"Auntie"


Advertisement
China's flag
Asia » China » Guangdong » Guangzhou
March 10th 2012
Published: March 19th 2012
Edit Blog Post

Today I went to Guangzhou. And while many things happened, I'm only going to talk about one of them.

I was at the post office helping a friend mail some papers back to the US. My friend is Asian American, but people look at her and think she's a Chinese national. Sometimes they point at the signs that we can't read and have meaningless Chinglish translations, and sometimes people just talk to her in rapid Cantonese and it takes forever for us to get anything done. But, if we pretend I'm the one wanting to get something done, it's amazing how much faster things go. I can walk right up to the counter and get led to the right spot. Sometimes they help me even if I'm in the wrong place because it's just easier for them. I like to think that these little perks help balance out all the times I'm overcharged or treated like I don't understand/don't want something because I'm a foreigner.

While we were standing and waiting for our turn, we noticed a little boy next to us, probably about three years old. Usually, small children here are loud and quite a few run around; this little boy was quiet and kept trying to hide behind his mother's legs while peeking at us. He had such a sweet disposition.

I commented to my friend that he was really cute and the mother smiled and said, "Thank you!" Then she turned to her son (who was working his way around her legs to get a better look at us) and said, "Hello, say hello." He responded by hiding again while I smiled and waved and said, "Hello, hi there..." He just stared.

"Say hello, Auntie," his mother said. I smiled and laughed. In Chinese culture, calling an older woman Auntie is a sign of respect; for men, they use the name Uncle. I was touched that she was teaching her son to respect me and include me in their culture. I wasn't a foreigner, I wasn't strange--I was a person, an older woman worthy of respect.

He never did say hello, but rather just watched us with wide eyes.

Advertisement



19th March 2012

Auntie
This is a cute story as so many times the parents are "harassing" their children to say hello to the foreigner. I have had parents push their 10-12 year old children at me to speak English...awkward for all of us.

Tot: 0.041s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 7; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0236s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1mb