“Da” is what a 17-year-old girl calls my husband. It’s the Khmer word for “grandfather” – so that means if she addressed me I would be “yiyay” (grandma).
So how can we be grandparents when we don’t even have children? I guess in this case the relationship is actually some sort of great uncle, as the girl is a descendant of Kimsoeun’s mum’s brother or something, rather than directly from our (non existent) children. But I find it amazing there is already that many generations younger than us in our family. Kimsoeun is only in his early 30s and people from his generation have already had kids… and their kids have already had kids…
(Soeun’s mum is the youngest of many siblings, and they all got married young, so by the time Soeun was born I think he already had cousins that were more than 13 years old. So if those cousins got married at age 16 too and started having kids, that would mean there would have already been a generation below him before he finished school.)
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