Learn Chinese: culture of Unit 2

The Unit 2 dialogue stages the meeting of Mr. Li and Ms. Bai. It is an opportunity to see how Chinese people bear their names, which courtesy titles they use, and above all to understand two expressions you will hear every single day: 对不起 and 没关系. Behind these phrases lie two major notions of Chinese social life: face and 关系 guānxi, relationships.

1. Chinese surnames

In China, the surname 姓 xìng lies at the very centre of a person's identity. Where English says "Mr. Smith", that is title then name, Chinese always places the surname first: 李先生 Lǐ xiānsheng, Mr. Li.

Chinese surnames are almost all monosyllabic, a single character. The most common are:

There are indeed a few surnames of two characters, the 复姓 fùxìng, such as 欧阳 Ōuyáng or 司马 Sīmǎ. But they are rare.

Look at the character 姓 itself: it is made of the radical 女 (woman) and of 生 (to be born) ⟶ "born of the woman". The etymology points back to ancient societies where descent was traced through the mother. China has been patrilineal for thousands of years, but the writing has kept the trace of the opposite. That is exactly the kind of fossil I love to show.

A classic poem that every Chinese child learns lists these surnames: the 百家姓 Bǎijiāxìng, "The Hundred Family Surnames", composed under the Song dynasty in the 10th century. It actually lines up more than five hundred of them, arranged in rhyming verse. It is still the reference people turn to whenever Chinese names come up.

One recent phenomenon deserves a mention: more and more parents pass on the mother's surname to their child, or even combine the two surnames. Until 1980, the child almost always took the father's; since then, the marriage law allows either one. With the opening up to a second child in 2016, some families give the father's name to the eldest and the mother's to the youngest. According to the reports of the Ministry of Public Security (公安部 Gōng'ānbù), about one newborn in thirteen bore the mother's surname in 2020.

We are even seeing double surnames of a new kind, the 新复姓 xīn fùxìng, which join the father's name and the mother's name together. A child whose father is called 周 Zhōu and whose mother is called 朱 Zhū may thus be named 周朱 Zhōuzhū or 朱周 Zhūzhōu. In Shanghai, such compound names already applied to 2.5% of babies in 2018. Be careful not to confuse them with the traditional 复姓 fùxìng such as 欧阳 Ōuyáng, which have been handed down for centuries.

2. The titles 先生 and 女士

In the dialogue we hear 白女士 Bái nǚshì (Ms. Bai) and 李先生 Lǐ xiānsheng (Mr. Li). These are the two most common courtesy titles in modern Chinese.

先生 xiānsheng literally means "the one born before" ⟶ the one with more experience. The word long served to mark respect towards scholars and teachers; today it corresponds to our "Mister" in a formal setting.

女士 nǚshì, literally "the learned woman" ⟶ Madam. It is the most neutral and the most respectful title for addressing an adult woman.

Other titles will come in the following units: 老师 lǎoshī (teacher) as early as Unit 3, or 同学 tóngxué (classmate, student), which also works as a title when addressing a student.

3. 对不起 and 没关系: apologizing in Chinese

The dialogue contains a very common exchange:

These two formulas are much more than an exchange of politeness. Their characters carry two central notions of Chinese civilization: face and relationships.

3.1 对不起: not being able to face someone

对不起 breaks down as follows:

  • 对 duì: to face, to confront
  • 不起 bùqǐ: to be unable to rise to (after a verb, marks the impossibility of carrying out the action)

The literal meaning is therefore "I am not able to face you" ⟶ sorry. You have done a wrong, and you no longer dare look the other person in the eye. The phrase thus bears directly on face, 面子 miànzi, one of the pillars of Chinese social life.

3.2 没关系: no bond has been damaged

没关系 breaks down as follows:

  • 没 méi: not to have (negation of 有)
  • 关系 guānxi: relationship, bond

Literally: "there is no consequence for our relationship". By replying 没关系, you reassure the other person: the incident has not eaten into the bond. It is a way of setting things straight again.

4. The notion of face in China: 面子

Face, 面子 miànzi, is probably the single most useful key to understanding Chinese society. It refers to the reputation, the social image and the respect a person enjoys within their circle.

There are in fact two faces:

  • 面子 miànzi: social face, tied to status, success and the way others see you. You give it (给面子 gěi miànzi) or you lose it (丢面子 diū miànzi).
  • 脸 liǎn: moral face, tied to integrity and character. You lose it by doing something shameful (不要脸 búyào liǎn, "shameless").

This plays out very concretely in daily life:

  • you do not criticize someone in public: that would make them lose face in front of others;
  • offering an expensive gift or inviting someone to a good restaurant is "giving face";
  • turning down an invitation or a gift too bluntly can come across as an affront.

5. 关系 guānxi: the network of relationships

The word 关系 guānxi we have just met inside 没关系 has a far wider reach. guānxi refers to the whole set of interpersonal relationships, within the family, among friends, at work, which structure social life.

This is not the "network" in the Western sense. guānxi rest on reciprocity and mutual obligation: if someone does you a favour, you morally owe them one in return, some day. This logic runs through family, trade and work alike.

guānxi are neither corruption nor favouritism, even if the line is not always clear and Chinese people argue about it among themselves. It is first of all a system of trust inherited from Confucian thought, in which the individual is defined by their relationships with others. Understand that, and you understand why so many meals are shared, why gifts are given, and why people spend time together before talking business.

6. Can you say that you are not well in China?

In the Unit 2 dialogue, Mr. Li gives a surprising answer to 你好吗？:

This answer is very unusual. In China, 你好吗？ is above all a polite formula, exactly like the English "How are you?", to which people reply "Fine" without even thinking about it. The expected answer is almost always positive:

  • 我很好。 Wǒ hěn hǎo.: I'm fine.
  • 还好。 Hái hǎo.: OK.
  • 还可以。 Hái kěyǐ.: Not bad.

Saying 我不好 to someone you barely know means making them lose face (they will not know what to say) and losing some yourself (you are exposing a weakness). The notion we have just seen is at work here too.

Between close friends or within the family, people are of course more sincere. But at a first meeting like the one in the dialogue, that kind of frankness would throw a Chinese person off.

The dialogue therefore plays with the rule on purpose. That is what makes it funny to a Chinese person.