称呼

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.