Jia ji ren, one of us
One of us. In speech it is usually written with characters taken for their sound, and one word of it closes the distance.
Pronunciation jiā jǐ rén｜Dialect and emigration｜One entry in the Chaoshan glossary
What it means
Jia ji is oneself, so jia ji ren is our own people. Fellow townsmen count, fellow clansmen count, and so does anyone who understands the same sentence.
The word carries warmth. Meet a Chaoshan speaker away from home and one jia ji ren settles what the relationship is, and whatever comes after is easier to arrange. Abroad it weighs more: on one street the Teochew recognise kin by it, lend by it and find work by it, and one jia ji ren does the work of a letter of introduction.
How it is used
Everyday speech uses it constantly and writing almost never does. Writing about local custom and local people it brings the dialect in; formal prose still says our own people, or simply we.
The spoken form is often written with characters borrowed for their sound rather than their meaning. The correct characters are the ones in the heading.
Words easily confused
Jia ji ren is one of us; cuo bian is the neighbours. The first is about who you count as your own, the second about where you live, and the two may or may not fall on the same people.
Read next: Chaoshan speech and standard Chinese, side by side.
Same group: Chaoshan speech, cuo bian, the neighbours, zi niang, a woman.
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Last revised: 3 November 2026