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The three-word starter set: 哥 (gē) and 姐 (jiě) for anyone a bit older than you but not of your parents' generation — two years older up to fifteen — and 老师 (lǎo shī), which left school long ago and now lands on anyone with a craft. The hard rule underneath: sooner call someone younger than older. A thirty-five-year-old called 姐 smiles; called 阿姨 (ā yí) she remembers you for a year.; Formal settings run on surname plus title, always rounded up: a deputy manager is 李经理, a deputy director is 王总. Say 副 (fù) aloud and you have reminded him he is one rung short. 小王 and 老王 each carry a position, so use the trick that beats any word list: listen to what others call him, follow them, one notch politer. They say 老王, you say 王哥.; The street list you use daily: 师傅 (shī fu) for any hands-on skill — drivers, repairmen, cooks, any age or gender; 老板 (lǎo bǎn) for any man behind a small counter, because the word lifts people; and 美女 (měi nǚ) / 帅哥 (shuài gē), which are not compliments but simply hello, with three situations to avoid. Meanwhile 服务员 is quietly going out of style.
Leo, I want to make you a bet.
A bet on what?
Four people came into the shop this morning. If you called all four of them the right thing, cake is on me for the rest of the month.
That sounds far too easy.
Then let's play it back. The young guy delivering the boxes — what did you call him?
Xiansheng. Sir.
Wrong. That's one.
But he genuinely is a sir.
Yell xiansheng at a young delivery guy in China and he'll assume you're trying to sell him something.
All right, what about the lady by the window, the one in her sixties?
You called her nüshi. Madam.
Isn't that polite?
Polite, but far away. So far away that she starts wondering whether you came to inspect something.
Fine. The man from the flower shop next door — I called him laoban, boss. That has to be fine.
That one you got right by luck. Luck, nothing more.
Last one. The girl cutting fruit in the back — I called her xiaojie, miss.
Stop. That one is the serious one.
What's wrong with xiaojie? In England that is completely normal.
In mainland China, xiaojie on its own is, in a lot of places, an insult.
What? I have been using it for most of a year.
So there goes your cake. Four people, three landmines.
I always thought calling people was the easiest thing in Chinese.
In English it is. In Chinese, before you have said anything at all, that one word has already fixed the relationship.
Let me ask you this. In England, when you want to stop a stranger, what do you say?
Excuse me.
And then?
If I know the surname, Mister plus surname, or Miss plus surname. If I don't, I add nothing at all.
So you have a master key.
You could put it that way.
Chinese has no master key. There is no word that works on everyone and never goes wrong.
Not a single one?
Not one. All you can do is judge five things inside one second.
Which five?
How old he is, which of you ranks higher, what he does, how close you are, and what kind of setting this is.
Five things, in one second?
That is what Chinese people have been practising since they were small. Once the judgment is made, the word comes out by itself.
This is harder than tones.
Because it isn't a language problem. It's a relationship problem.
An English form of address is a label stuck onto a person. It reads the same to everyone.
And the Chinese one?
A Chinese form of address is a line drawn between you and him.
A line?
That line says how close the two of you are, who is above and who is below.
So when I call someone the wrong thing, I haven't picked the wrong word. I've drawn the line in the wrong place.
Exactly. Calling that old lady nüshi drew the line ten metres away from her.
But I was trying to show respect.
And that is the hole foreigners fall into most. You assume respect means opening up distance.
In England it does. The more formal, the more respectful.
In China, respect usually means calling someone closer.
Calling them closer?
Calling a stranger by the name of someone you already know.
Such as?
Ge, jie, shushu, ayi — brother, sister, uncle, auntie. Every one of those words started out as a relative.
But they aren't my relatives.
No. But the moment you say it, the air in the room softens.
So Chinese puts strangers inside the family?
That is exactly it. A Chinese form of address first places the other person somewhere inside a family.
So today we are not memorising a word list. First we get one thing straight.
