There are a lot of deeply rooted
cultural values we could see in Chinese society nowadays. Those cultural values
undoubtedly strong enough to maintain its existence even in modern societies
which is actually very vulnerable to modernity values attack. I believe some
societies in this world really proven couldn’t defend their local wisdom against
massive attack from modernity impact. On the other hand, some societies are
successfully maintain their cultural values heritage, continuously pass it down
to the younger generation over centuries, harmoniously co-exist with the new
and modern values. The process is definitely not easy since those societies
must have wisdom to enable them to flexibly adapt to society development, pride
so that they will never willing to forget their cultural root, and the strong
humanistic reason of culture creation itself. One example of ancient culture
which is in most societies already perished but still found in Chinese society
is ancestor worship. This ancient culture in most societies perished because
they don’t provide strong humanistic reason behind the practice. They practice
the worship because they somewhat believe that ancestor is like or become a God
since they are no longer exist in human world. They worship them with certain
expectation that could benefit their life. The worship is like a prayer and it somewhat
becomes more like an ancient religion. When a various new religions founded in
the earth, the old religion is no longer believed and finally replaced with a
new religion.
However, the ancestor worship
background in Chinese society is different. The fundamental thinking is that
Chinese society believes in superiority of older generation because of various
humanistic reasons. Elder has been live longer in the world, therefore
undoubtedly they have more experience which result to more wisdom. In order to
gain success, younger generation must learn towards the elder, and the good learning
process will always begin with respect. The other example of humanistic reason
can be found back inside the society smallest unit, Chinese family. Inside the
family, the older generation is parents while the younger generation is
children. Children will never exist if not because of their parents. Parents grant
them a life, take care of emotional and material needs until they grown up,
educate them, etc. A child is undoubtedly owes so much things to their parents,
therefore they must respect, obey, and treat them well. All of these
obligations are based on a reason founded inside human heart, feeling of love
and gratitude towards parents. These various reasons together create one most
fundamental aspect in Chinese culture, the importance of respect the elder,
which to its extent also includes the deceased elder, therefore creates
practice of ancestor worship. Since it’s come from the heart, not enforced by
any illogical reasons, this value will never perish as long as human heart is
still exists. They worship the ancestor not because they treat the ancestor as
God that could grant their wish, but to show their ultimate respect to ancestor
even after their death.
Though respect the elder could be
shown in many ways, but the most virtuous respect are shown back at home. As
Confucius (551-479 B.C.) said, “The strength of a nation is derived from the
integrity of its homes.” Respect shown in the most fundamental human
relationship between children and parents is what we called filial piety.
Based on Confucian philosophy,
filial piety is defined as a virtue of respect for one parents and ancestors.
Confucius emphasizes how to set up a good society using filial piety principle,
therefore its practice not only limited at home, but also in larger society.
Therefore, in wider terms, filial piety can be defined as to be good to one’s
parents; to engage in good conduct not just towards parents but also outside
the home so as to bring a good name to one’s parents and ancestors; to perform
the duty of one’s job well so as t o obtain the material means to support
parents as well as carry out sacrifices to the ancestors; ensure male heirs; not
be rebellious; show love, respect, and support; display courtesy; uphold
fraternity among brothers; wisely advise one’s parents, including dissuading
them from moral unrighteousness; display sorrow for their sickness and death;
and carry out sacrifices after their death. Once someone successfully performs
filial duties at home, they definitely will also become a good person outside
their home, a good society member, a good citizen.
We could see from this very
traditional definition that the filial piety concept put children in a much
difficult situation. Filial piety duties have become their lifetime never
ending burden. This condition has also well depicted in Chinese character of
filial piety. Filial piety in Chinese is called ‘xiao’ with Chinese character written as 孝. This character consists of two parts, the upper part and the lower
part. The upper part of the character is also a part of character ‘lao’ written as 老which means old, in this context refer to parents or older
generations. The lower part of character itself is ‘zi’ written as 子which means children. The overall
meaning could be translated into children (young generations) carry out
responsibility towards parents (older generations).
One quote that could help
understand how high is Chinese society appreciation towards parent roles is ‘天下無不是的父母 (tian xia wu
bu shi de fu mu)’ which literally means ‘there is no wrong parents in the
world’. This quote extremely put parents in a very superior position who will
never ever make any mistake. Implicitly, it also means that if there is a
relationship problem between parents and children, it’s definitely children’s
fault, there is no slight possibility of parents’ fault at all. This mindset is
somewhat still truly believed by some very conventional elder in Chinese society
nowadays. When a child caught up couldn’t maintain harmonious relationship with
their parents, instead of look at the root cause that maybe the problem also
lies in parents side, the society will tend to blame the child for being not
filial. It’s the extreme opposite of people mindset in a western society. Once
there is a parent children relationship problem in a western society, the whole
society, other family member, neighbours, even the government, will tend to
look closely at what possibly wrong with the parents. It’s possible because
they think that children are never choose to be born, it’s always parents who
really hope to have children at the first place, therefore it’s become parents
responsibility to provide their children with the best possible environment,
education, etc for their children’s future.
