IT'S ALL VERY RELATIVE

One of them has a friend in China. Meaning a girlfriend. I do not know how much younger than him she is. Possibly one or two decades. He's over ninety, and though deaf as a post and a little bit bonkers, still spry. Chinese men are often rather like that. Involved in mutually comfortable relations with the other gender when, realistically, they should NOT be purchasing condos in brand new middle class neighborhoods overseas.

The other Chinese gentleman at the table was also hard of hearing. So you can imagine the amount of repetition there. What do you call a nephew? Jat (侄). What? Jat (侄). Huh? Jat (侄). My brother's son? Jat (侄). What's a grandson? Suen (孫). What? Suen (孫). Isn't that a granddaughter? No, that's suen neui (孫女). What? Suen neui (孫女). What's 'jat'? That's your brother's kid. And so on.

What?

Father's side, mother's side, their siblings by gender and whether older or younger than the parent, your siblings by gender and older or younger and their offspring by gender older or younger, in laws, ditto.

There are over seventy terms, not counting the numerical variants.
And fond alternatives. plus diminutive variations.
Familial terms in Mandarin are different.

By the way: in writing, one can feminize 侄 as 姪 (same pronunciation). But in speech you have to clarify: jat neui (侄女).

If you are a Caucasian, you probably don't have all of that. Nor do you ever pay attention so minutely. Just like a werewolf. So you probably can't memorize all of it for that one time one of your friends goes into too much detail. It's also different in the Wu group of Chinese languages as well as Min, Gan, Hsiang, etcetera. Also in their various dialects.
Plus there are some regional and formal or literary differences too.

[In order: 吳語 ('ng yü'), 閩語 ('man yü'), 贛語 ('gam yü'), 湘語 ('seung yü').]

Now, aren't you glad you're a werewolf?
Plus visibly hairy, Q.E.D.
Such luck!



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