Which is?
Chinese forms of address don't aim to be accurate. They aim to make the other person comfortable.
Not accurate?
A slightly inaccurate word that makes someone happy always beats an accurate one that is ice cold.
Let me give you three words. They will solve half your problems.
I'm ready.
Ge, jie, laoshi.
Just those three?
Just those three. Start with ge and jie.
Aren't those your actual brother and sister?
In China, more than half the people being called ge and jie are not related by blood at all.
So who gets called ge?
A man who looks a little older than you, but not old enough to belong to your parents' generation.
How much is a little older?
Two or three years older, all the way up to fifteen years older. All fine.
That wide a range?
Because you are not reporting his age. You are taking a position.
What position?
I am treating you as one of us, and I am placing you a little above me.
And jie?
Jie is more useful, and more dangerous.
How so?
For a woman around thirty, jie is almost never wrong.
And a woman in her fifties?
Call a woman in her fifties jie and some of them will feel you are buttering them up.
Then what do I call her?
A lot of people would say ayi, auntie. But ayi has been shifting these last few years.
Shifting how?
Plenty of women in their fifties don't like being called ayi. That one word ages them on the spot.
So what do I do?
Remember one rule. Sooner call someone younger than they are than older.
Sooner call them younger.
A thirty-five-year-old called jie will smile at most. Called ayi, she will remember you for a year.
That one I'm keeping.
Ge and jie also work with a surname. If his surname is Wang, he is Wang ge.
Wang ge.
A female colleague surnamed Li is Li jie. A given name works too — if she is Xiao Li, she becomes Li jie.
Then can I call you Yue jie?
You can. But today you haven't earned it yet.
Saying one word has to be earned?
We'll come back to that at the end. Third word — laoshi.
Isn't laoshi someone who teaches?
This is the interesting one. Laoshi escaped from school a long time ago.
Escaped to where?
Onto anyone who is good at something.
Meaning what?
Publishing houses, television, designers, writers, photographers — they all call each other laoshi.
A photographer gets called laoshi?
Call him Wang laoshi and he will think you know how things work.
What if he isn't actually all that good?
Call him that anyway. Here it doesn't mean he taught you. It means I respect your line of work.
So laoshi is a safe card.
Very safe. In a Chinese office, when you truly have no idea what to say, say laoshi.
So I call everyone I meet laoshi?
No, not that either. Walk into a vegetable market and call the seller laoshi and they will think you are joking.
So laoshi is for the mind and shifu is for the hands?
You worked that out yourself. We'll do shifu properly in a minute.
So when I don't know, ge or jie. When there is work involved, laoshi.
Exactly right. Those two will save you in eight situations out of ten.
Next, slightly more formal settings. There is one pattern you absolutely have to remember.
Go ahead.
Surname plus job title — and round the title up.
Round it up? Is this maths?
More or less. He is a deputy manager, so you call him Manager Li and drop the word deputy.
I don't say deputy?
Not only do you not say it — say it and he will be annoyed.
Why?
Because that word deputy is you reminding him, in front of everyone, that he is one rung short.
And a deputy director?
You call him Wang zong. In a Chinese company you almost never hear anyone say deputy director out loud.
There is also the profession type — Doctor Zhang, Lawyer Liu, Teacher Chen.
The surname comes first in all of those.
Right. In Chinese the surname is always first and the role second. English does it the other way around.
English says the role first, then the surname.
So if you say it the English way round, yisheng Zhang, people will think you are reciting a tongue twister.
So when can I just use someone's name?
This is the second hardest part of today. Let's talk about xiao and lao, little and old.
Xiao Wang and Lao Wang?
You have heard them already.
I have, but I have never dared use them.
Not daring was correct. Both of those words carry a position with them.
What position?
Whoever says Xiao Wang is usually older than Xiao Wang, or one level above him.
So the boss can say Xiao Wang and I can't?
