# Quick question



## Ironcrane (Jan 12, 2009)

In my Kung Fu school, we have to other titles besides Sifu. They are Sifi (I really don't know how to spell that one) younger brother, and Sifang - older brother. My question is, does anyone know of these titles in regards to female students? Such as younger sister, older sister?


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## ggg214 (Jan 12, 2009)

in chinese, for the one who has been accepted by your shifu as a disciple earlier than you,you should call him shixiong(&#24072;&#20804, while for the one later than you,you  should call him shi di(&#24072;&#24351
for female&#65292;shi jie&#65288;&#24072;&#22992;&#65289; to who earlier than you&#65292;shi mei&#65288;&#24072;&#22969;&#65289; to who later than you


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## clfsean (Jan 12, 2009)

Never heard those...

Mostly standard breakdown (in Cantonese)
Sifu = Teacher
Simo = Teacher's wife
Sigung = Teacher's teacher
Hingdai = training brothers/sisters/family/class as a whole
Sidai = younger training brother
Sihing = older training brother
Simui = young training sister
Sijye = old training sister

Then it gets into aunts, uncles, cousins, etc...


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## Zyaga (Jan 15, 2009)

clfsean said:


> Never heard those...



It's just a different way of spelling. Example Sifu = Shifu.

If you look real close, you can see that each one matches up to what you also said.


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## Xue Sheng (Jan 15, 2009)

Zyaga said:


> It's just a different way of spelling. Example Sifu = Shifu.
> 
> If you look real close, you can see that each one matches up to what you also said.


 
Sifu = Shifu but they are pronounced different and I believe Sifu is Southern where Shifu is Northern

Sifu = seefoo
Shifu = Shrfoo


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## clfsean (Jan 15, 2009)

Zyaga said:


> It's just a different way of spelling. Example Sifu = Shifu.
> 
> If you look real close, you can see that each one matches up to what you also said.



Yeah I know the difference between the Mandarin & Cantonese. I can even kinda pronounce the Mandarin ones ok. 

I was referring to the "Sifi" & "Sifang" words put out there.


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## geezer (Jan 15, 2009)

clfsean said:


> Never heard those...
> 
> Mostly standard breakdown (in Cantonese)
> Sifu = Teacher
> ...


 
In my current studies, we use the Cantonese pronunciations, as listed above. One interesting point made by my (Chinese) Sifu is that there are _two ways_ of writing the characters for the pronunciation "Sifu". One means something like, "teacher-father" and the other simply refers to someone with skill or mastery. One adresses their _own_ Sifu using the first meaning. But if you are in the company of several teachers or skilled practitioners of the martial arts, you may address _each_ of them as "Sifu" using the second meaning as an honorific. So when we have a large gathering, we have "Sifu Robert", "Sifu Jeff", "Sifu Steve", and so on.


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## Xue Sheng (Jan 15, 2009)

clfsean said:


> Yeah I know the difference between the Mandarin & Cantonese. I can even kinda pronounce the Mandarin ones ok.
> 
> I was referring to the "Sifi" & "Sifang" words put out there.


 
Could be a dialect thing, not sure about that though without the actual Chinese Characters, if the characters can be provided I will take the characters and ask my wife for the mandarin pronunciation since my reading skills end at 1 (-), 2 (-), 3 (=) and ten (+) 

So then if we are talking Mandarin Sifi.... well its not mandarin.. so I guess I am clueless about that one as well. And Sifang would be pronounced Shrfong... I will have to ask the misses since her Mandarin is much better than mine.


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## clfsean (Jan 15, 2009)

Xue Sheng said:


> Could be a dialect thing, I believe ggg214's dialect is Shanghai not Cantonese or Mandarin. I will take the characters and ask my wife for the mandarin pronunciation since my reading skills end at 1 (-), 2 (-), 3 (=) and ten (+)



Could be... I'm only really familiar with the Beijing dialect Mandarin & Hong Kong/San Fran Cantonese. I've heard Shanghai with the Wu dialect is it's own critter, kinda like Fujianese.


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## Xue Sheng (Jan 15, 2009)

clfsean said:


> Could be... I'm only really familiar with the Beijing dialect Mandarin & Hong Kong/San Fran Cantonese. I've heard Shanghai with the Wu dialect is it's own critter, kinda like Fujianese.


