Just watched the movie and the subtitles refer to the Aunt as "Aunt 13" What is this? Is this just shoddy translating for the subtitles or is that really her name? (or title?)
shareFrom what a friend told me, Aunt 13 is Fei Hung's father's thirteenth sister, making her his 13th aunt. So he calls her "Aunt 13". It's a really big family.
shareI think Aunt 13 is Wong Kei-Ying's thirteenth sister-in-law as in the movie, she reminds Fei-Hong that she's not related to him by blood.
shareI read the info of the movie on digital cable, and it says she is his aunt by adoption, so yes she is not blood related...
shareActually it's not really his aunt per se. It's more like a title that he gives her since she is the same generation as his father. The way that Chinese give titles to others is based on generation. For example:
- I have distant relatives that are around my age and were raised in the same generation as I was. So they would all be "cousins" to me. It doesn't matter if they're 2-years old or 50-years old, or if our parents are siblings or not. They are still considered my "cousins". I have to call their parents my aunt/uncle since they are the next generation above me even if they aren't blood related.
So Aunt Yee is a "cousin" to Fei Hung's dad since she is the same generation as him. It's more of a respective title that they give to each other than actual blood relation.
It's part of Cantonese culture to sometimes refer to their relatives (especially if they have a large family) by number instead of by name. For instance, I have a (and this is in transliterated Hakka, not Cantonese) sam kiu, sei kiu, and hai kiu...meaning 3rd, 4th, and biggest Uncle. The Cantonese will also abbreviate people's names using "A" (pronounced ah) something. So, my name for instance would be "A Chuan".
Just one of those weird cultural things.
Instead of calling someone 'Uncle Jim', or 'Uncle Bob', we just go by the ordering based on age. Easier to remember. 'First uncle', 'second uncle', etc.
Why they subbed '13th aunt' as 'aunt 13', who knows.
hehe i was hoping it was something like this. Just having them call her Aunt all the time struck me as kind of strange not to mention creepy when it was obvious how in love with him she was. And the 13 just confused me. Gorgeous woman though.
shareTo be real clear. Aunt 13 is the small sister of his step-mom, 13th girl of her parents, to be exact. As one can see, even though she is one generation ahead of Huang Fei-Hong, she is actually younger than he is. One of the tensions in the movie is the obvious physical attraction between Huang Fei-Hong and Aunt 13 but such a relationship would be forbidden in traditional Chinese morals since it involves a relationship between two people of different generation.
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