Chinese virtue

Chapter 29 Responsibility and law-abiding (1)
"Responsibility" is the most prominent characteristic of Chinese people.Westerners cannot understand the meaning and meaning of "responsibility" in Chinese society.For Westerners, a country is just a group of people gathered together, but the Chinese divide the country into different structures such as families, villages, and clans.The largest unit is the clan, often people in a village or several villages have the same surname, their genealogy is the same, and they belong to the same clan.The children of these clans migrated to one place, settled down, and gradually developed into villages of different sizes.

Some villages even have a history of hundreds of years. After the change of dynasties, the clan is still continuing and developing.

In villages with "clan lineages", almost every adult male has a seniority, perhaps uncle, uncle, or even grandpa.Because of the idea of ​​passing on the family line, Chinese people generally marry early, and Chinese men can take concubines, which leads to them having children all their lives, and the age gap between the children is also very large.Therefore, in China, people with high seniority are not necessarily very old. In some small villages, there may even be eleven generations living under the same roof, which is unimaginable to Westerners.In such a village, the seniority relationship between relatives is very confusing. It is impossible to distinguish the seniority without asking the "character" in the other's name that indicates seniority.Sometimes, a man in his 30s is senior enough for an old man over [-] to call him grandpa.Therefore, even if they are all relatives, the blood relationship between them is already very weak.In such an intricate family relationship, even the relationship between cousins ​​or cousins ​​can be regarded as "distant relatives".People of the same generation call each other "brothers".

Some foreigners who are not sure about the situation will ask them if they are "brothers", and they will answer: "Cousins!" I also tried to ask such questions, and the other party replied naturally: "That's right. , you can treat them as brothers."

The examples mentioned above all highlight a characteristic of Chinese society, and this characteristic is "unity".The Chinese people's sense of responsibility is developed by relying on unity.The father wants to bring up the child and he has to educate him all his life.And there is an old saying in China called "the father's debt is repaid by the son".Therefore, father and son have mutual responsibilities; as the elder brother, he has to protect the younger brother, so the elder brother also has responsibilities to the younger brother and younger sister; and as the head of the family, he is responsible for the whole family, and his responsibility is the most important.But these responsibilities are not static and can change from situation to situation.

Regardless of the differences in customs and customs in various regions, one thing is the same, that is, the "patriarch" in each region has absolute power, and the opinions of the "patriarch" must also be referred to.In this regard, it seems that theory does not make sense.In a big family, there may be someone who is very sensible, or someone who is very famous in the local area, and maybe someone has passed the imperial examination.In contrast, maybe the "patriarch" is just a bad old man who has stayed at home all his life, and he doesn't even know how to read.But once something needs to be resolved, these "excellent" family members must seek the opinion of the "patriarch".

Westerners advocate "individual freedom".In China, however, young children are imitating the practices of their elders everywhere, and the influence of these elders on children is very direct.

The young brother will be called around by his elder brother, like a servant.The younger brother wants to buy a cotton coat, but the older brother thinks it is too expensive and refuses to buy it.If things go on like this, the younger brother will develop a kind of expectation, hoping that he can become an older brother, but this is obviously unrealistic.When I was writing a book, I came across a report that a foreigner wanted to buy an ancient coin in the hands of a Chinese. These coins are relatively rare, so the price is not low, but the foreigner is worried that the Chinese will not sell them.

In China, it often happens that a person holds something that other people want, which is obviously not important to him, but when he sees the other person's urgent mood, he will hold on to it tightly.So the middleman suggested that the foreigner send some foreign candy and some small gifts to the seller's uncle, and then the seller's uncle intercedes, so that the purchase can be made smoothly.

There is a story that made me feel very ridiculous. When a Westerner was traveling, he saw an old man on the side of the road bowing his head and crying. The old man's long beard and hair were already white. He thought it was incredible, so he asked the old man why he was crying.The old man said that he was beaten by his father with a whip.So the foreigner asked him: "Where is your father?" The old man pointed his hand forward.The foreigner walked for a while in the direction pointed by the old man, and met another old man with a white beard.The foreigner asked: "Is that man your son?" The old man replied: "That's right." The foreigner asked again: "Why did you beat him with a whip?" Grandpa is rude! If he doesn't change it next time, I'll beat him!" If this happened in China, I don't think anyone would find it ridiculous!
There is an old saying in China that "A distant relative is not as good as a close neighbor".In China, responsibilities between neighbors are second only to family responsibilities.Regardless of whether the neighbors are relatives or not, it will not affect this responsibility. This responsibility exists only for the neighbors.There is a saying in China that goes, "When you get close to vermilion, you get red; when you get close to ink, you get black."It means that whether it is good or evil, it will infect others.One of the ancient Chinese allusions, "Mother Meng moved three times", in order to find a neighbor who satisfies her and choose a good environment to educate her son, she moved three times.

