Out of the family, Vietnamese also prefer to use kinship terms. Once you might have asked directly, now when two Vietnamese people of a similar age and background first meet, they may try to infer from looks or conversation which person is older. But they can get it wrong. My wife has expressed genuine annoyance when discovering someone she called chi (older sister) for years has turned out to be the younger person. Matters also get complicated for less-than-fluent Vietnamese speakers. In an effort to show deference to a regular customer, the 40-something-year-old owner of a bakery I used to go to in Hanoi started to greet me by saying Chao anh (Hello, older brother), but in this scenario it’s more like Hello, young man, to which I initially replied, Chao em (Hello, younger brother). A loose translation of his response could do Dr Seuss proud: “Older brother, you cannot call me younger brother, as older brother you are much younger, so call me older brother too.” By elevating my status then immediately pulling rank, he had put our respective pronouns in place. After that it seemed easier to order coffee from one my “younger sisters”. As you were, older brother.