Astronaut family Astronaut family An astronaut family is a family unit where the members reside in different countries across the world—in contrast to a "nuclear family". The astronaut family represents the growing transnationalism of peoples' identities that accompanies the growing globalization. The term was coined by Aihwa Ong in her publication "Flexible Citizenship: The cultural logics of transnationality" in 1999. The term is especially used to describe Chinese families, who have spread across the globe. Astronaut families was a new economic source started in the early 80s for Chinese to migrate abroad and work under contracts or settle down and then send
Chinese as a foreign language "Arte de la Lengua Mandarina" was published in Canton in 1703. This grammar was only sketchy, however. The first important Chinese grammar was Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare's "Notitia linguae sinicae", completed in 1729 but only published in Malacca in 1831. Other important grammar texts followed, from Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat's "Élémens" (sic) "de la grammaire chinoise" in 1822 to Georg von der Gabelentz's "Chinesische Grammatik" in 1881. Glossaries for Chinese circulated among the missionaries from early on. Robert Morrison's "A Dictionary of the Chinese Language" (1815-1823), noted for its fine printing, is one of the first important Chinese dictionaries for the