This is different from the Anglo-Saxons, who are likely to live in a city for a long time without knowing the names of their neighbors, so it doesn't matter to them who their neighbors are.In China, if a person commits a crime, his neighbors will be implicated as well.

This crime is called "covering crime" in British law. If you explain that you don't know the criminal's motive, no one will pay attention to it. The Chinese theory is that you must know if you are his neighbor.

Chinese law punishes criminals who kill their parents very severely. As mentioned in the previous chapter when we talked about filial piety, generally only lunatics can commit such cases.If the perpetrator does not commit suicide, what awaits him is the most severe punishment "Ling Chi".From this point, we can see that the Chinese people have a strong sense of responsibility.A few years ago, the "Beijing News" reported a case report of the governor of a certain province. He handled a murder case. In addition to punishing the criminals, he also tore down the houses of the criminals' neighbors because they did not lead by example. To lead criminals astray.For the Chinese, this approach makes perfect sense.In some places, if a person committed a crime, in addition to punishing the prisoner himself, a section of the city wall had to be demolished as a warning.

Or change the appearance of the city wall, such as changing the style of the city gate, or sealing it, or making some changes to the decoration on the city wall.If crime always occurs in a city, the whole city will be destroyed and a new city will be built.But this is just hearsay, and I haven't really seen such a thing.

The security chief in the village is a person who has to bear many responsibilities after his neighbors.The things they manage are messy and numerous, and sometimes more than one village needs them to manage.They are the bridge between local officials and ordinary people, so they have to bear a lot of responsibilities.

The county magistrate is a higher-ranking official than the Baochang. In the hearts of ordinary people, the local magistrate is their heaven and the most important official in China.The county magistrates show off their power in front of the people, but when they meet officials older than them, they will immediately shrink into timid mice.Although the county magistrates are not big, they handle a lot of things.As county magistrates, they have to perform at least six duties. They are responsible for civil trials, administrative justice, tax collection, treasury and autopsy.A small county magistrate is simply not capable of handling such a large number of affairs, because the unreasonable distribution of powers makes the officials very tired physically and mentally.So this group of officials invited a lot of staff and entourages, while they concentrated on picking up "oil and water".There are also some officials who will handle these matters responsibly, but the affairs are too complicated, and it is easy to make mistakes, and the mistakes they make have to be borne by themselves.Many Chinese officials believe that they should control all the things in their jurisdiction, so as to prevent many things such as crimes and disasters.The same is true for magistrates, so they set ten households as one, and each household registered on its own sign, marked the number of family members and the name of the head of the household, and then classified them into categories.This system is similar to the Anglo-Saxon household division system, and it is very easy to manage.

For example, if there is a suspicious person in a district A, the people in the district will report to the Chief Jia, and then the Chief Jia will pass the information to the Baochang to report to the magistrate, and the magistrate can quickly take corresponding measures to solve the problem.If a resident of a district A committed a crime, it would be easy to find out, and the people's morals would gradually improve.

The measures mentioned above are only effective in areas where there is no significant population movement.Although China is a country with a fixed population, this system still has a lot of assumptions.Sometimes, in a certain place, every house suddenly hangs up its house number. From this move, it can be guessed that the magistrate may have just notified these regulations.There are also places that only put up the signboards in winter, because bad guys often show up in the cold winter.But as far as I know, this measure has now become a formality, and it no longer has the original effect.It may be thousands of miles in a row, and few people along the way will hang their house numbers.

The original purpose of China's Baojia system was a population census.If the number on the door plate can always keep up-to-date and indicate the specific number of family members, and each security chief has a specific list of people in his own area, as long as the county magistrate simply and accurately calculates the number, it will be fine. Clearly count the number of people in this country.In reality, however, none of these things were implemented with precision.There is no house number on every household, and the head of the house does not have such a list.When the county magistrate conducted a population census, a large group of guarantors reported the approximate figures to him, and then the county magistrate sloppily calculated and reported it to the higher-level government.This kind of laborious and useless work itself has little appeal to the county magistrate.Therefore, there is still no accurate figure on how many people there are in China.Even in Western countries, censuses and taxes are linked.In China, this can only make people more suspicious of the government's motives.Only when all regions cooperate with this "Baojia system" can the population be accurately calculated.But this is obviously unrealistic.

If the local officials make some mistakes, they may be safe, or they may cause big troubles.

With a little money and a few influential friends to plead for mercy, he'll be fine.

Even if he lost his official position because of this, he would put the blame on the matter itself.Such situations are very common.

(End of this chapter)