By Connla Stokes, Guardian Weekly
On the anniversary of the death of my Hanoi-born wife’s auntie in Sai Gon, two distant branches of a family tree come together to put the Vietnamese language’s strict conventions regarding pronouns through its paces.
A family outing in Hanoi. Photograph: Alamy
When talking, Vietnamese clans stick rigidly to kinship terms so everyone will know what generation they belong to and who is washing the dishes (it’s probably going to be the youngest adult female). But inter-generational dynamics can get a little knotty, especially when second marriages come into play. On this occasion I am introduced to my mother-in-law’s half-sister’s husband’s stepdaughter. To my 38-year-old eyes, she looks like a bac (elder auntie) or even a ba (grandmother/great-aunt) but I’m told to call her chi (older sister) and her septuagenarian husband anh (older brother). The husband, who is sipping locally produced red wine on the rocks, is the oldest man in the room, but according to his in-laws’ family tree he’s not even on the same branch as the most senior individuals at the dinner. Enjoying the view from that perch is my wife’s father, whom the septuagenarian must refer to with more than a hint of weariness as chu (uncle).
As the commemorative meal begins, the pronoun-themed sideshow continues when a 35-year-old man, who is apparently my “nephew”, frogmarches his 10-year-old daughter up to me and demands that she says chao ong (great-uncle) to me and chao chu (hello, uncle) to my four-year-old son, who is too busy throwing a tantrum under the table to acknowledge the greeting. As my wife is the eldest child in her family, her sister’s son must also refer to my son as anh (older brother) even though he’s much younger.
Read the full article by Connla Stokes from Guardian Weekly.
