Manners in the East Asian Community – Chapter 2: When is he my Uncle, when is she my Auntie?

Last time, you discovered just how big your family really is. Now get ready to learn how to identify a blood relative from a social relative.

Like I said before, in East Asia, age determines if he’s your social uncle or aunt and blood defines the other one (you should know the latter! You’re mother will be mortified if you didn’t!).

Now this means, your Chinese neighbour is Uncle Wong to you and your mother’s best friend who happens to be Indian is Aunty Saras. Race is does not make for an exception in the rule.

However, why then have you heard little Rani address her father’s colleague as Ms Fatimah and the school children greet their teacher as Mr Low (pronounced Lau)? Good question…remember I said there were polite exceptions? Well these are some of them.

Little Rani isn’t familiar with her father’s colleague. Perhaps she’s never met her, she’s only ever answered some phone calls from Ms Fatimah. But notice she used the prefix Miss instead? Again, polite exception and alternative used.

The school children greet their teacher as Mr Low because it’s more respectful in this scenario. Calling him ‘Uncle Low’ would make the relationship seem more casual and less enforcing – not suitable for the education environment.

Confusing? Yes. Difficult? No.

When in doubt, always just go with the familiar Mr, Ms, Mrs, Mdm, etc, your East Asian elder will politely correct you to address him or her as ‘Uncle or Aunty’ if he welcomes it from you.

Next time on ‘Manners in the East Asian Community’ – Chapter 3: Meet your other extended family…