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"Ni shi jiejie". You're the older sister.
 

xiao Fu had no response, turning her head and staring moodily at the wall.
 

The matriarch of our little clan, at twenty four she had been four years with the company and we generally indulged her maternal bossiness. I in particular had been taken under her wing, a twenty two year old arriving in a new country with little understanding of how 'things work'. She called me meimei from the start, and after a period of awkwardness I fell into the practice of calling her jiejie as well. I alone of we girls did so, however, and xiao Li's gentle reprimand was not indicating the dynamics of our dorm-room interrelationships.
 

Of course you have to work and support her.
 

Like most of the girls, xiao Fu sent a significant portion of her meager earnings home to her family living on the outskirts of Beijing. Much of those earnings went to putting her twenty three year old sister through college, and now that the sister was working as well went to the sister's boyfriend's efforts to start his own business. Efforts, xiao Fu felt, that were squandering her hard-earned cash.
 

It's your responsibility.
 

xiao Li was a younger sister, though she too sent money home each month. Her own jiejie lived with the family a six-hour train ride into the country, but her jiefu, sister's husband, worked as a security guard for the company and would come to visit her, occasionally bringing small gifts.
 

She's family.
 

Following such an outburst, xiao Fu's silence could only be read as sulky. She was in the wrong, and knew it, picking at the cloth of the bedcovers.
 

I just love buying things for my little brother. Mmmm, every time I go home, it makes him so happy! I see something in the store and, oh! I just have to buy it. That's what it's about, really, you know?
 

xiao Shan, of course, had her two cents to contribute. Older than xiao Li, and with a higher position in the company her voice took on a tone that even I could recognize as smug. It was not often that the matriarch could be brought down on charges of selfishness.
 

I know it doesn't seem fair now, you can't do or have all the things you want, but who else are you going to turn to when you're in trouble? Who else is going to pay for your wedding someday?
 

The parents, of course. Not the sister. But it was the parents' will that the sister be supported.
 

And who else is going to help her out, if not you?
 

Those 'things' were a chance to travel beyond Beijing for the upcoming holiday. Something I did without thought. For xiao Fu it would have been a first.
 

The conversation continued, but the answer remained the same.
 

