what-is-family

[what-is-family]

that 1000-word report

According to the Oxford Dictionary, family can be defined as “a group consisting of two parents and their children living together as a unit” or “all the descendants of a common ancestor”. The first definition happens to also be the definition for “nuclear family”, which is what comes to mind when “family” is mentioned. The second definition leads us to what we call “extended family”, inclusive of all our relatives.

However, family is another one of those concepts that many people have a different perspective on. Some think it is determined biologically, some think it is defined by living together under the same roof. Adopted children and their foster parents can be a family. Biological parents and children separated by obligations like work and school are still a family. Domestic workers, or even pets, can be considered family by those who grow up with them.

One of the more debatable aspects would be whether friends can be considered family. In East Asian cultures like Chinese and Korean, “brotherhood” and “sisterhood” is somewhat interchangeable with “close friendship”. This could have something to do with the implications of the words “friends” and “family” – friends can come and go, but family never changes. Your family is expected to be there for you no matter the circumstances. Thus, it is not uncommon to see males calling their close, loyal friends “brothers” even if they have no familial relation. In the past, there have even been many instances of sworn brotherhood recorded in historical books.

I am personally not a fan of definitions, so as long as someone considers a group of people to be their family, then they can be family. There is no right or wrong, as a concept that concerns something as ambiguous as relationships between people cannot be set in stone. The only criterion is that they should always be there, regardless of circumstances.

Home is also something closely related to family. Simply put, home is where family is. It is akin to having a location tag for photos on social media platforms today. Family’s location is home.

Having that in mind, I sourced for appropriate photos to upload. Instead of a chronological approach, I have decided to go with the different “categories” of family as discussed above.

As far as possible, I tried to include old film photos as those are the ones that cannot be easily accessed from anywhere. Digital photos can be easily sent, uploaded and downloaded over the internet. By scanning the film photos, it creates a digital copy of it that can be easily shared with others. In the case of family photos, members of the family who live away from home can then also access the photos.

When thinking about traditional family portraits, I decided to put my family photo beside my mother’s family photo just to show the contrast. My mother’s family photo was taken when colour film photography was available but not very affordable, since her family was relatively not so well-off. The family did not own a personal camera, so the only way to take a family photo was to go to a studio, which explains why they were dressed up nicely.

On the other hand, my own family photo was taken using a film camera in the last years of film photography being common. We do have several more family photos taken with a digital camera, but as mentioned, I tried my best to look for film photos. By then, personal cameras were more commonplace, so there was no need to visit a studio specially just to take a family photo.

However, something I noticed was that no matter in the past or present, family photos are usually only taken during special occasions like Chinese New Year, birthdays, graduation, or overseas trips. It is rare to find a family photo taken on a normal day with no major event. In fact, this also applies to photos taken with friends, colleagues, or any other people. Photos are usually taken to keep a record of something, and people are generally not interested in keeping records of mundane daily life. It is only when once in a lifetime, rare or happy occasions occur that people feel the desire to have a photo taken together. This is contrasted to taking selfies, for example. Taking selfies is less intimidating as it feels more casual and free than having someone to help take a photo. Hence, family photos have a more formal and important connotation to them.

For the photos with friends, I deliberately chose photos with the funkiest poses to show the contrast with traditional family photos that tend to be prim and proper. Friends typically do more fun and exciting things together as compared to biological family. Definitely there are exceptions, but this is pertaining to my own personal experience.

For the home photos, I thought it would be a good idea to juxtapose the 1998 photo with the 2017 photo, taken at a similar angle. It can illustrate the fact that some things change and evolve over time, but some things remain constant. The same thing applies to family as well. People age with time, gain experience, change their mindsets, and many other things. Family relations, however, are not easily changed once established. They will not change, in fact, unless some drastic events happen like divorce.

Besides that, we can also observe the change in photography. Film cameras do not have automatic white balance or automatic exposure settings. The photo was taken with flash, but that would not have been necessary if taken today. Because of the flash, the foreground is overexposed while the background is underexposed. With any phone camera today, the ceiling light would have been bright enough for an image to be captured without flash. We can also see that films are prone to damage, causing the purplish-blue tint in the photo.

It was a good experience thinking about family and how to visually represent it.

(995 words)

[what-is-family]

2017 vs 1998

the location tag of family, a.k.a home

Same same, but different.

If we were to play spot the difference, we can see that the ceiling lights changed, the shelves became filled, the calendar is gone, an orange box appeared, and that my sister and I grew up.

But let’s spot the similarities as well: the door, the sofa, the shelves and the mirror have not been replaced since almost 20 years ago. Sure the sofa cover is different, but we are still cycling both sets today.

I am fortunate to not have moved house since birth. At least that’s what I feel, as I’m a pretty sentimental person. That way, we can tell what has changed, and what hasn’t changed so much.

Definitely, some things change, but some things don’t. That is evident in the comparison of the two photos. In fact, this is a rather universal observation.

The same thing goes for family as well. Some things surely change, like age, appearance, mindset, personality and so on. But there is one thing that must remain: the fact that you are family.

You might then ask: what about those friends you call family, but ultimately drift away from? Then my answer would be that you were temporarily mistaken. You were never family to each other, but just normal friends. Who knows, I could be mistaken about my “family” friends as well. Only time will tell.

