Forms of address reflect vicissitudes of the times

Editor's Note: Four decades of reform and opening-up have not only turned China into the world's second-biggest economy but also changed Chinese people's way of life. A veteran journalist with China Daily takes a look at how the Chinese people's way of greeting and addressing each other has changed over the past four decades.

Decades ago, addressing each other as tongzhi (comrade in English) was popular among the Chinese people. It is widely accepted that the term tongzhi came from the Soviet Union with whom Kuomintang cooperated in the early stages of its rule in China.

After Sun Yat-sen, founder of Kuomintang and the country's first president, reminded his party members in 1923 that the "revolution is not yet successful, and comrades still have to work hard" to make it successful, the members of both Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China started using tongzhi to address each other. Tongzhi in Chinese means people who share a common ideology and aspiration.

When I was young, tongzhi was the most common form of address. You could address anybody as tongzhi irrespective of familiarity, gender, age or profession. Even after the founding of the People's Republic and the CPC assuming power in 1949, it was believed that the class struggle was not over. So on being addressed as tongzhi, one felt a sense of acceptance because the term indicated you belonged to the same political camp.

Tongzhi was of course not the only term of address at the time. People also addressed each other using different terms. For instance, people above the age of 40 could be called Lao so and so, while those much younger in age could be called Xiao so and so. In English lao means old and xiao little or younger. In Shanghai, thanks to a long industrial history, people preferred calling each other shifu (master), as if the whole city was a factory full of masters and disciples.

The launch of reform and opening-up more than four decades ago brought in not only new technologies and overseas investments but also introduced new traits of Western culture, including ways of addressing each other. So some people started using terms such as xiansheng (gentleman) and nyushi (lady) to refer to men and women on important occasions and at official meetings, and slowly the use of such terms became common among the rest of the people.

In the 1990s when millions of Chinese people who had lost or left their job and started their own business and later made huge amounts of money, laoban (boss) became a popular term of address. It was easy to please people by calling them laoban even though you knew they had probably lost their jobs before launching their own business.

Professional titles and official rankings such as jiaoshou (professor) and juzhang (bureau chief), too, have become common forms of address. And the political term of address, tongzhi, is disappearing, though it is still used by many Party members and leaders, especially at Party meetings and on important occasions.

Nowadays, many use new ways (and terms) of address to please others or strike business deals. A retired woman walking into a beauty salon is likely to be addressed by the beautician as dajie (elder sister) instead of dama (aunty) even if the beautician is the age of her granddaughter. Such terms are carefully selected to please customers who, made to feel happy, may visit the establishment again.

The two most carelessly used forms of address are probably meinyu (beauty) and shuaige (handsome young man). People tend to use them to address all women and men below 60. So when you are called meinyu or shuaige, don't take it seriously because the person using it only means to say, hi.

Similar flattering terms of address are heard in shopping malls and restaurants. When one is addressed in a way that indicates one is younger than one's actual age or more beautiful than one really is, one should be cautious about a possible trap.

Young women and men, do you agree?

kangbing@chinadaily.com.cn

The author is former deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily.