"1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a clan. 2. Inclined to cling together as a group and exclude outsiders."
A niece of mine started a closed group in Facebook for our extended families, starting from my parents. Soon after, a well meaning friend in my FB list posted the following...
While most people would think being clannish is unsuitable in our modern society (refer to the above definition), I can safely say that our efforts are more towards establishing contacts among our extended families so that the young ones know each other as well as know who their elders are. Some relatives, even siblings, are not in good terms with each other, so any notion of a clan with selfish intentions to keep business and other opportunities within the group could not be further from the truth. It is more a desperate attempt to know who our relatives are, to avoid an embarrassing situation when meeting one, to be told by another, an outsider, that we are actually related!
Sometimes, it is laughable when I read about complaints about nepotism within a political party, when given another situation, a job applicant could actually jeopardize his chance when he mentioned to the prospective boss that he knows his brother or sister! ... Simply because they were arch enemies. By extension, this could happen within a dialect or race, when some people could actually prevent another from being selected on a fair basis without prejudice. In other words, instead of bias towards the applicant, he or she would be prejudiced against. This is often referred to as 'crab mentality' where others within a race would prevent another from achieving greater success.
Anyway, by posting some old pictures, I was encouraged by comments from nephews and nieces who expressed surprise that they had never seen them before! So, their children are likely not to know their grand uncles and grand aunts, not to mention great-great ones! A niece actually photocopied a picture of her parents' wedding and displayed it in her shop!
I was only 4 years old when this pic of my eldest brother's wedding was taken, too young to know.
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