This story is a two-parter – the first part is around issues with titles in Asian languages. The second – having so much extended family, you meet random new ones every few years (or so it seems!)
If you speak an Asian language (I think most of them do this anyway), but for sure in Vietnamese, you know that there is a nice, possibly confusing if you didn’t grow up with it, system of what you call adults and elders. Roughly translated to English, it seems like you call everybody Uncle and Aunt(ie). I personally think it’s better explained as calling someone “mister” or “ms.” as a way of respecting them, but whatever works! The confusing part, at least for me as a kid though, is that the same term IS used to signify your actual, blood related uncle and aunts too. So…growing up, it took me until almost the end of elementary school to figure out that most of the people we knew were close friends. Not actual relatives. In my (admittedly weak) defense, I grew up in Michigan, where there aren’t many Asians. So it almost made sense that any Vietnamese people would be related to us. Oops. Somehow, I don’t think non-Asian kids have this same confusion…
The other part that gets me confused about who I’m actually related to…is that the Vietnam War tore apart a lot of our families – due to being opposite sides or because of fleeing or immigrating after the war. Back then, obviously, there wasn’t things like emails and cell phones for people to keep in touch. At best, it was letters. So, my family lost touch with a lot of their extended family. Then, with the internet, they slowly started finding each other again. Not sure how – maybe reunion groups? Why is this confusing? Two stories.
The first one – I went to a family gathering at my uncle’s house, and there was a family from France there visiting. We thought they were just friends of my uncle until my mom went “oh, by the way, these are your (third) cousins. Your grandmothers were sisters.” Uh. What? Best part – we only spoke English and Vietnamese. They only spoke French (though their parents could speak Vietnamese). So how did we communicate? We found out that they (brother and sister pair) took Spanish in high school, just like my cousin and I did. So we communicated in bad Spanish. It worked! We communicated well enough to play a card game.
Another time – we went to a restaurant to celebrate my grandma’s birthday. Two strangers sat across from my (then boyfriend) hubs and me. My mom goes “by the way, this is your cousin and her husband. They live in San Diego too! We figure you guys can get to know each other since you’re closest in age.” Thanks for that surprise, Mom. Apparently, their mom somehow got in touch with one of my aunts and uncles. Looking back, I’m actually surprised they were brave enough to come meet everybody (there had to be 20 or 30 of us there). It was interesting, and luckily, my hubs is extroverted. But wow. Think how awkward that could’ve been!
So – is this something that only happens in Asian families? Confusion about who you’re related to, and being surprised by extended family members you’ve never heard of?? Never a dull moment in my family, I guess!
Miuzing 