At this point, it is common knowledge that the Chinese kinship system is very specific. You may hear it on YouTube videos. Though, the majority of them is misleading. They may say 阿姨 is the word for 'aunt'. Correction: 阿姨 is one of the words that is translated into 'aunt' but it is not really 'aunt' in the English sense of the word because it is usually referring to an unrelated woman of the same generation as the parents, especially if you are speaking in Putonghua. Correction: In Taiwanese Mandarin, it is normal to say 阿姨 to refer to the maternal aunts. They may say 'This is the Chinese kinship system' and then talk about how the words are used to call someone and then show you a chart of formal terms that are usually found in writing, not in speech. The most accurate YouTube video that I have found was developed by a Hongkonger for the Off The Great Wall channel, but it is important to note that she has used mostly the conversational terms, and when it comes to conversational terms, those things have HUGE variability based on the hometown or the family or the specific household within a family. She mainly speaks of the antecedent generations probably because you are most expected to use kinship terms on the antecedent generations. She does talk about the descendant generations, but they are all of direct descent.

Today, I am going to share with you the side branches of the family tree.

And no, we don't use 'cousins' or 'nieces' or 'nephews'. These are English kinship terms. English kinship terms may be used to translate Chinese kinship, but they are usually very imprecise. We have our own terms.

(Putonghua Mandarin)

If your parents have a child who is born before you, then that is your 哥哥 or 姐姐.

If your parents have a child who is born after you, then that is your 弟弟 or 妹妹.

I am an only child though, and many people of my generation are also only children because of the one-child policy. Though, there are exceptions of the law. And the enforcement of this law is another issue. In the words of my father, he would say that the rural parts have a lot of farmers, and the farmers can't easily be punished as city dwellers because their livelihoods aren't based on skilled labor. They can only do manual labor on the farm, and the farm needs their labor, so they are never out of a 'job' while the city dwellers are more easily controlled because their own livelihoods are dependent on their jobs, and if they are fired, then they will go poor, and they don't want to do farm labor or they can't do farm labor. Hence, it is not uncommon for rural dwellers to actually have uncontrollable births, and the government at the national or regional or municipal level can't do anything about that because the random birth may be in a remote village on a mountain.

Anyway . . .

If your paternal grandparents have any children other than your father, which is most likely because people tend to have a lot of kids back in those days, then your father's older brother would be your 伯 (the exact term will vary by birth order) and your father's younger brother would be your 叔 (again, that's not the exact term) and your father's sisters would be your 姑 (again, that's not the exact term because you are going to address them by birth order).

Any child of your 伯伯 will have the 堂 prefix.

Any child of your 叔叔 will also have the 堂 prefix.

Any child of your 姑姑 will have the 表 prefix because it is of maternal lineage. This prefix will also be extended to your own mother's side of the family. These people are all related to you by blood through a maternal lineage.

When you address anyone of the same generation who is older than you and male, then you call them 哥哥 and, if you stay long enough in China, always hanging out with those relatives, they will make sure of it because they will use that term to call themselves . . . kind of like a pronoun in English. They are using a kinship term like an English first-person pronoun.

Likewise, someone of the same generation who is older than you and female, you would call them 姐姐.

Someone of the same generation who is younger than you and male: 弟弟

Someone of the same generation who is younger than you and female: 妹妹

These kinship terms (哥哥姐姐弟弟妹妹) may be applied to your siblings, your cousins, your distant cousins, your very distant cousins and complete non-relatives who may be just related to you because they are a member of the Homo sapiens species. I have read this children's novel (Front Desk by Kelly Yang), and the novel seems to suggest that 'your cousins are your siblings' is related to the one-child policy. No, that is not the case. How so? Because my own mother had lived with her first cousins under the roof of her own maternal grandmother, and she would call those first cousins her 兄弟 because one is her 哥哥 and the other is her 弟弟. In a textbook, the textbook author speaks of only children in China as well, and the author mentions 'your first cousins are regarded as your siblings'. That is kind of misleading because again, it suggests it's related to the One Child Policy. No. Even before my generation, people used the same words to call their first cousins, distant cousins, non-relatives in the same manner as their own siblings, born of the same parents. Also, English speakers may speak of half-siblings and full siblings and step-siblings, but Chinese speakers will use the same term for all of them. If they want to distinguish the different bloodline, then they may add in 同父异母 (same father, different mother) or 同母异父 (same mother, different father). It is important to note that the one-child policy has made this fact very apparent because all of a sudden, so many kids are Only Children. However, even with older generations who do have siblings in the English sense, they also call their cousins with the same terms as their own siblings.

Now, 侄儿 (equivalent to nephew) and 侄女 (equivalent to niece) refer to the child of one's older brother or younger brother. Paternal lineage. 外甥 (including 甥男 referring to nephew and 甥女 referring to niece) refers to the child of one's older sister or younger sister. Maternal lineage. Now, when I say 'brother' or 'sister' in English, I am using that as a shorthand for 兄弟姐妹, which can refer to one's siblings, cousins, very distant cousins, non-relatives and half-siblings. Overseas Chinese may or may not be that well connected to their distant relatives in China, and culturally, people don't really use a kinship term to call a younger member of the family or a person of the descendent generation; the younger family member would be called by personal name, but this personal name may not necessarily be the person's legally documented name; it may just be a nickname. So, understandably, these kinship terms are less likely to be known by Overseas Chinese people.

Anyway, feel free to talk about your own Asian background (or non-Asian background).