Filial Piety as the Fundamental Value of Chinese Society: Impact to Children’s Future Achievement

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, and Singapore, we could still see the celebration of filial piety awards, which proven that this value practice is still highly appreciated until now.

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.