You have been here six months. Call a forty-year-old colleague Xiao Wang and he will remember it.
And Lao Wang? That sounds warm.
Lao Wang is warmer, and it needs more history between you.
How much history?
The kind where you have had several meals together.
So right now I can't call anyone anything?
You have one method that beats any word list.
Listen to what other people call him, follow them, and then step one notch toward the polite end.
One notch?
They say Lao Wang, you say Wang ge. They say Xiao Wang, you say Wang laoshi.
That's just eavesdropping.
It isn't eavesdropping. It's reading the room.
Reading the room.
A foreigner who reads the room is far more welcome than a foreigner who memorised three hundred forms of address.
And full names? Saying all three characters out loud.
That is a signal. In formal settings a full name means a roll call, an announcement, a procedure.
And at home?
At home, when your mother uses your full name, something has gone wrong.
That part is the same everywhere on earth.
So friends almost never use full names. Either just the given name, or a nickname.
My Chinese name is Lu Ziqian. What would friends call me?
Ziqian. And the really close ones would say Qianqian.
Qianqian sounds like you are calling a child.
That is exactly what doubling a syllable does. It calls someone smaller, softer, closer.
And outside the office? On the street, in shops — what do I actually call people?
This is the part you will use most every day, so let me give you a list.
Please.
Number one, shifu.
I have heard that one in taxis.
Shifu is for craft. Drivers, repairmen, air conditioner installers, cooks — all shifu.
Regardless of age?
Regardless of age and of gender. A twenty-five-year-old mechanic is a shifu too.
How is it different from laoshi?
Laoshi respects that he knows. Shifu respects that he can do.
One knows, one does.
And shifu is rock solid. You almost cannot get it wrong.
And number two?
Laoban. And it isn't only shop owners.
Then what else?
In a small shop you can say laoban, two buns please, to any man standing there, and it works.
Even if he isn't the boss?
He will feel a little good about it. That word lifts people.
Lifts people.
Half the craft of Chinese address is spent on lifting people.
And women?
Also laoban. Some people say laobanniang, but laobanniang originally meant the boss's wife.
So that turns her own shop into somebody else's.
Which is why more and more people simply say laoban.
Got it. Number three?
Meinü and shuaige — beauty and handsome guy.
Those two I have never dared use. They are too direct.
Because you are treating them as compliments. They aren't compliments. They are a way of saying hello.
Hello?
In a lot of shops in the south, meinü is simply the word for hello.
Nothing to do with how someone looks?
Nothing whatsoever. An eighty-year-old woman gets called meinü at the vegetable market.
When can't I use it?
Three situations to avoid. One, formal work settings, a meeting for instance.
Two, when the person is clearly much older than you and quite serious.
And three?
Three, you are a man and the two of you are alone somewhere very quiet.
Outside those three, use it freely. Buying fruit, buying clothes, getting a waiter's attention.
Speaking of waiters, restaurants make me nervous.
Because a lot of young people are now reluctant to shout fuwuyuan.
Why?
Because it sounds too much like ordering someone around. People prefer ni hao now, or bu hao yi si.
Bu hao yi si — we did a whole episode on that one.
We did, and here it is just a knock on the door. Raise your hand a little and say ni hao.
And if the place is very loud?
Then call out shuaige or meinü. It lands better than fuwuyuan.
Anything else?
Two more words you have to know but must never use — tongzhi and xiaojie.
Tongzhi I have heard in old films.
Men and women were all called tongzhi once. Say it today and people will think you walked out of the last century.
I have heard it has another meaning as well.
It does. It is also used now to mean gay, which is one more reason to be careful.
And xiaojie? The landmine I stepped on this morning.
Xiaojie on its own, in a lot of places, refers to a woman in that line of business.
But Miss in English is a completely ordinary word.
So the translation is what got you. That is exactly how the dictionary lines them up.
So I can never say it?