So here is my definition of family as a conclusion: Family are those that will forever be there, regardless of circumstances.

[what-is-family]

Jul 2017

Jun 2013

Aug 2017

the completely biologically unrelated brothers and sisters, a.k.a friends

Are they friends or are they family?

Well, why not both?

I think the friends that I can consider family would be those that are always there, unchanging, even if you don’t meet them all the time. It’s just like how your family will still be your family even if you go abroad to study or work. You can not meet for months or even years, and still feel as comfortable as ever when you finally catch up with them.

The first photo was taken on a trip to Malaysia. The group was formed when we were in Sec 4, purely because we sat near one another and got along. Though we were in an IP school, we all went to different classes in JC anyway. For a group that attended the same school, we met up really sparingly - not more than 5 times a year. We still meet up sparingly now that everyone is busy with university and NS. What’s interesting is that we started off as a group that did things together. We were not close friends. It’s only now that we slowly start to talk about stuff. (side note: knowing too many things about one another is a sure fire way to break up a clique.) Anyway, we are like family mainly because we have slept over at one of their houses so many times, that being together under a roof feels natural already.

The second photo is of my NPCC squad, at one of our unit events. We have literally been through thick and thin together, and with the exception of 1 or 2 oddballs, everyone is cooperative. I did not realise how good our teamwork was until I witnessed my juniors having loads of issues getting everyone to work together. Even when times were bad, we still stood by one another. These people remain as some of my closest friends to date.

The last photo is of a performance crew from my current CCA in NTU. This is the k-pop dance group and it was backstage of the freshmen welcome ceremony just 2 months ago. The reason I think of the CCA as a family is because there is a good number of alumni that still come back to join the training and performances. Together with all the current seniors and juniors, there are many “generations” of people. The more experiences seniors and alumni can give a lot of good advice and insight, just like how we get enlightened by our parents and older relatives. If an extended family is brought together by blood ties, then this family is brought together by interest and passion.

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All the photos have funny faces or poses, as this is what forms the basis of friendship leading to family. Friendships always start when we have fun together. After some time, feelings of familiarity and affection start to grow and that will eventually result in becoming not just friends but also family. This is as opposed to family by blood or adoption, in which they establish the familial ties first, and then develop familiarity and affection.

[what-is-family]

Nov 2011

Mar 2016

the kinda-family but not-really-family, a.k.a the extended family

The top photo is of my paternal extended family.

Front row: 二哥, 二嫂, me, my mother, 姑妈, 三伯娘

Back row: 五哥, 三伯父

Photographer: my father

Basically we could draw a line down the center of the photo, and the left 4 would be of the same generation and the right 4 are also from the same generation. It looks nothing like that, I know. My cousins are my parents’ age, and my nieces and nephews are my age. It happens to be like this because my grandfather married a second wife that gave birth to my father, who is much younger than his siblings.

The photo was taken in Canada, when I went there to attend a cousin’s wedding (not in photo), who I’ve never actually met in my life. While my father’s family is from Hong Kong, a good majority of them have migrated to Canada, so it is a rare occasion that I get to meet them. I visit Hong Kong every so often but Canada is definitely out of the way.

I like my paternal extended family, so it is a pity that I cannot meet them much. The family is also really extensive so it’s almost impossible to get everyone in a photo. Just counting cousins, there are already 10. Almost all of them are married and have children.

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The bottom photo is of my maternal extended family.

Front: 四姨, 三姨, 舅父, 舅母

Back: 姨丈, me, my two younger cousins and two older cousins

This is the entirety of my maternal extended family, without any of my immediate family members. This was when I flew to Hong Kong alone, and it was my first time at a relatives gathering without my parents. It was comfortable, however, as I have met them almost every school holiday.

A selfie stick had to be used as there was no one that could help us take a photo. As a result, the quality of the photo is bad but that does not reduce the quality of the time we spent together.

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Even if we rarely meet, I still consider all of them family since we are all related by blood. In fact, I wish I was closer to them. I have many friends who have very close relationships with their cousins, uncles and aunts, and I envy them. If only I don’t live in a different country from all of them.

[what-is-family]

Dec 2004

c. 1967

the real, legitimate “family” family, a.k.a the nuclear family

When we say “family”, the most common things that people think of would be a nuclear family - a unit consisting of father, mother and children.

When we say “family portrait”, we think of those taken by a professional photographer with all the equipment in a studio. My family has however never taken any, hence, this is the closest we get to a “family portrait”. It was a family trip to Tokyo, Japan in December of 2004.

A simple glance through the Google images search results of “family portrait” will show you that for Asian families (Chinese, Indian etc.), it is in fact very common for extended family to be included. From grandparents to aunts and uncles to cousins, and even nieces and nephews. For myself, however, my parents are both from Hong Kong, so we live away from our extended family, so chances of taking a photo together are rare.

The photo below, though, is a portrait of my mother’s family taken in circa 1967. In the photo is my grandfather and grandmother, mother, aunts and uncle. This was taken in a photo studio, as cameras were not commonplace as they are today. It is only through photos like this that I know how my grandfather looked like, because he had passed away even before I was born. This could add on to the significance of family photos.