Uncle Scrooge's name in Chinese

lgiver@postoffice.pacbell.net lgiver at postoffice.pacbell.net
Wed Jun 4 22:51:15 CEST 2003


Rich Bellacera  mentioned that Scrooge's title for "uncle" in Chinese
is "Shu Shu" meaning Donald's uncle on his father's side,  not his
mother's side.  Haven't I seen this discussed before here, regarding
a Scandinavian language, where they also distinguish relations on
the father's side and the mother's side in the actual word?   In both
cases, the wrong word was used, since of course, Scrooge is
Donald's uncle on his mother's side.
    I have some familiarity with these Chinese terms for family
relationsihips, as my whife is Chinese.   "Ge Ge" and "Di Di" mean
older brother and younger brother, not sister.  My wife and I have
3 daughters and one son; The oldest daughter was "Jeh Jeh" for
older sister, and the second, 2 years younger, was "Mei Mei" for
younger sister.  Then my son was 7 years later, "Di Di" to both
his sisters.  When the youngest daughter was born, she became
"Shau Mei Mei", for small younger sister.
       The strange part regards the terms for the grandparents,
"Gung gung and Po po" for grandfather and grandmother on the
father's side, and "Wai gung and Wai po" for grnadparents on the
mother's side (my wife's side).  But of course we weren't using
Chinese terms for my parents, and so my wife's mother was happy
to claim the title "Po po", and "Gung gung'" for my wife's father.  Somehow
it's thought easier for the little children to use, or it's a higher ranking
title, or whatever reason they didn't use Wai Gung and Wai Po.
                        Best wishes,              Larry Giver



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