Traditional Chinese Family Structure: 3G to 5G Family

“Family” in Chinese culture remains a very important position in cultural standards and value system since the ancient time. Regardless of how the society has changed and how much people tend to think that some traditional Chinese cultures or values may have transformed and may have even been abandoned. One old popular saying in Chinese describes a traditional Chinese family appreciates and gives the value to 3, 4 and even 5 generatoins to live altogether – In Chinese writing, it is 三代同堂  五世其昌(pronounced in Mandarin as “San Dai Tong Tang, Wu Shi Qi Chang”). This literally means the tradition of 3/4/5 generations living under one roof is well expected, 3-generation family is the ritual, and 5-generation will just just be nothing but better. To say the least, in the old days, it used to be extremely common to see families around with 3 generations all under the same roof.

(Just on the side note, in this saying, you will feel strange that there is actually no particular mentioning about 4 generations. “4″ is hidden in this saying as the number 4 is not widely used in many ways.  The number 4 in Chinese pronounced as the sound similar to the word “death” and people regard it as misfortune and therefore it is mostly avoided in many social occasions.)

The Chinese character “Family” (家) (pronounced in Mandarin as “Jia”) is formed by the symbol with a roof on top with 7 people living under the same roof. This character clearly explains the meaning of a family, portraits the size of a family in usual and it depicts the 3/4/5-generation-family concept.

Chinese people put their family in a very important position as they regard it as a means to keep the family blood stream continuously running.

Nowadays in this modern society, with the nuclear family structure developed, you may hardly find any 3-generation families, not even in China. I am one of the lucky ones. I live with my father-in-law and we started our family 4 years ago. So we have established a classic 3-generation family model here, living in the United States.

Last December, we gathered all family members and took a family portrait before the holidays and looking at the picture, this old Chinese saying all of a sudden came to my mind. I could now well relate to this saying and we are actually a living 3G family model. I guess I have become a big supporter to this saying without much consciousness when we started our family.

Just recently, I found another family stepping into this 3G family model which is the US President Barak Obama family. With the “First Grandmother”, the First Lady’s mother, planning to move into the White House, President Obama and his family will soon portrait this important “family” phenomenon in the US.

Below is our “3G” family portrait taken December 23, 2008:

Image by author

From the left top: Jose (my brother-in-law), Chance (Jose’s oldest son, my nephew), Juan (my husband);

2nd-row in the middle: Chynna (Jose’s daughter, my niece), Cruz (Jose’s youngest son, my nephew);

3rd-row in front: Monica (my sister-in-law, younger sister of my husband), Alma (my 4-year-old daughter), Mario (my father-in-law), myself and my baby Alyssa (3 months old when the picture was taken).