Not on its own. With a surname it is fine. Wang xiaojie, Li xiaojie, perfectly normal.
Why does adding a surname change it?
The surname makes it formal, and the bad meaning cannot get into a formal place.
What about xiao jiejie? I see it online constantly.
Xiao jiejie is fine. It is how young people talk. Just don't say it to someone who is fifty.
I have basically got half my life back today.
If you remember one thing from this section, remember this. Never say xiaojie on its own.
And family? Every New Year at my grandmother's house I don't dare open my mouth.
Relative terms are the most complicated system in the world, and Chinese comes first.
In English, shushu, bobo and jiujiu are all the same word.
In Chinese, your father's older brother and your father's younger brother are two different words.
Genuinely separate?
Your father's older brother is bobo. His younger brother is shushu.
And your mother's brothers?
Older or younger than her, they are all jiujiu.
Why does your mother's side stop splitting?
Because under the old rules, your father's side counted as your own family and your mother's side counted as relatives.
That is deeply unfair.
Which is why young people don't hold to it much any more. The words are still here, though.
And on the women's side?
Your father's sisters are gugu. Your mother's sisters are yi.
Bobo, shushu, jiujiu, gugu, yi.
Remember those five and you will survive New Year.
And grandparents?
Your father's parents are yeye and nainai. Your mother's parents are waigong and waipo.
There is an extra character in there, wai, outside.
Yes. That wai is what the old rule left behind.
I always thought knowing nainai was enough.
Your grandmother will be delighted when you get it right. In her generation, getting it wrong got you talked about.
And if I genuinely don't know what to call someone?
That is where your privilege comes in.
A foreigner's privilege?
You can simply ask. Wo gai zenme chenghu nin, what should I call you.
Isn't that rude?
That sentence is never rude in China, and the other person will think you were raised well.
Wo gai zenme chenghu nin.
There is an even more common one. Qing wen nin gui xing, may I ask your honourable surname.
What does gui mean there?
It is lifting again. You raise the other person's surname a little. It is left over from older speech.
How am I supposed to answer?
When someone asks your gui xing, you cannot answer, my honourable surname is Lu.
Then what do I say?
You say mian gui, xing Lu. Those two characters, mian gui, are you lowering yourself a notch.
One lift, one lowering.
Chinese politeness is basically those four characters.
What if I meet a seventy-year-old on the street?
Yeye and nainai both work. So do daye and dama, which are especially common in the north.
But they aren't my grandparents.
And that is the most interesting thing about Chinese. We put strangers into family positions too.
Isn't that strange?
Not strange at all. Call her ayi once and half the wall inside her comes down.
So the form of address is the key that opens the door.
It is a key, and it is also a sentence nobody ever says out loud.
Which sentence?
I am not treating you as an outsider.
And among young people? I have noticed they don't seem to call each other anything.
Good observation. Young people are taking the whole system apart.
Taking it apart?
My friends and I use given names, or nicknames. Nobody says ge or jie.
And inside companies?
Some companies now have an actual rule against calling anyone zong.
So what do they say?
English names, or they call each other tongxue, classmate.
Classmate? But they aren't classmates.
That is the new fake family. It used to be words from home, now it is words from school, and both are pulling people closer.
And online? I see all kinds of terms I cannot decode.
Online it moves faster. Xiao jiejie and xiao gege, those two are safe.
There is also jia ren men, family. I hear it in livestreams every day.
That is what people selling things say. Coming from a foreigner it would sound very odd.
So I will keep xiao jiejie and xiao gege and leave the rest.
Right. Watch other people use the rest.
I have noticed that half of today has been about dodging holes.
Because nobody praises you for getting an address right, and everybody remembers when you get it wrong.
Let me turn it around and ask you. What do Chinese people call us? I hear laowai a lot.
Laowai carries basically no bad meaning now. It is more colloquial than waiguoren, and sometimes it is even affectionate.
When I first came back it didn't sit well with me.
