GinevraCat11h ago
Adrianna Tan
Some friends and I have a theory that if you come from a culture where it’s acceptable and even normal to call random strangers aunty and uncle, you’re much more likely to get fed by strangers all the time
8:55pmWeb
Show threadAdrianna Tan11h ago

Because to be in a group where there is an acknowledged auntyness and uncle ness it means that everyone who participates in this

Generally acknowledges and understands our place in some kind of collective

Just earlier today my Bangladeshi friend took me to his Cambodian hair salon in Philly, I said a few things to the haircut auntie and was immediately invited to lunch (I had to decline)

Show threadAdrianna Tan11h ago

Or like going to some ‘ethnic restaurants’ where I barely know anyone (even from a completely different part of the world), expressing some kind of shared emotion (grandma died), and getting treated with a lot of shared humanity and grief? (I know it’s not just me. This happens to many people I know)

It requires shared spaces, bumping up against people who are completely different from you, and expressing some kind of shared vulnerability or curiosity.

My therapist is Mexican, and we always talk about some of the shared familial norms and expectations and realize there’s so much in common

Show threadAdrianna Tan11h ago

I never really thought that much about it.

Like sure, the Chinese acupuncturist uncle is always going to be a busybody about my personal life (they all are)

The eyebrow threading aunty always wants to know when I’m going to marry a man (and when I tell her im gay, wants to know everything about my wife)

I feel like there’s a shared experience in some ways especially among immigrants of ‘our families are like this’ and ‘our immigrants lives are like this’ that doesn’t really have to be said. It feels pretty nice to be able to connect with other people who have shared experiences in this way.

There are some things I think are individual / specific to me or my experience. Not sharing it doesn’t mean I don’t get to be an individual, it just means that there are actually many, many aspects in which I enjoy being a part of many communities, and I don’t need to be at the center of it.

Show threadAdrianna Tan11h ago

I read somewhere that you only need a handful of deep relationships and if you have dozens or hundreds of smaller relationships that can be very meaningful too.

I definitely have that. There are some places / people where I know I can go there after 5 years, we don’t know each other’s names, but I remember they have a child who is going to college now and they remember that my grandma died, and we ask how our family is (even if we’ve never met each others families we know how many people are in it, how old everyone is, what everyone is up to)

I think in some Anglo cultures that’s seen as kind of nosey but done well and respectfully, can make you feel remembered and understood.

Show threadAdrianna Tan11h ago

I especially like that every time I go to my Chinese deep tissue place in Singapore, all of the massage therapists can’t remember my Chinese or my English name but they remember me as ‘that lesbian in California who really really likes pain’.

I’m certain when I go again later in the year that’s going to be written on the board again. It makes me laugh. And I know all of them by their nicknames and favorite foods. ‘The person who really likes chicken wings’ ‘the rice noodle everyday for lunch lady’

Show threadAdrianna Tan11h ago

This is why I always find it weird when English speakers think speakers of other languages are talking about them.

Nope, speakers of most other languages are talking about their favorite foods and what they want to eat together and where to go to find it.

As I speak quite a few, I almost always learn about new dishes and how to cook things and which restaurants to go and which to avoid from these types of conversations! In the bus, at the supermarket.. everywhere. It’s always about food. In almost all languages that I speak.

Show threadSolo la 🌍 salva a la 🌎10h ago

@skinnylatte

Are there many languages you can't suss your way through at this point and really want to learn?

Show threadAdrianna Tan10h ago

@jakebrake I don’t know Spanish as in haven’t spent any time learning it

But will probably do that soon

Show threadStephen10h ago
@skinnylatte my theory about this is that the "five eyes" group of English speaking countries all have a colonising/conquest outlook, and of course those other people would be conspiring against you, the conquerors/settlers/masters. The paranoia of bosses.
Show threadAdrianna Tan8h ago
@stephen oh yeah! Really good observation and very likely
Show threadKinene⭐🐻8h ago

@skinnylatte Interesting that I have run across this with the people in a German choir and also with my Persian step-family.

My husband had lost his job, and we were struggling. A couple of ex-pat choir members found out, and sent me home with various sausages (a very German thing). They had been children in Germany during WWII, and they wanted to make sure we had something to eat.