 
After I posted that I changed is since I realized it was not ggg214 that said that - sorry about that

but it still could be a dialect issue  

For example my wife from Beijing says Sanda my Sanda sifu from much further north says Shanda.
My Sanda sifu and my sife say Xingyi (Shingyee) My taiji sifu from the deep south of China says Yingyee

*Mandarin*
Shifu = teacher (Shrfu)
Shimu = teacher's wife (Shrmoo)
Shixiong = elder male student of same teacher (Shrshee-ong)[I am assuming this is Sifang] 
Shidi = younger male student/classmate of same teacher (Shrdee) [I am assuming this is Sifi]
Shimei = younger female student/classmate of same teacher (Shrmay)
Shijie = older female student/classmate of same teacher (Shrjay)

Note to Shixiong:

This one I looked up and got this but I am not sure if it is correct or maybe since almost all of my Mandrin is from Beijing maybe I think of it different Older brother is Gege and it would only make since to me that Older brother student would be Shige (Shrge) but I could be wrong there. 

But then older sister is Jiejie and older martial arts sister is Shijie but then that would make the wife of the sifu shitai...ok I have officially confused myself. But Younger brother is didi and younger sister is Meimei.... OK I think I will stop before my head explodes


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## clfsean (Jan 15, 2009)

Xue Sheng said:


> For example my wife from Beijing says Sanda my Sanda sifu from much further north says Shanda.
> My Sanda sifu and my sife say Xingyi (Shingyee) My taiji sifu from the deep south of China says Yingyee



Wife & sifu don't say San Shou?

The taiji sifu saying ying sounds right to me.


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## Xue Sheng (Jan 15, 2009)

clfsean said:


> Wife & sifu don't say San Shou?
> 
> The taiji sifu saying ying sounds right to me.


 
Nope... both use Sanda however they do know that Sanshou is Sanda. 

Sanda is the original name I believe Sanshou came later and the name Sanda is returning. Besides my sifu started training this about 30 or so years ago and all he ever heard, I believe, was Sanda.. or as he says Shanda  But he does not know the sports side of Sanda so maybe that has something to do with it.


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## clfsean (Jan 15, 2009)

Xue Sheng said:


> Nope... both use Sanda however they do know that Sanshou is Sanda.
> 
> Sanda is the original name I believe Sanshou came later and the name Sanda is returning. Besides my sifu started training this about 30 or so years ago and all he ever heard, I believe, was Sanda.. or as he says Shanda  But he does not know the sports side of Sanda so maybe that has something to do with it.



Interesting. I would've thought they used the shou instead of da since it's more "PRC" correct since "comrades don't fight comrades"


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## Xue Sheng (Jan 15, 2009)

clfsean said:


> Interesting. I would've thought they used the shou instead of da since it's more "PRC" correct since "comrades don't fight comrades"


 
Neither are all that into politics and as far as I know it is not really that big of a deal to the average Chinese. You will see it advertised as a Sanshou match on TV but Sanda/Sanshou are interchangeable to most. And the PRC is now all seeing all knowing and for that matter they don't really care you want to call it Sanda, big deal go ahead. Besides my sanda sifu knows nothing about the sports side all he knows is Police/Military sanda and the Police side sure as heck not going outside of the country to use it.

And the saying is the South likes to Argue and the North likes to hit and who do you think they are hitting 

I actually asked both my wife and my Taiji sifu about that one and my wife says Southerners talk to much and like to argue, Northerners get tired of talking and just hit. My sifu says Northerners do not talk much and that is why it comes as such a shock to Southerners. Where southerners will try and solve a problem by arguing first a Northerner goes straight to fighting. 

Guess where my Sanda sifu is from.

Edit

There are many more in China that are not comrades than are these days


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## oxy (Jan 16, 2009)

Xue Sheng said:


> I actually asked both my wife and my Taiji sifu about that one and my wife says Southerners talk to much and like to argue, Northerners get tired of talking and just hit. My sifu says Northerners do not talk much and that is why it comes as such a shock to Southerners. Where southerners will try and solve a problem by arguing first a Northerner goes straight to fighting.



That's strange. My teacher was friends with a Chinese military buff and according to him, he thinks the southerners are good for offensive maneuvers because they are quick to anger while northerners are good for holding the fort.