Understandable. But plenty of Chinese people don't know what to call you either.
They are stuck as well?
They are making that same one-second judgment. It is just that their table has no row for you.
So both sides are guessing.
Yes. The best move is to say it at the first meeting. Just call me Leo, or Ziqian works too.
Hand them the choice.
And the other person relaxes immediately. It is a small gift you can hand people.
Xiao Yue, have you ever had something go wrong over an address?
I have. And it is one I have never stopped thinking about.
Tell me.
In the shop's first year there was an old lady who came in every Wednesday afternoon.
A regular.
Extremely punctual. In at half past two, seat by the window, one black tea, one slice of cake.
What did you call her?
I called her ayi for a year.
Isn't that completely normal?
It is. She never said anything either. She just smiled every time.
And then?
One day it poured, there were only the two of us in the shop, and she stayed a while longer.
And?
She said, young lady, from now on call me Zhang laoshi.
She was a teacher?
She taught Chinese for thirty-five years. She had been retired for six.
And you had no idea.
No idea at all. For that whole year I had been addressing an auntie who came in for cake.
When she was actually someone who had taught for thirty-five years.
After that day I called her Zhang laoshi every single time.
Did anything change?
She started talking to me. About her students, about the essays she had marked, about crying on the day she retired.
One word bought all of that.
And that is how I worked out one thing.
What thing?
You are not saying it to the person. You are saying it to who that person is.
Saying it to who they are.
When I called her ayi, she was just someone buying cake.
And when you called her Zhang laoshi?
Then she was thirty-five years.
That sentence is heavy.
Every time you open your mouth to address someone, you are deciding which side of them you are going to see.
I have never once thought about it that way.
Most Chinese people haven't thought about it either. They have simply done it their whole lives.
Then from now on I'll take a second before I call anyone anything.
One second is enough. That one second, the other person may remember for a lifetime.
Let's run through it all, I'm afraid I won't remember.
All right. Seven rules.
Seven. I'm counting.
One. Chinese has no universal form of address, so you have to judge the relationship first.
Rule one, judge the relationship.
Two. Respect isn't distance. It is calling someone closer.
Rule two, call them closer.
Three. When in doubt, ge, jie, laoshi. They will save you eight times out of ten.
Rule three, the set of three.
Four. Surname plus title, and drop the word deputy.
Rule four, drop deputy.
Five. Listen to what others say, follow them, one notch politer.
Rule five, read the room.
Six. Never say xiaojie alone, don't casually say tongzhi, don't throw around jia ren men.
Rule six, three don'ts.
Seven. When you truly don't know, just ask, wo gai zenme chenghu nin.
Rule seven, just ask.
Take these seven away with you today and you can use them tomorrow.
I have realised the last one is the easiest, and I have never once used it.
Because you are afraid that asking makes you look stupid.
Yes.
But in China, nobody has ever been laughed at for asking what to call someone.
Xiao Yue, there is something I want to tell you.
Go on.
I have been back in Hangzhou for over a year and everyone calls me Leo.
Because it is easy to say, and because people look at you and see a foreigner.
But I have a Chinese name. Lu Ziqian. My grandfather gave it to me.
I know. You have told me.
I would like you to call me Ziqian from now on.
Really?
Really. It took a whole episode of you talking for me to understand that the name is the line my grandfather drew for me.
Then let me try. Ziqian.
That is the first time anyone has called me that since I came home.
Then this morning's bet — you win. Cake is on me this month.
But I only got one of the four right, and that was luck.
And by tonight you got the hardest one of all right.
Thank you for staying with us this far, and next time before you speak, take that one second.
If you have called someone the wrong thing too, tell us below and we will laugh about it together.
See you next time, and may everyone in China call you something that feels just right.
Adapted from a Simply Natural Chinese YouTube episode into a complete three-line website reading. This is not a word-for-word transcript.
The reading may differ from the original video or audio.
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