Show threadzrb11h ago
@skinnylatte mmm rice noodles every day
Show threadjlin11h ago
@skinnylatte moar pain for you at the massage!
Show threadCoach Pāṇini ®11h ago
@skinnylatte 🔥
Show threadjack11h ago
@skinnylatte something something solitary WASPs something...
Show threadclew10h ago

Except that in the US, both the Deep South WASPs (overtly) and the New England WASPs (covertly) are all about the finding out. If you’re lucky, that puts you in their web of many weak ties — best to be an extended “cousin” but okay to be a known specialist of something useful. Or a raconteur.

There are also extensive drawbacks.

@jackeric @skinnylatte

Show threadThat Old Guy with the Beard11h ago
@skinnylatte I just finished a novel by an author — and set in — Singapore and there was a ’Taxi Uncle’ which really clarified that concept of shared extended family. Someone driving a can who you will never see again is an Uncle. Not my experience as Canadian Anglo. I would adopt it in a hot second, however.
Show threadMuss das sein.2h ago
@skinnylatte it sounds like auntyness|uncleness implies people are willing to take responsibility for others?
Show threadTunafishTiger11h ago
@skinnylatte This is so true, aunty
Show threadAdrianna Tan11h ago
@tunafishtiger I will feed you!
Show threadTunafishTiger11h ago
@skinnylatte YEESSSS
Show threadEsther Payne 11h ago

@skinnylatte Even in Scotland this is true.

I had aunties and uncles who weren't related to me. I saw them more often than my own relatives, and I'd get food/small presents.

One Easter I got twelve huge Easter eggs mostly from my grannie's friends who were all my uncles and aunts.

Uncle Toughie (George) made awesome shortbread.

Show threadAdrianna Tan11h ago
@onepict yay!! I would love Scottish aunties!
Show threadEsther Payne 11h ago
@skinnylatte so much chicken broth. Scots broth is awesome.
Show threadGinevraCat11h ago
@skinnylatte This is true in South Africa too. (But then, food is a South African love language for most of the cultures there.)
Show threadAdrianna Tan11h ago
@GinevraCat can’t wait to visit. I know I’ll love everything about it
Show threadGinevraCat11h ago

@skinnylatte You would.
I left SA five years ago and I miss the land, the storms, and the humour, generosity and resilience (pretty much all) of the people!

Also, South Africans are officially the friendliest people in the world (at least in 2025 https://www.goodthingsguy.com/opinion/5-other-things-the-world-was-talking-about-south-africa-this-weekend-and-theyre-all-good/)

If you need contacts there HMU - my friends are awesome!

Show thread🦩 Plastic Garden Fauna 🦩9h ago

@skinnylatte

It's all fun and games untill someone you loosely consider your peer hits you with that "Eh, uncle/auntie"

Show threadeestileib (she/hers)9h ago

@OvertonDoors @skinnylatte

My younger sister told me "oh it's great talking to you, you're like an aunt".

_slowly stands back up again_

Show thread🦩 Plastic Garden Fauna 🦩9h ago

@eestileib @skinnylatte

Yes! This, this is what I refer to 😐😑🥶

Show threadeestileib (she/hers)9h ago

@skinnylatte

This is universal in South America, with the wrinkle that someone might not be "tia Elena", but actually "dona Elena", which is roughly the difference in tone between addressing your doctor and addressing an Archbishop.

And some women just decide they're "dona Elena" and expect you to get it right.

Show threadmmv7h ago
@skinnylatte yep. I’m a Brazilian and I do support this message.
Show threadKrupo6h ago

@skinnylatte as a kid, with fellow Polish friends, it was amusing to learn that someone described as an uncle wasn't actually an uncle-uncle.

We grew up in Canada straddling the Anglo and immigrant worlds, which led us to coining the - to us as kids, hilarious - term, "so-called-Uncle"

Show threadmahadevank6h ago

@skinnylatte here's an economic secret for you - if i keep you away from others - even one person, my GDP becomes double because both of you spend on everything that could be shared.

Easiest way to "grow" the economy.

Show threadtarot bird3h ago
@skinnylatte This is really interesting to me. I grew up in Anglo-American culture where this was not the norm, but now that I'm a middle-aged trans lesbian, there are a bunch of young trans folks who call my partner and I aunties and are in need of a good meal every time we see them, so my life has come to resemble this. Neither my partner and I nor any of our various niblings are Asian; we just kind of fell into this way of relating