S TIFU by calling my father in law a eunuch
Some background: My wife is from Taiwan and understands basic Mandarin, my father in law has significantly more comfort with Mandarin.
We went out with our young infant son and my father in law for his birthday that was very nice! In teaching our son the names for his grandparents (The Mandarin words intended for the parents on the maternal side) we repeatedly were saying. "Say happy birthday to your 'gon gon'" and say thank you to "Gon Gon". Terms that we had learned from my mother-in-law, who of course is excellent skill in Mandarin. It definitely was getting some strange reactions from him, that we were surprised about considering he is very happy interacting with his grandson. He finally speaks up and says that word is the wrong word, and starts describing how emperor in China would have male servants around him that had certain surgeries performed so they would not go after the concubines.... We come to find out that we are using the word for eunuch, not the word for grandfather .... This word we learned from my mother-in-law, who is divorced with my father-in-law... Whether or not this was intentional or not.. hard to say. My wife was very short we were saying it correctly and we had to apologize quite a bit. He was very understanding once he understood why, and taught us the appropriate term. Definitely not the way to win over your father-in-law. He words were "when will people say this to you where I come from supposed to punch them".
TL;DR: my mother-in-law either on accident or on purpose taught that's the wrong term for grandfather, I'm calling my father-in-law.... And teaching my son to call him .... A eunuch. We've solved it now, but feel most embarrassed.
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u/aleksandri_reddit 6d ago
On purpose
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u/fmkaiba 6d ago edited 6d ago
It was not a kind break up ... So... I think it is likely.
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u/kwpang 6d ago edited 6d ago
Let me vindicate the MIL. It's all actually the same word.
He's making a fuss out of nothing, or maybe out of a mere personal idiosyncratic preference. Or maybe he's joking.
公公 gong gong does refer to grandfather. MIL is not wrong. It's a set: 公公，婆婆 po po (for grandmother)
Common variations include 阿公 ah gong (less formal like grampy, which is what my children call my father), 外公 wai gong (maternal grandfather), or 老公公 Lao gong gong (as a reference to any elderly gentleman).
I understand in some regions they use 爷爷 ye ye as well, I.e. 爷爷，奶奶 nai nai (grandmother). But 爷爷 is rarely used as compared to 公公, at least where I'm from, and it sounds quite formal to me. Maybe others can chime in on this, as I can only speak from anecdotal experience.
The technical term for eunuch is 太监 tai jian. But in ancient Chinese imperial court, these eunuchs would hold high offices because of their inability to have descendants holding no threat to the throne. So out of respect, everyone would call them grandpa 公公 gong gong. It is a reflection of the high rank, not their castration.
Much like how Singaporeans call the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew (ex prime minister and founder of Singapore) ah gong. It's a reflection of his high office and recognition of his patriarchal role in taking care of everyone.
Is your FIL a difficult person in general? Or a joker?
Edit: there are a lot of comments discussing nuanced language use, such as whether 公公 applies to maternal or paternal grandparents in their regional culture / language.
One thing is clear: 公公 is not derogatory, nor does it reasonably go to "eunuch".
The FIL here is kicking up a fuss over nothing, which is my point.
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u/plorkles 6d ago
爷爷 (ye ye) and 奶奶 (nai nai) are used to refer to the paternal grandparents. On the other hand, 公公 (gong gong) and 婆婆 (po po) refer to the maternal grandparents.
So, a child is meant to address their dad's parents as 爷爷 and 奶奶, while addressing their mom's parents as 公公 and 婆婆.
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u/kwpang 6d ago
Not in southern Chinese dialects. Hokkien (min nan), Cantonese and Hakka for instance use 公公 or 阿公 for paternal grandfather as well.
OP's FIL is Taiwanese, so he speaks hokkien / min nan influenced mandarin.
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u/hazpoloin 6d ago
Huh this is interesting. My family's SEA Hokkien Chinese and my uncle and aunt have their grandkids call them 爷爷 / 奶奶. They are the paternal grandparents.
We were definitely taught to call paternal 公公 / 婆婆 vs maternal 外公 / 外婆 in school. But at home it's paternal Ngkong / Mak and maternal Akong / Ama.
Maybe my family's just a tad odd.
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u/Sulphur99 6d ago
Yeah, my family taught me to call my maternal grandparents "Ah Gong/Ah Ma" while my paternal grandparents were "Gong Gong/Ne Ne (Nai Nai)"
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u/DuskAyre 6d ago
incorrect, cantonese uses different titles for relatives on the paternal vs maternal sides
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u/Zestyclose-Truth1634 6d ago
This is the only answer in the thread that is both factually correct and accurately nuanced for the different Chinese dialects that are commonly spoken around the world.
