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In the process of doing this family tree and putting up this website, I have learned alot of stuff that I didn't know before. For example that whole family generation poem thing came as a complete surprise to me. Here's some non-Kwan related info I learned along the way.

Chinese Family relationship terms

Everytime I go to a family gathering, I can never remember the title that I'm supposed to address each relative by. I either resort to 1)asking my parents the correct way to address each relative or 2)take the easy way out, and just say hi instead.

I created these charts to help fellow bananas* like myself.
Family relationship titles chart - table with Chinese characters, and Cantonese and Mandarin pronunciations
Family relationship titles jpeg - diagram of all the relationship terms in English.

Since there are so many different relationship terms, the easiest way to find the exact relationship you're looking for is to open up the family title diagram. Clicking a box on the diagram will automatically take you to the corresopondig spot on the chart.

The tables are Big 5 encoded, which means you have to have a Chinese font installed to view the traditional Chinese characters. If you don't have a Chinese font installed, the English words will still be fine, but the Chinese characters will look like garbage. Visit the computing links page to find out how to read Chinese encoded webpages.

To read an informative academic paper on Chinese kinship terms visit http://acjournal.org/holdings/vol3/Iss3/spec1/huang_jia.html

*banana - American-born or American-raised Chinese who are yellow on the outside, but white on the inside.

Map of China