My Family

Chinese names are really hard for me to learn and remember. In here people don't just call each other first names. They usually give kinship terms such as little sister, big brother, elder uncle and so on. So in China I am not called Monika. I am xi fu 媳妇 (daughter-in-law) or lao po 老婆 (wife). Only when you are the youngest they will call your first name.
This is the list of names I had to learn in order to communicate with my family. Don't you think it is too complicated? They are still names of my husband's friends left to remember...

• ma 妈 – mother
• ba 爸 – father
• lao 姥 – grandmother on mother's side
  
• lao ye 姥爷 – grandfather on mother's side
  
• da jiu 大舅 – elder uncle on mother's side, da jiu ma 大舅妈 – elder uncle's wife
• da yi 大姨 – elder aunt on mother's side, da yi fu 大姨夫 – elder aunt's husband
• jie 姐 – lit. elder sister, here da yi's daughter, jie fu 姐夫 – elder sister's husband, Ma Yi Ming – first name of their 2 years old son
• lao jiu 姥舅 – elder uncle on mother's side, lao jiu ma 姥舅妈 – elder uncle's wife, Tong Tong – first name of their 14 years old son
• er shu 二叔 – second uncle on father's side, er shen 二婶 – uncle's wife
• san shu 三叔 – third uncle on father's side, san shen 三婶 - uncle's wife
• si shu 四叔 - fourth uncle on father's side, si shen 四婶 - uncle's wife

My chinese family from Shenyang

Shenyang

I live in Shenyang, my husband's home city. Just want to give you some information about Shenyang 沈阳 "the north side of Shen River" in Liaoning Province. It is the largest city in northeastern China. It is located around 635 km from Beijing 北京 the capital city. Shenyang has long been reputed as "the birthplace for one dynasty and the capital for two emperors". In 1625, Nuerhachi, the first emperor of Qing dynasty, moved its capital here, and renamed it Shengjing. It was the capital of the Qing Dynasty until the relocation of the capital to Beijing in 1644. During the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), Shenyang known then as Mukden was the site of the Battle of Mukden from on 19 February 1905 – 10 March 1905. The Mukden Incident (18 September 1931), which gave the Japanese the pretext to create the Manchukuo state, took place near Shenyang. During the Manchukuo era (1932-1945) the city was called Fengtian. During the Japanese occupation, Shenyang was developed into a heavy industry center. Soviet forces occupied Shenyang in early August 1945 on the surrender of Japan. The Soviets were replaced by the Nationalist Chinese. During the Chinese Civil War, Shenyang remained a Kuomintang stronghold from 1946–1948. Since 1949, Shenyang became one of the most important heavy industry centers of China.

Middle Street in Shenyang (Zhong Jie)

In Shenyang there are around 7 milion people. There are a lot of minorities living here such as Koreans or even Russians. Maybe that is why when they see me they think I am Russian. By the way there are almost no non Asian looking people here so everybody stare at me. This is annoying most of the times but I think I will get use to that eventually. Nothing I can do unfortunately...

We stay in Huanggu District (皇姑区/皇姑區 Huánggū Qū) of the city with my husband’s family. Huanggu District is the site of the large, historical tomb of Huang Taiji (of the Qing Dynasty), called Beiling park 北陵公園. Beiling Park was the first city attraction I saw in Shenyang and I must say that I was impressed.

Beiling Park in Shenyang

Traffic in Shenyang

Two weeks are gone and I still cannot get use to the traffic in Shenyang. First thing that I noticed when I came here was that all the streets are very wide and very long. It is total madness to cross the street!! You can see the video below how cars, bicycles, tricycle, motorbikes and people are trying to go all at the same time. I have never seen such a mess. In general it looks like as there are no rules on the roads. Even tough pedestrians have a green light and can cross the street they still need to watch out for cars and bikes coming from right hand side. Moreover Chinese don’t use pavements for walking! They usually use both sides of the actual street and it doesn’t matter that there is a lot of cars. On the other hand cars can be found driving on the footpaths and bike lanes. They usually beep on people to move from their way!

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