relatives :lol:

This matter is now closed. My DH's youngest brother has no choice but to respond to him being addressed in the correct and respectful manner.

[kiasimom]

Hi autumnbronze,


You are right.
You should maintain your own stand and abide by your own set of rules.

Call it old-fashioned, who cares.

As parents, it is only right for us to teach our children the correct values.

:celebrate: to you.

[jedamum]

kiasimom:

As parents, it is only right for us to teach our children the correct values.

:celebrate: to you.

yes..as parents, it is only right for us to teach our children the correct values.
but is 'addressing' appropriate or not, a form of value?
a well-mannered and polite kid who addresses his relatives incorrectly (eg call uncles and aunties only) compared to a brat who knows his 'addressing; who has more values?

after being married for 9 yrs and attended >10 yrs worth of CNY gatherings, i still cannot address my husband's relatives properly. i smile, greet hi/hello...but i sure have more values than those who greet appropriately, but gossip behind their backs, right?

[kiasimom]

Hmmmm… you don’t gossip, I do agree you have values.

I am not saying that those who don’t address their relatives in the proper forms have no values.

But I do appreciate when people addressed me in the correct form.

Gossiping is another issue. I personally don’t like gossipmongers too

However, I do like the kind of intimacy and unique recognition from the proper address

I think it is a matter of 价值观 and 家教.

[jedamum]

barney:

I think this is a good culture and tradition to keep. I came from a big family and we make sure all our kids address us in chinese with the proper 称呼 instead of just aunties and uncles and I'll insist that my girl address all her cousins with their names followed by jie jie or kor kor, since she's the youngest among the lot.


Actually I need to check with parents here if they know how should my grand nephew (my brother's grandson) address my gal? We have a discussion on this among ourselves but have no conclusion.

i call my dad's sis' son as biao ge....meaning your bro's kid call your gal as biao jie.
so if your bro's grandson call his mother's sis as ah yi, then is there such a thing as biao yi to differentiate the relationship???

edit : just read someone said it should be biao gu. what's the diff between biao gu and biao yi? or is there a former?

edit again : ie if the bro's grandson mum/dad is the dd of bro or ds of bro makes a difference in the cheng hu leh.

[kiasimom]

Maybe some kind parents can do the family tree and teach us the correct forms of adressing?


That will be very nice!

[schellen]

autumnbronze:

In fact, DH's youngest brother insisted my DS not to address him correctly as it was ... yes you guessed it ... 'old fashioned'.

I have a cousin who's a year younger than me. She's happily single but hates being reminded how old she is. She will \"grumble\" when my DD1 calls her \"Auntie (name)\" and keeps asking DD1 to call her by her own name. We give in sometimes since this cousin spent some years of her puberty stage in the States. However, even if my DD1 forgets and calls her Auntie, my cousin won't make a big fuss either.

This cousin's brother (who also spent some years in the States) isn't affected by the \"Uncle\" title though so perhaps it's a girl thing? :roll:

I have another 2 female cousins who are in their 20s. They used to \"protest\" when DD1 called them Auntie when she was younger but now, they just accept it. Maybe it's cos one is already married while the other is due for marriage? :?

[autumnbronze]

schellen:

autumnbronze:

In fact, DH's youngest brother insisted my DS not to address him correctly as it was ... yes you guessed it ... 'old fashioned'.

I have another 2 female cousins who are in their 20s. They used to \"protest\" when DD1 called them Auntie when she was younger but now, they just accept it. Maybe it's cos one is already married while the other is due for marriage? :?

Hi Schellen,

You may be right. I became an 'Aunt' at the age of 10. My eldest brother and sis are 17 and 10 yrs older than me. When they both became parents, I was so excited that I insisted to be referred to as Auntie xxx in the western context. It felt so grown up to be called that.

It was only in my late 20s, more matured , and ready to settle down, this was also when my nieces and nephews were in their teens that I realized what a silly blunder I had made - to be referred to as 'Auntie' in the western context - any sally, jane and mary can be an auntie. The address now seems so NOT meaningful to me. :lol: But then again, I was 10 at that time

As a parent, I feel I shd 'set the scene' of how my son shd address to whom. Of course if there is a strong resistence from someone (apart from family member/relative), I won't push it. In fact, this seemed to have elicited a positive response from evryone. So far the only resistence came from my DH's colleague's wife who did not want to be addressed as 'Auntie' xxx, she wanted to be referred to as xxx. So I did a cheeky thing and taught my son to address her as Ms (emphasizing on the 's' sound) xxx. She took it in good faith :lol:

[yogibabe]

we believe in addressing each person properly and have made sure my son's taught that way (i.e., no 'aunty' or 'uncle' for our relatives but must address correctly with the correct terms). Those older children of his generation are addressed by name+gege, jiejie, didi or meimei. Our friends are addressed as aunty/uncle+name.


being cantonese (and dh is hong konger) we are pretty sticky on this. i've been a gugu since i was 10 now i'm only waiting for my nephew to get married and make me a gupo haha!