Something about seniority in the family or clan

      By Cynthia

      In Chinese, seniority refers to the position of family members, relatives and friends.In our place, the bai people and lisu people are strict in terms of seniority, while the han people do not.

      My family is lisu.In my family, I have a cousin who is younger than me but he ranks as my senior in the clan, so I still have to call him cousin. I remember when I was a little kid , my mother asked me to call him cousin. I do not want to do it , the reason is he did not even have a tooth why I call him cousin.So I never called him cousin at that time, also do not call his name directly. After growing up, we have gradually become sensible, knowing these things, and  I would like to call him cousin.Now he has grown up, taller than me, more and more like a cousin, and I got used to calling him cousin.

    When I was in elementary school, one of my niece who was older than me was in my school. At that time, she often said to her classmates, look, that little sister is my aunt.

    However,my father is a han people, so the address in my father's hometown is not according to our lisu clan.

      In my opinion,I think this kind of family heritage in seniority is good. In this way, we can always know the order and younger of the family or clan.