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## oxy (Jan 16, 2009)

Xue Sheng said:


> Note to Shixiong:
> 
> This one I looked up and got this but I am not sure if it is correct or maybe since almost all of my Mandrin is from Beijing maybe I think of it different Older brother is Gege and it would only make since to me that Older brother student would be Shige (Shrge) but I could be wrong there.
> 
> But then older sister is Jiejie and older martial arts sister is Shijie but then that would make the wife of the sifu shitai...ok I have officially confused myself. But Younger brother is didi and younger sister is Meimei.... OK I think I will stop before my head explodes



Xiong (Hing in Cantonese) can be used with Di to mean "brothers". So if you are talking about your brothers in general, you would say "my Hing-Di". I think in older usage, Xiong/Hing was more formal for the older one. Anyway, the use of "Hing-Di" to denote "brothers" is the same as the use of "East-West" (pronounced Doong-Sai in Cantonese, not sure about Mandarin) to denote "many things".

It might be different with Mandarins, but in Cantonese, Gege, Didi, Jiejie, Meimei (specifically the use of repeated words) are terms of endearment.

Ge as a suffix is also used by members of gangs. So maybe the modern use of Ge is not used in SiHing because of a potential mix-up.


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## Xue Sheng (Jan 16, 2009)

oxy said:


> That's strange. My teacher was friends with a Chinese military buff and according to him, he thinks the southerners are good for offensive maneuvers because they are quick to anger while northerners are good for holding the fort.


 
Don't know what to tell you here. I first heard this from a professor in college that was from Guangzhou I later heard this from friends from Guangzhou and from another friend form Beijing, my first sifu from Hebei, and then my wife from Beijing and my Sifu form Hong Kong and none of them knew each other. I have not asked my Sanda sifu about this however, the next time I see him I will have to ask him what he thinks. 

If I can base this on the comparison my wife makes to my temperament (which she says is the much like a Northerner) yes Southerners are quick to anger but they first argue and that can go on for a while or it can escalate to a fight. Where Northerners are not so quick to anger, they kind of skip that whole argument (or shorten it considerably) phase and then go straight to fighting and then it is all over no more anger. 

The Professor I had in College also went to University in Beijing and, as she put it, she was rather surprised one day when she got into, what she thought was, an argument with a fellow student (who was from Beijing) and the Beijingren did not argue more than a couple seconds and then went straight to trying to punch her in the head.


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## Xue Sheng (Jan 16, 2009)

I need to make a correction to my above post.

My first sifu is not from Hebei, he is from Shandong (He is still a Northener however)


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## mograph (Jan 16, 2009)

This sounds like the old WWII story about American soldiers courting English girls: Americans liked to kiss early in the courtship, then wait a while before going to bed with a girl. However, the English girls liked to court for a while before kissing, then they felt that going to bed was natural after that. So the American soldiers thought the English girls were "fast" because they wanted to go to bed sooner than the soldiers did, and the English girls thought the American soldiers were fast because they wanted to kiss sooner than the girls did.

So kissing = arguing, and sleeping with = fighting with? If so, then the Southerners are the Americans and the Northerners are the English?


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## oxy (Jan 17, 2009)

Xue Sheng said:


> Don't know what to tell you here. I first heard this from a professor in college that was from Guangzhou I later heard this from friends from Guangzhou and from another friend form Beijing, my first sifu from Hebei, and then my wife from Beijing and my Sifu form Hong Kong and none of them knew each other. I have not asked my Sanda sifu about this however, the next time I see him I will have to ask him what he thinks.
> 
> If I can base this on the comparison my wife makes to my temperament (which she says is the much like a Northerner) yes Southerners are quick to anger but they first argue and that can go on for a while or it can escalate to a fight. Where Northerners are not so quick to anger, they kind of skip that whole argument (or shorten it considerably) phase and then go straight to fighting and then it is all over no more anger.
> 
> The Professor I had in College also went to University in Beijing and, as she put it, she was rather surprised one day when she got into, what she thought was, an argument with a fellow student (who was from Beijing) and the Beijingren did not argue more than a couple seconds and then went straight to trying to punch her in the head.



I think you may be right. It would be interesting to see if the opinions/behaviours of north vs south pre-war has changed or stayed the same.

I wonder what a person like me would be classed as since I sometimes do argue a lot but skip straight to fighting really quick and still argue while I'm fighting...


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## oxy (Jan 17, 2009)

mograph said:


> So kissing = arguing, and sleeping with = fighting with? If so, then the Southerners are the Americans and the Northerners are the English?



As a Southerner, I resent that comparison.


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## Nebuchadnezzar (Jan 17, 2009)

Xue Sheng said:


> Sifu = Shifu but they are pronounced different and I believe Sifu is Southern where Shifu is Northern
> 
> Sifu = seefoo
> Shifu = Shrfoo


 
Northern as opposed to Southern or Mandarin as opposed to Cantonese?


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