How to Address People in Chinese: What Everyone Actually Says

Sit in a busy noodle shop in China for ten minutes and listen to who gets called what. A customer calls the owner laoban, boss. In a lot of places, the owner calls the customer laoban right back.

A student waves at the waitress and says meinü, beautiful woman, and nobody blinks. Then a small child at the next table points at you and says shushu, uncle.

Everyone in the room has a title. You’re the only one still saying excuse me.

The short version: with strangers, Chinese speakers usually address people by their role or rough age, not by name. A driver is shifu, a woman your parents’ age is ayi, a teacher is laoshi, and a waiter around your age is meinü or shuaige. When you’re stuck, a plain hello with a smile works almost anywhere: ni hao (你好), or nin hao (您好) for a little extra respect.

How to Address People in Chinese

The logic is simple once you see it. Chinese address terms put the relationship first. The word you choose tells the other person how you see them: older or younger, customer or host, student or teacher.

That’s why so many address terms come straight from home. Strangers become aunties, uncles, big brothers, and big sisters, borrowing the same family words people use at the dinner table. The whole street turns into one loosely related household.

It’s also about face, or mianzi. A title that’s a little generous makes someone feel respected. One that’s a little stingy can quietly sting.

Who gets called what:

Two of these surprise people. Meinü and shuaige aren’t flirting. In a restaurant or shop, they’re simply how you get someone’s attention, the way you’d say hi there. Some textbooks still warn against them, and they’re too casual for a job interview, but in many casual restaurants and shops they’re everyday speech.

Shifu is the other one. It once meant a master craftsman, and it still carries that respect. The chef in the kitchen, the man fixing your air conditioner, and the driver taking you to the airport are all shifu.

How to Address an Older Woman in Chinese

Ayi (阿姨) is the go-to word for a woman clearly around your parents’ age. The catch is that age is in the ear of the listener. Call a 35-year-old ayi, and you’ve added twenty years to her in front of everyone.

So many people round down on purpose. For anyone who might be on the fence, jie (姐, big sister) or meinü works better, and it costs you nothing. The same trick works for men. Dage (大哥, big brother) is friendlier than shushu for someone who isn’t clearly a generation older.

For a clearly elderly stranger, nainai and yeye are usually warm and respectful. In northern China you’ll also hear daye (大爷) for older men.

One word to skip is dama (大妈). It technically means auntie, but it carries a picture of the cheerful, bargain-hunting ladies who fill the plazas at night for square dancing. Plenty of women love that life. Fewer want to be filed under it by a stranger.

Ayi has a second job, too. It’s what many families call a nanny or housekeeper, so the same word can mean auntie or the person who helps at home.

What to Call Your Partner’s Parents

This is where shushu and ayi matter most. Walk in, look them in the eye, and say shushu hao, ayi hao (叔叔好，阿姨好), hello uncle, hello auntie.

Using their first names would feel startling, and Mr. and Mrs. Wang can come across as stiff.

After a wedding, many couples switch to calling their in-laws ba and ma, the same as their own parents. Families vary, so follow your partner’s lead. Meeting the parents is a big step in Chinese dating culture, and getting the greeting right is the easiest win of the night.

How to Address a Teacher in Chinese

Use laoshi (老师), either on its own or after the surname: Wang laoshi (王老师). The title always comes after the surname, never before, and a teacher’s first name on its own would sound oddly casual. Many Chinese classes start with the whole room saying laoshi hao (老师好), hello teacher, in one voice.

What textbooks miss is how far laoshi has traveled. In many offices and creative fields, and across Chinese social media, people use it for editors, designers, artists, and writers.

It works as a polite catch-all when you respect someone’s expertise or don’t know their exact title. Flattering and hard to get wrong, it was always going to catch on.

How to Address a Chinese Person by Name

When you do use a name, the usual pattern is surname plus title: Wang laoshi, Li jingli (李经理, Manager Li), or Zhang yisheng (张医生, Dr. Zhang). Full names are normal among classmates and colleagues, which surprises many English speakers. A first name on its own sits closer to home, for partners, close friends, and family.

In business, you’ll meet a lot of people called zong (总), short for general manager. It gets used for owners, directors, and founders, from a factory boss to the head of a three-person startup. In many workplaces, people also drop deputy out loud, so a deputy manager is simply Manager Li to their face.

The rule of thumb is to round up. A title that’s a notch too high feels like a compliment, and one that’s too low can feel like a demotion. That instinct runs deep in Chinese work culture.

Emails are their own puzzle. Many Chinese colleagues use English names at work, so Cindy or Jack in the signature is your cue. Pinyin names can flip order in English, too, so Wang Wei might sign as Wei Wang. The signature line, plus a quick look at how Chinese names work, usually settles it.

Words That Can Backfire

A few words look perfectly polite in a phrasebook and land badly in real life.

Xiaojie (小姐, miss). It used to be the standard polite word for a young woman. In mainland China it picked up a slang meaning of sex worker, so calling out xiaojie in a mainland restaurant is risky. With a surname attached, as in Wang xiaojie, it usually sounds fine, and in Taiwan it’s still an everyday polite word. For formal emails and letters on the mainland, nüshi (女士, Ms.) is the safer pick.

Tongzhi (同志, comrade). Official speeches still use it, and it’s also widely used within Chinese-speaking LGBTQ communities. Either way, it’s no longer a neutral way to call out to a stranger.

Laotou (老头, old man). Casual at best, and rude to someone’s face.

Fuwuyuan (服务员, waiter). A perfectly normal word, often called across a busy room. Tone is what matters: said warmly, it’s fine; barked, it can sound curt. Some diners prefer meinü, shuaige, or ni hao.

Wei (喂, hey). It’s how people answer the phone. Shouted at a person across a room, it sounds rude.

What You’ll Hear Online

The Chinese internet has its own address book, and it’s full of slang that has leaked into everyday speech.

Qin (亲, dear). Short for qinai de (亲爱的), darling. Online shops greet you this way in their chat window. It’s shop talk, not romance.

Xiaojiejie and xiaogege (小姐姐, 小哥哥). A cute way to refer to a young woman or man you don’t know, born online and now common among young people in real life. Adding one extra jie to xiaojie also neatly sidesteps the problem that word ran into.

Baozi (宝子, little treasure). How some influencers and livestreamers address their followers. It comes from baobao (宝宝), baby, and it’s not the steamed bun (包子), even though the two sound alike apart from the tone.

Jiarenmen (家人们, family). Livestream sellers use it to talk to their whole audience at once, usually right before announcing a price.

It’s the same instinct behind ayi and shushu, just moved to a livestream: turn strangers into family, then talk to them like family.

In Guangdong, you’ll hear the Cantonese leng zai (靓仔) and leng neoi (靓女) doing the job of shuaige and meinü.

Next time you’re in that noodle shop, try it. Laoban for the owner, meinü or shuaige for the server, shifu for the driver on the way home. You’ll probably get a smile, and maybe your noodles a little faster.

Pass this along before your next trip or your next dinner with someone’s parents. And for more of the small things that make China easier to read, from the language and culture to everyday life, trends, and business, the Stellar Chinese newsletter sign-up is on this page.