To compare both values and discuss
which one is better will result to an endless debate. In my opinion, to combine
both values and exercise them in the most appropriate condition is still the best
choice. It seems to be just a normative opinion, not to be too extreme and just
play safe in the middle. However, in some case it’s truly works and isn’t
Taoism also always encourages the importance of a flexible mind? “Good and bad,
black and white, everything depends on human definition. They don’t have
objective standard. If everyone said that white is black, isn’t you who believe
the opposite will be considered crazy?” (Lie Zi)
It’s actually what already been
practiced in Chinese society nowadays. There is no more traditional filial piety
value as defined in Confucianism. It slowly evolves and adapts with the modern
values but without leaving the essence of the value itself, the importance to
respect the elder. Therefore, Chinese children no longer believe that parents
are never wrong, but they will struggle to find the most courteous way to
remind parents of their wrongdoings. Parents begin to consciously take
responsibility for their own old age, at least for material needs, instead of
fully depends on their children to support them. As for emotional needs, there
is still high demand for children to personally take care of their parents in
their old age, which I believe is a very great value to be hold upon. After
all, it’s our parents who tirelessly take care of us until we’ve been grown up,
right? It’s maybe also one reason why in dominantly Chinese countries we
couldn’t as easy as in western countries to find any nursing home as they still
think that send one’s parents to a nursing home is an appropriate conduct. Other
than that, modern Chinese family doesn’t spend three years of mourning period
for the deceased older. They also no longer see produce male heirs as the highest
virtue of filial piety. However, in the Chinese dominant countries such as China Taiwan Singapore
Due to traditional
value of filial piety, even if it already becomes more and more flexible,
parents-child conflict will still occurs. One example of research by Kuang-Hui
Yeh (Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taiwan) and Olwen Bedford (National Taiwan
University, Taipei, Taiwan) in 2004 International Journal of Psychology said
that the most frequently occurs conflict
between parents and child in Taiwan is caused by parents demands that is
unmatched with child desires. Based on traditional filial piety practice in the
scope of children’ career choice, if parents want their children to become a
doctor, their children will definitely never become a lawyer or anything else
other than a doctor. Some may have a presumption that children faced with this
condition and end up with follow parents desired career path will be unable to
achieve great in their career. But in my opinion, actually it’s never become an
absolute result. Some children may finally find that parents’ choice is
actually good, start to enjoy his career, and achieve great. Some children may
fall into a condition that they forced to do their career good since there is
no other option left. In this condition, they also still have a great chance of
success. Some others are starts to rebel, choose their own career path, and yet
still achieve success. What could be possibly enables children to achieve great
in such condition? It’s not easy to explain since everyone motivation to
achieve may come from various aspects, impact of their family life, school
education, society values, etc. However, in my opinion, one factor that could
impact most is family education because it’s the first and the basic of the
whole lifetime education. Therefore, the modern filial piety value will still
hold an important role.
When I talk about
modern, not traditional, filial piety value, I refer to combination of traditional
filial piety value and
western (related to child-parents relationship) value and exercise them in the
most appropriate condition without forget the essence of the value itself, the
importance of respect the parents. In modern filial piety, parents have and
must use without hesitant the right to exert the control over children until
certain age at which children considered mature to make and responsible for
their own decision. The maturity age may different for each child, but 18 until
20 years old seems reasonable enough. Before reach that age, parents need to properly
educate their children so that they understand and believe the importance of
hard work and responsibility for their future. Once they understand and believe
the importance of hard work to success, no matter what choice they made, they
will do it with their best effort ever and finally achieve great. If they
understand and believe the importance of responsibility, no matter what
decision they make, they have nobody other than themselves to blame or to
praise, and therefore they will fight hard to make their decision worth a
value.
Back to the previous
three possible results of parents-child conflict because of parents demands
that is unmatched with child desires, for some children that finally find that
parents’ choice is actually good and achieve great, this problem is no longer
exist. Instead, they will feel more gratitude towards their parents and respect
them more. Some children that falls into a condition in which they still feels forced
to do their career, still have a great chance of success since they believe
that they must responsible for their own decision. With modern filial piety
concept, children are not supposed to be under absolute control of their
parents after certain age, therefore they should be able to make their own
career decision even if their parents always tend to direct them to certain
career path before. If finally children still end up follow career path as
their parents told them, it becomes their own decision and responsibility. It’s
their own choice to fully obey parents’ instruction. It’s also their own fault
for unable to find their own desired path which left them no other option
except to follow parents’ desire. Some other children really couldn’t stand for
being forced to a certain career path. This condition may encourage them to
deeply think and evaluate what they actually desire most for their future,
embrace their own dream, and also achieve great.
Based on a book titled Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Amy
Chua successfully brings her two daughters to become successful person even
though they both react with different response towards their mother’s parenting
method. Amy forced her older daughter to become a professional pianist and the
younger one to become a professional violist, since they are at very young age.
She forced them to practice very hard everyday which actually really exercise
them to understand what hard work and responsibility really means. Her older
daughter end up become a real successful pianist and finally truly love playing
piano, while her younger daughter rebels and start to choose her own desired
path, to play tennis. Even though the younger daughter seems a little late to
start play tennis, unexpectedly she progressed so fast and become excel in
tennis in a relatively short time because she is already pass a lifetime
training of hard work and responsibility values.
