issue 54 - AsiaLIFE Magazine

Tangled Hierarchy
Here are the rules for when to use the terms of endearment anh,
chi and em — and here is when to break the rules. By Lien Hoang.
Photo by Rosa Chung.
At their most basic, anh and chi
mean older brother and sister,
respectively. But as anyone
knows after spending enough
time with them, Vietnamese
people really use the words for
any moderately older person.
There are so many exceptions
in this social hierarchy, though,
that I find myself in a sort of
Mobius strip.
Let me explain. I defer to my
former roommate as chi because
she’s older. She defers to my
cousin as anh because he’s a
man. And he defers to me as chi
because my mom is older than
his dad. It’s like each of us is
rock, paper or scissors.
And what makes the loop
stranger still: I’m eight years
younger than my cousin. In
other words, he is older but
calls me chi.
The example paints two rules
that defy age. First, the pecking
order of cousins depends not on
their age, but on the age of their
parents. So it’s pretty common
for an elder cousin to treat a
younger one as the superior.
In western countries, if you’ve
had an uncle who is your age or
younger, you get a sense of how
awkward that feels.
It’s similar for Vietnamese
in-laws. If you marry a man, for
example, you must call his older
sister chi, even if you’re older
than she is. Your age doesn’t
matter; you have to follow the
rules that your spouse does.
The second rule of thumb
in my example above is that
women tend to address men as
anh even if the men are younger
and definitely if they’re dating
or married. It’s something of
a patriarchal holdover despite
an increasingly gender-equal
society.
Around my old neighbourhood
in District 12, that first
rule made for an odd couple
of weeks when I moved back
to Ho Chi Minh City. All of my
cousin’s friends have a decade
on me but referred to me as chi
simply because my cousin did.
Some still do.
I reciprocated by calling
them em, a term of endearment
familiar to many an expat at
many a downtown restaurant.
Again, regardless of age, servers
pleasantly greet guests as
anh and chi, so foreigners have
mastered asking for the check,
“Em oi, tinh tien.”
In the context of the service
industry, one could translate
anh and chi as ‘sir’ and
‘madam’, respectively. But the
English versions are limited
to polite exchanges, whereas
the Vietnamese titles somehow
convey affection and courtesy
simultaneously. What makes
the difference is em. Alone,
anh and chi denote Confucian
respect for elders and other
superiors. But em, which has no
satisfying English equivalent,
creates a relationship, a role
for the lower-ranked because
it conjures up the intimacy of
sister and brother. Without ever
learning each other’s names,
two people can establish an
instant connection. (For better
or worse, this also allows me
to get by without remembering
people’s names.)
Anh, chi and em also pose
much more delightful alternatives
to the dry personal
pronouns toi (I) and ban (you)
that foreigners first learn in a
beginning Vietnamese class.
Instead of a stuffy thank you
(“Toi cam on ban”) people inch a
little closer by saying, “Em cam
on chi,” for instance. Try it out.
Of course, all this applies to
people in roughly the same generation.
The titles designating
older people (co, chu, ong, bac,
etc.) are a whole other story.
asialife HCMC 33