Chinese virtue

Chapter 23 Filial Piety (2)
In China, doting on one's wife and children is an expression of unfilial piety. "Book of Filial Piety" even puts it in the same ranks as gambling. In "24 Filial Piety", there was a story of "burying children for mothers". The story roughly said that there was a family in the Han Dynasty who was very poor, and the food in the family was not enough for the family to live on. So the owner of the family said to his wife : "We are too poor and there is not enough food. If we bury the children, we can save some food for our mothers. Without children, we can have another life. If the mother dies of starvation, there will be no more mothers. His wife didn't dare to object, but when digging a hole, she found a pot of gold with the words "Heaven bestows a filial son" engraved on the gold altar.We can imagine that if the jar of gold had not been dug out at that time, the three-year-old child would have been buried alive in the ground.We Westerners would not do such a thing, but for the Chinese, "filial piety" comes first.The affection for the wife and children should not exceed the affection for the mother, and the life of the mother should not be dragged down because of the wife and children.So in the eyes of the Chinese, this approach is correct.

There is still a superstition among the Chinese people: if parents suffer from some incurable disease, eating the flesh of their own children may cure them.The meat should be cooked without the parents' knowledge, and then let the parents eat it.Although the stubborn disease will not be cured 100%, there is always a glimmer of hope. Similar reports appeared in the "Beijing News".A young Chinese person I know once did this, cutting off a piece of flesh from his own leg to cure his parents.Every time he mentioned the scar on his leg, he was as proud as a veteran.While this is not a common occurrence in China, it is definitely not uncommon.

Mencius once mentioned: "There are three kinds of unfilial piety, and the greatest thing is to have no descendants." This theory is one of the most important theories about "filial piety" in Chinese.The Chinese attach great importance to the succession of the family and the inheritance of incense, because only by staying behind can someone worship the ancestors and be worthy of the ancestors.So compared to the West, Chinese boys get married very early, and some are already grandpas in their 30s.

Before his death, a friend of mine confessed that he had two unfilial acts: the first was that he was unable to take care of his mother until the end of his life, and the second was that he had not yet found a wife for his ten-year-old son.I think most Chinese people will have the same sigh when facing such a thing!
There are seven reasons for Chinese men to divorce their married wives, and the least room for maneuver is that the wife does not have a boy.Because of the patriarchal concept of Chinese people, it led to the emergence of the polygamy system, and what followed was intrigue within the family and various family tragedies. It was also because of the Chinese patriarchal concept that led to a large number of The occurrence of infant drowning incidents.This kind of drowning incident occurs more frequently in the south.There are a lot of northerners who don't even know there's such a thing, because no one talks about it.There are also many illegitimate children of Chinese men, and these illegitimate children are often killed before they grow up.Although there is little evidence for female infanticide, from a moral point of view, since there are such incidents of burying children for mothers, the incident of drowning female infants is also very likely to be real.

The concept of "keeping filial piety for three years" has been explained above, but in fact, this behavior has been shortened to 27 months.One of Confucius' disciples believed that one year of filial piety was enough, and three years of filial piety was not necessary.Confucius said that when a gentleman observes filial piety, he will not be happy for three years.If you think you can feel safe and happy a year after your parents die, then so be it.Although Confucius said so, Confucius clearly stated that this practice is "unhumane".

Many people demolish their houses and sell their land to raise money for their parents' funerals, which is very common in China.In fact, this approach is very unreasonable, but the Chinese do not understand.As long as it is in line with what the Chinese call "propriety" and in line with the Chinese character, the Chinese will do it without thinking.

There is a very good and accurate example in the experience of missionaries in Gubocha that proves that Chinese people value "ritual" and "filial piety".At that time, missionary Gu Bocha had just come to China for less than a year and was living in the south. One day, he wanted to find someone to take a letter to Beijing, so he thought of the teacher he had hired.The teacher is from Beijing and has not been home for four years, and his mother does not know where her son earns a living.When the courier was about to leave, the teacher called one of his students and said, "Come, write a letter to my mother for me. The courier is leaving." Gubocha was very surprised by this incident, so He asked the kid who wrote the letter for him if he recognized Mr.'s mother, but the kid didn't even know who Mr.'s mother was.So Gu Bocha asked the gentleman: "This kid doesn't even know who your mother is, how can he write a letter?"

As a result, the gentleman said calmly: "He has been learning to write for more than a year, and he already knows a lot of rhetoric. Can't he even write a letter?" After a while, the child finished writing and sealing the letter.And this gentleman just signed his name.No matter which mother in China this letter is sent to, the mother who receives it will be very happy.

In China, children in different regions show different levels of filial piety to their parents.Of course, the extremes of being very filial and extremely unfilial also abound.Occasionally there will be lunatics who kill their own parents, but their punishment is no different from that of ordinary murderers.It is also possible for a person to abuse his parents if he is too poor.There are also cases where sons are willing to take the place of their fathers.This fully illustrates the power of "filial piety" in China.