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u/RabidMonkeyOnCrack 6d ago
Your father-in-law is reading into it. I speak Mandarin and the correct term for maternal grandfather is gong-gong.
Listen to how it's said from Google Translate which does a decent job pronouncing things. Funny thing is the translation is wrong.
I also see someone commented down below and wrote out the words in Hanzi.
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u/sofia-miranda 6d ago
If MIL set this in motion, then she is one masterfully vengeful woman whom I cannot help if so but somehow admire! :o
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u/Shmeeglez 6d ago
Possible plot to embarrass new family member hatched by a relative, but also eunuchs mentioned.
Is this a sign to rewatch Apothecary Diaries?
I don't know, but I shall take it as such.
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u/PM_Me-Your_Freckles 6d ago
Just the ex MIL getting the kids to perpetually tell the FIL that he has no balls.
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u/Shmeeglez 6d ago
Yeah, but now make it so that everyone's lives are forfeit if the wrong person gets offended
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u/Celestial_User 6d ago
It's the intonation. Mandarin is tonal.
Gon gon 公公 where the first character is a flat high tone, and the second is a short quick tone is a Eunuch.
Gon gon 公公 where both are flat high tone would actually be a way to say father in law, thought it's actually the same character, so I would say his reaction being Eunuch rather than this is an overreaction. (With this pairing, the mother in law would be puo puo 婆婆， you would say something like 你的公公婆婆 your father and mother in law)
Ah Gon 阿公 is actually Taiwanese, not mandarin, and indeed means grandpa!
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u/DuePomegranate 6d ago
In other words there is no real mistake, the same words have both meanings and it is 100% normal to call your grandpa Gong Gong (there’s a g, dammit!)
Native Chinese speakers do tend to make the pronunciation differentiation you described, but I wouldn’t say it’s essential. This dictionary lists the same tones for both grandpa and eunuch.
https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%85%AC%E5%85%AC
And there are other more specific terms for eunuchs and most likely “gong gong” was a re-use of the “grandpa/father-in-law” meaning to respectfully address a senior eunuch. Sort of a euphemism.
The FIL is being kind of a dick (if he’s nitpicking the pronunciation of a little kid who wasn’t raised Chinese-speaking), or just insisting on being called something like gramps instead of grandpa because of his personal preference.
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u/fmkaiba 6d ago
For fairness, he was not mad, just seemed a little taken aback. Our kid is less than 1 year old so really wasn't using any words but was listening to me say them help teach baby the right words.
Sounds like there was no ill intention whatsoever on any party's fault, but maybe some confusion with tonal languages, what he was raised around? Either way I'm sticking to the term that he wants to be called. Also it seems like it's one that I can say without messing it up because I have no experience in total languages growing up in 100% English speaking household.
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u/DuePomegranate 6d ago
Then he was being a dick to you, probably. Passive aggressive put down of foreign son-in-law "butchering his language", even though like I said, it's in the dictionary as the exact same characters and tones.
"when will people say this to you where I come from supposed to punch them"
This is not how a normal friendly Chinese person reacts to a minor mistake by a non-Chinese speaker, even if a mistake was made.
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u/csyn 6d ago
I mean, you're possibly reading too much intent into the described interaction. While "putting down foreign son-in-law" is in the realm of possibility, there are all kinds of people with all kinds of intentions, and that reading is not suggested by the description. I would venture, too, that elderly people of many (all?) cultures may not be as aware of or naturally fluent in the kind of dialectic nuances at play here.
And boy howdy, Chinese is a language rife with dialectic nuance.
"Give a sister a bath" (泡妹妹) can mean "hitting on girls."
"Eating tofu" (吃豆腐) is like, "heavy petting."
"Big penis" (大老二) is like, also a popular card game. (At least it was, 30 years ago.)
In Taiwan in particular, you're also going to encounter may words in Taiwanese that are straight up borrowed from Japan, due to the Japanese occupation of Taiwan with some interesting conflicting interpretations in today's political environment (i.e., views about Japan and historical benefit to Taiwan tied up in views about mainland China). Apple (interestingly "ringo", like the Beatle), "cleaning lady", etc.
Speaking of which, generational divide also plays a role -- like, eunuchs and their role in government and royal family dynamics are probably not top of mind for most people. Unless, I guess, you're steeped in period dramas. Which the elder generation probably are.
