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Chinese Family Tree Part4

This document summarizes the Chinese system for classifying paternal relatives. It explains that paternal cousins who share the same family name are considered direct relatives, while those from an aunt are classified as more distant maternal relatives. The terminology used to address different paternal relatives is outlined, including terms for cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, and their spouses. Formal titles are also distinguished from informal forms of address. The system provides insight into traditional Chinese values that emphasized keeping the paternal family name within close relatives.

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208 views

Chinese Family Tree Part4

This document summarizes the Chinese system for classifying paternal relatives. It explains that paternal cousins who share the same family name are considered direct relatives, while those from an aunt are classified as more distant maternal relatives. The terminology used to address different paternal relatives is outlined, including terms for cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, and their spouses. Formal titles are also distinguished from informal forms of address. The system provides insight into traditional Chinese values that emphasized keeping the paternal family name within close relatives.

Uploaded by

Chucik YB
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Chinese Family Tree: Paternal Relatives

Paternal relatives chart in this final series on the Chinese Family Tree completes the jigsaw puzzle.

What's in a (Chinese family) name?

In the famous Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber hng lu mng, the male and female protaganists in the story, Lin Daiyu and Jia Baoyu are maternal cousins engaged to be married from young in a parental pre-arrangement. The Chinese in the olden days have always treated paternal cousins or tang qin as direct blood relations but not biao qin, or maternal relatives, to the extent of forbidding the marriage of paternal cousins while giving a free rein to the union of maternal cousins. Recall from the previous article on maternal relatives that the Chinese take great care to differentiate the titles of relatives that bear the ancestral name and those who don't in the kinship naming system. The use of the prefixes biao (for maternal relatives) and wai (outsider) is a systematic way of achieving this purpose. To conclude this series on the Chinese Family Tree, we will look at the family name bearing part of the kinship system: relatives on the father's side - or paternal relatives. The Chinese use the term tong tang xiong di, to refer to the closest brothers of the same bloodline. So it is natural that the word tang is used to address cousins descended from the males in the family bearing the same family name. By the same token, paternal cousins descended from an aunt however, do not share the same family name and are not addressed as a tang cousin. They are instead, accorded the same titles as the cousins from the mother's side, i.e. biao.

Fathers parents
Paternal grandfather: ye ye Paternal grandmother: nai nai

Fathers siblings
Older paternal uncle and spouse: / bo bo / bo mu Younger paternal uncle and spouse / shu shu / shen shen Paternal aunts and spouses: gu gu / gu zhang Note: birth order is differentiated when addressing paternal uncles, unlike for the maternal side where the mothers brothers are all known as jiu jiu, regardless of their order of birth vis-avis the mother.

Paternal cousins from Uncles


Older male paternal cousin and spouse: / biao ge/ biao sao Younger male maternal cousin and spouse biao di / biao di mei

Older female maternal cousin and spouse: / biao jie / biao jie fu Younger female maternal cousin and spouse: / biao mei / biao mei fu Note: whether a cousin is older or younger is taken with respect to the age of the person addressing them, i.e. yourself

Paternal cousins from Aunts


Cousins from paternal aunts are considered as owing to the fact that they do not share the same family name as yourself. The naming convention is the same as that for maternal cousins. The below information mirrors that from theprevious section on maternal relatives. Older male paternal cousin (from Aunt) and spouse: / biao ge/ biao sao Younger male paternal cousin (from Aunt) and spouse biao di / biao di mei Older female paternal cousin (from Aunt) and spouse: / biao jie / biao jie fu Younger female paternal cousin (from Aunt) and spouse: / biao mei / biao mei fu

Paternal cousins children


From Paternal Uncles' side, Paternal nephew and nice: tang zhizi tang zhinu From Paternal Aunt's side, Paternal nephew and niece: biao wai sheng biao wai sheng nu

Formal Titles versus Direct Address


Here is the complete list of formal titles and terms for direct addressing of relatives: Direct address Formal title z f z m wi z f wi z m fqn mqn f m qn

Paternal Grandfather Paternal Grandmother Maternal Grandfather Maternal Grandmother Father Mother Parents

y ye ni nai gng gong p po b ba m ma b m

Husband Wife

lo gng lo p

zhng f q zi / ti ti

Uncles & Aunts Paternal Uncle (older) Wife Paternal Uncle (younger) Wife Paternal Aunt Husband Maternal Uncle Wife Maternal Aunt Husband b bo b m sh shu sh m g g g zhng ji jiu ji m y y zhng b f b m sh f sh m g m g fu ji f ji mu y m y fu

Cousins Maternal Male Cousins Maternal Female Cousins Paternal Male Cousins Paternal Female Cousins Paternal Male Cousins (Paternal Aunt's children) Paternal Female Cousins (Paternal Aunt's children) bio g bio d bio ji bio mi tng g tng d tng ji tng mi bio g bio d bio ji bio mi bio xing d bio ji mi tng xing d tng ji mi bio xing d bio ji mi

Chinese attitudes and beliefs underlie the kinship system


This brings us to a close in this series on the Chinese family tree. We hope it has been an interesting journey navigating through the various branches and tributaries of the Chinese family chart. The logic and patterns behind the Chinese kinship naming system and terminology structure provides a sort of lens into the traditional Chinese attitudes, beliefs and values system. One thing we can be sure of is that in the days of yore, Chinese people used to place high importance on the family name and consider those who share the same surname to be related to

a higher degree than those who don't. Thinking along this line will help you remember when to use the various prefixes of tang, biao and wai. --------------

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