What is the preferred relationship title for "my mother's mother's big brother's son"? This recently came up during a visa application, and we had a hard time coming to a definitive conclusion, even with Chinese family members :(


  What is the preferred relationship title for "my mother's mother's big brother's son"?


If it helps to narrow the scope, I'm interested in the mainland Mandarin convention. Also, the son is older than 'me' in this situation by a lot, say 40 years.
You can use '表舅', because he is your mother's '表哥'.

Basically I think there are three prefixes that you can add to relationship words: '亲' (directly/closely related, which is usually omitted), '堂', '表'. All your ancestors, siblings (that share at least father or mother with you), and descendant are '亲'. '堂' only refers to your father's brothers' children. In this way, your '堂' something should have the same family name with you (assuming all children using inherit their family names from their fathers). '表' is used for basically all other kins that have a common ancestor with you.