In Western countries where Christianity is prevalent, the relationship between family members is very weak. China's filial piety is very attractive to Westerners who have just left their families.Respect for elders is a particularly good quality among the Anglo-Saxons.When children in Western families grow up, they mean freedom, where they want to go and what they do, no one cares about them.In the eyes of Chinese people, this kind of practice in Western families is no different from that of animals, because only animals are so unrestrained.If you think about it from a Chinese point of view, many behaviors of Westerners need to be corrected, just like living in a house made of glass, no matter what you do, you must be careful, even a small stone cannot be thrown around.When studying Chinese people's "filial piety", we should not only see the advantages of this character, but must also point out its shortcomings, so that we can understand this character more thoroughly.

There are five mistakes in the Chinese concept of "filial piety".Among them, three kinds of mistakes are positive mistakes, and two are negative mistakes.In the ancient books related to "filial piety" in China, it only talks about what responsibilities children should have to their parents and what obligations they should fulfill, but what obligations do parents have to their children?Not a single word is mentioned in the book.Chinese people think that there is no need to mention this kind of thing, but in Western countries, the responsibility of parents to their children has to be mentioned.Guided by God, missionary Paul proposed four pillars that an ideal family should have in the church in Colosse: "As a husband, you should love your wives, and don't treat them badly; as a wife, you should obey your As a husband, obey your master; as a child, you must obey your parents, so that you can be favored by the Lord; as a parent, you must not provoke your children." When Confucius talked about morality, the worldly words and this kind of There is no comparison for the norms of profound meaning.The Chinese people's theories and concepts all have a deep patriarchal color.For many years, men have always been the core, while women have always been vassals. Chinese girls have always been unable to lift their heads in front of men, and they have always been abandoned.To some extent, this is a kind of destruction of human nature.

The Chinese feel that women are inferior to men.Concerning the mutual responsibilities of husband and wife, Confucius said nothing.Christianity advocates that men should leave their parents and stay with their wives, while Confucianism requires wives to follow their husbands and stay with their parents.If a man's parents have conflicts with his wife, as a lowly wife, she must admit her mistake and submit.This kind of patriarchal system in China suppresses some good natures of people to the extreme, and correspondingly, unscrupulously develops other human natures.In the end, the thoughts of young people are suppressed and closed, while the elderly become the leading force in society.This system of imprisoning human thoughts and suppressing human nature has seriously restricted the development and progress of society.

China's filial piety tells people that the minimum requirement of "filial piety" is to pass on the family line, which leads to a series of problems.First, it has caused a serious overpopulation in China, with more and more people living in poverty.These people who abide by filial piety, no matter how bad the family's living conditions are, have to have children, and there are more than one.Secondly, this kind of "filial piety" has become the biggest excuse for polygamy in China.We can completely imagine the appearance of groups of wives and concubines in the homes of Chinese dignitaries.The belief of the Chinese nation is mainly reflected in ancestor worship. We can regard this ancestor worship as a shackle on the spirit of the Chinese nation.Dr. Yan Matai once said in his article: "There are hundreds of millions of people in China. These living people are all imprisoned by their ancestors who have long been dead bones. The concepts of ancient people are like ropes that bind the hands and feet of modern people. .” For the Chinese, “ancestor worship” has become the umbrella for those ancient pedantic ideas.If this pedantic conservative concept cannot be broken, the Chinese will never be able to make progress, let alone adapt to the environment in the last 25 years of the end of the century.If the Chinese are still addicted to the worship of the old ideas of the past, then they will not be able to progress and China will not be able to develop.

Westerners believe that Chinese people's excessive self-love and fear have gradually evolved into today's filial piety.It is precisely because these two emotions constantly affect their hearts that they respect filial piety so much.As Confucius said: "Respecting ghosts and gods and keeping them at a distance can be called knowledge." The reason why people worship and fear ghosts and gods is because they have the ability to do evil.Thoughts that disobey God, God will be angry and destroyed, so people respect God's opinion.In the same way, the reason why the Chinese respect filial piety is because they understand that they will also grow old one day, so the Chinese have many such sayings, such as "plant trees for shade, raise children to prevent old age", "children who wet the bed go to the grave" paper".For the Chinese, children owe their parents a debt when they are born, so they have to spend their entire lives to repay their parents' debts.And when they become parents, they demand the same of their children.

Over time, this kind of filial piety has been passed down.

The Chinese so-called filial piety has nothing to do with the "God's instruction" that the Westerners call, and the Chinese don't know whether God exists or not.To put it bluntly, filial piety is a perfect expression of "ancestor worship". To some extent, this kind of ancestor worship is the same as atheism, polytheism, and agnosticism.It's just that "gods" were replaced with "deceased ancestors".Chinese people's love and gratitude are only relative to their parents.

The Chinese don't know what God is, whether it exists or not, and they have no interest in knowing.Christianity and ancestor worship cannot coexist in China, only one of the two can exist.During their long struggle, only the fittest can stand firm, survive and develop in the long run.

(End of this chapter)