On Chinese e-commerce platforms like Taobao and in livestream shopping, sellers address customers as 亲 or 亲们 - a warm 'dear / folks' opener that started as a Taobao convention in the 2010s and is now standard online customer-service register.
usage
The qīn reading anchors a huge family of relationship and self-action words: 亲人 (relatives), 亲切 (warm), 亲自 (personally), 母亲 (mother), 父亲 (father). The other reading qìng is reserved for the in-law sense - see 亲家.
Components
ideograph
亲qīn
close; relative; parent
Visually unified nine-stroke silhouette: a 立 cap over a 木-like bottom, no longer transparently decomposable. Historically simplified from 親 by dropping 見, combining sharp/grow with see to suggest 'one whom you see often = close relation.' Indexed under Kangxi #117 立 (stand) by tradition via the upper cap.
Filed under radical 立 (lì, #117) by convention. 立 is not a separate component in 亲, so no strokes are highlighted.