xanthi: As I'm afraid is painfully obvious, I'm not at all sure yet where I want to go and what I want to tell with this piece. Does it want to become, or be a portion of a larger work on my experiences/observations of my life in China? In a couple of days I'm going to put in comments here what I was trying to bring out by writing this, but first I'd like to hear a few comments on what others got out of it, withoug being first biased by my own explanation. xanthi: In this piece I use the character's 'real' English names, names that they chose for themselves (or I helped them chose) but not what we actually called each other in our daily lives. This is a compromise I'm not entirely happy with. On the one hand, since this is a public forum should I change the names completely to protect them? On the other, I'd prefer to use the Chinese forms of address we called each other, but I'm afraid that'd be distracting to a non-Chinese audience. Jean's name is Fu Jinfeng, and we call her "xiao Fu" (little Fu, Fu being her surname). Susie's name is Fu Yanjun, and we also called her "xiao Fu" when Jean wasn't around, but by her full name to avoid confusion when the two were together. Sunny's name is "Shan Lianyun" and we called her "xiao Shan". Complicated, ya? j_moody: I wonder if an aside about the value of 'filial piety' (something which seems to be at work in this conversation, maybe as the moral framework which guides it) in a contemplative vein might push the piece a little further. Most of us westerners can read a bit on Confucius, or we might run across the story about the mother of Mencius (he listened to her advice throughout his adulthood) or other anecdotes, but you have actually seen it in action, as it operates in the present day. Was that part of why this interchange seemed interesting to you? j_moody: as far as the names go, it might be worthwhile to try to work in names that reflect how you actually address each other. given that it's in english, maybe "Little Fu" and "Little Shan" or some equivalent. i would just throw in a paragraph that says what you said in your comment and then proceed using the names fluidly, given that intro. for the "Fu" duplication, you could try to replicate reality (introducing the fact that by Xiao Fu or "Little Fu" you mean Susie this time, etc.) or you could just pick a fictional surname for Susie, or for all of them, and just reproduce the manner in which you address each other. in either case, an explanation like you gave in the comments should suffice to minimize our confusion. laura: I was confused by the English-sounding names--'they seem to be Chinese women;' 'I didn't think Xanthi lived with ex-pats' etc. laura: I like the simplicity of this piece, and "the answer remained the same" as its ending, because there's obviously a very deep and complex cultural obligation at work. You probably need some nod to who you are, for those readers who don't know going in. xanthi: On the name thing, I decided to go with the surnames, since a) that's what we used with each other, and b) there are several million people with the last name of Fu in China, and I think this suficiently protects the characters. I swapped 'Suzie' with one of the other girls in our dorm room to avoid duplication. I'm still torn between including 'xiao', ie 'little', or just using the Surname, ie Fu said, Li said etc. I don't want to type out "little Fu" because in English it's much more diminuitive than in Chinese, almost demeaning. This girl is older than me, and in this story that's important. I left the 'xiao' in for now hoping for feedback- is it difficult to get around for non-Chinese speakers? xanthi: So it's been more than a couple of days, but here's what I was trying to do with this piece. There are two different kinds of inter-sister relationships going on here, both of which are marked by responsibility and privilige. The first is between actual blood relations. xiao Fu's sister is only one year younger than her, but within the Chinese family structure that makes a huge difference- as the eldest xiao Fu is expected to take charge and look out for her sister, including providing for her. And, she is expected to sacrifice for her, just as Chinese parents sacrifice for their children. The sister got to go to university, xiao Fu did not. Xiao Fu is not entitled to use her own savings as she sees fit. The downward flow of material gifts, elder to younger, is seen in each of the three sibling relationships presented. xiao Li is on the recipient end, which perhaps makes it easier for her to endorse/champion the system, although I hope the sincerity of her comments came across. xiao Shan is on the giving end, but by enthusiastically supporting the system she uses xiao Fu's reluctance to play her part to make herself (xiao Shan) look good. (And actually xiao Shan is a middle child, with an older brother to take on the bulk of the provisioning responsibilities, though I didn't bring that out in this passage). The other inter-sister relationship/power dynamic is between the six of us in that dorm room, shaped by age, time with the company and position in the company. All six of us are very close in age, ranging from 21 to 24. Xiao Fu is the eldest, giving her the right to be bossy. xiao Shan, however, is the only one of the six, myself excluded, with a university education, which entitles her to at times keep herself loftily removed from the others' activities. She comes out as smug in this passage, but her jab at xiao Fu is discrete, sly almost as she couches it as gaily carrying out her fillial obligations. Another girl, not mentioned in this passage, is younger than xiao Fu but has been with the company just as long and holds a more important position. She (xiao Fang) is boldest in ignoring or openly confronting xiao Fu's right to rule. At one point xiao Fang rather randomly declared herself to actually be the oldest of the six, though by our birthdays that was clearly not true. Silence followed her outburst and no one contradicted her, not even xiao Fu. xiao Li was second-to-youngest, younger than me, and usually deferential to the older girls. Although she takes the lead in responding to xiao Fu's frustrated outburst she does so carefully, staying firm in her conviction that xiao Fu was in the wrong but not daring to be flippant like xiao Shan. So, in these sister relationships we have responsibility for the elder, privilige for the younger, respect flowing up and material benefits flowing down. What struck me most about this particular conversation was the degree to which the other girls upheld the system, arguing that is was fitting and right for xiao Fu to sacrifice for her sister, rather than 'unfair' as xiao Fu had exclaimed. I feel that these dynamics, if not unique to Chinese society (current) are at least different enough from our own as to bear mentioning. And as you (who?) mentioned, we can read a lot about traditional Confuscian values and how they influence Chinese society, but I find you mostly hear about relationships between male family members, or male and female. Also, the whole story kind of spins off from the idea that in Chinese 'older sister' and 'younger sister' are two completely different words. This story being all that that implies. That was more than I intended to write. Originally I wanted to ask people how much (if any) of this explanation people picked up from just reading the passage. I'm still interested, but now I feel that if I want to get all that into a piece of prose, I'm going to work a lot harder. (wry smile) j_moody: I would love to read any updates. The relationships are fascinating, I'd love to see the characters drawn out to show the differences you described above. I think the lowercase "xiao" & etc. works, along with the surname, as the name. I think the Western reader can follow it fairly easily. I wonder if you've read Nora Waln's memoir of her years in China (during WW I, I believe) living in an aristocratic home among women? You may be able to draw more from her observations than I could. Different era, but I bet there're some similarities. Keep at it! Add comment