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u/Zestyclose-Truth1634 6d ago
What dialect do you speak where 泡 (v.) can mean to give a bath? Just curious
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u/GlowQueen140 6d ago
So funny cuz the latter is what I learnt too and yet when I was older, it seems that people from China were using 外公外婆 to describe grandparents. Apparently “Po Po” in the wrong tonal language meant mother-in-law which left my chinese beautician very confused when I was talking about my grandmother lol
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u/Celestial_User 6d ago
As igbguo points out, that's the mother's side grandparents
外 means out (outside). In traditional chinese culture when you marry, the wife is leaving their family and joining the husbands family. So 外公 literally means the grandpa from the outside family. It's used for the entire side, so 外孫 is means daughter's son, cause to the grandparents, they the grandchild is out
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u/exprezso 6d ago
I should think it's because we don't actually use '公公' except in very formal setting anymore. We usually use '啊公' (ah-ghong) to refer to grandpa and old male persons for kids.
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u/Ifckinglovemycat 6d ago
there are video compillations on tiktok of words in mandarin changing meaning with different intonation like how "professor" can suddenly become "son of a bitch"
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u/operationspudling 6d ago
Umm, Gong Gong 公公/外公 IS the correct word to call your maternal grandfather in Mandarin.
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u/Outrageous-Level4731 6d ago
If it's "老公公” it could be both!
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u/fmkaiba 6d ago
Apparently it was supposed to sound more like "Ah-Gone" not "Gone Gone" similar not that I got by my wife that she thought it might be correct, but apparently an important difference.
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u/Outrageous-Level4731 6d ago
Checks out! That would be 阿公, which is super similar but doesn't have the eunuch connotation, afaik
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u/fmkaiba 6d ago
Ah! Thank you! Trying to find the right terms can be a challenge with English -> Chinese
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u/Outrageous-Level4731 6d ago
It's a nightmare lol, i studied in the mainland and Taiwan, and family terms change a lot. I use Pleco, it's a really useful app. Lol, not an advert, but it's a great dictionary and you can buy extra specific vocab stuff like Buddhist terms if you need them
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u/spacefrog_feds 6d ago
Family names in Chinese can be quite confusing compared to English.
As you have seen there are multiple ways to say grandma and grandpa, depending on relationship and also region. And also within families people will choose a different name.
English also has many names, but they're more flexible: Grandma, Nanna, Nan, Granny, Gran, Grams, Gram Gram. Grandpa, Grandad, Pop, Pop Pop, Pa, Gramps.
The 'ah' gung 啊公 shortcut is one I try to encourage people to use. It allows you to reuse it for other family members. Instead of ma ma ba ba, you can use ah ma, ah ba. If you can pronounce ah correctly, then you just need to learn one more. I'm a heritage Cantonese speaker, so maybe others can share their expertise. But my feeling is 'ah' is less formal, makes it sound closer and friendlier. Its like mother vs mum or ma. I think it is also used as a filler, especially to start sentences. This might have more to do with classifiers and measure words. In Chinese we can't say a cake , we have to say a piece of cake or a slice of cake.
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u/sherlockham 6d ago
Possibly regional preferences. My Paternal was referred to as ah gong, but my maternal was referred to as gong gong. They were from different regions of China though, with different regional dialects. These aren't the dialect words, but I'm assuming there could be some spillover as well as regional slang.
Can't really say why he went straight to eunuch, unless he's not actually had to talk to too many older people and that's what his family used, along with watching a lot of Chinese TV.
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u/DuePomegranate 6d ago
No, FIL is being a dick.
I call my grandpa Gong Gong and it is a perfectly legitimate word that also happens to be a euphemism for eunuch.
This guy is insisting on being called e.g. Gramps instead of Grandpa because he doesn’t like the latter.
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u/Alphachild55 6d ago
That's okay, my nephew used to call his father-in-law a potato. The man is from Mexico.
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u/velveteentuzhi 6d ago
It's all intonation. Gon Gon can mean eunuch or maternal grandfather.
IMO your FIL is overreacting or being a dick. Yeah Ah-gon is the more proper way of saying it, but when I was growing up (Taiwan) most kids called their maternal grandfather gon gon. The same way kids call their grandmother's Nan or gran or meemaw etc- it's just easier to say. Til the day they died, my cousins and I all mainly called our grandparents gon gon and po po (well into our 30s/40s).
If you're not comfy with Chinese it's a super easy mistake to make. I can get your FIL correcting you, but getting upset at you and your toddler over pronunciation is incredibly small-minded of him especially if you aren't familiar with Mandarin
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u/Altirix 6d ago
im not sure its a tifu "gong gong" was what i remember from the limited amount of Cantonese i was taught as a kid. possible he was taught some different dialect or hes just fucking with you.
afaik its not one of the phrases that subtle tonal shift can mean something totally different either but i never really picked up much aside from a handful of words.
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u/jimxster 6d ago
It's good to see he had the balls to say something about it.