Filial piety

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Wang Xiang's stepmother loved fresh fish. But there was no fish to be had in winter. So Wang Xiang lay naked on a frozen river and prayed. Then the ice broke and fish jumped into his hands.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌 川 国 芳; 1798–1861): Shun with elephants
Shun was harassed by his family and yet remained friendly. This so moved the sky that he sent elephants to help him plow and birds to peck at the weeds.

Filial piety ( Chinese  孝 , Pinyin xiào or 孝順 / 顺 ， xiàoshùn; piety in the sense of respect or sense of duty ) is a basic concept of Confucianism and occupies a central place in the ethics of Confucius .

Its essential content is the children's love for their parents and also for their ancestors (ancestor cult ). From this obligation to the clan a system of relationships, behaviors and claims developed.

Definitions

Confucius himself commented on his student Zengzi ( Chinese  曾子 , Pinyin Zēngzǐ ) as follows, which he wrote down in the book of filial piety ( 孝經  /  孝经 , Xiàojīng ):

“Filial piety is the basis of virtue and the origin of all spiritual culture. Sit back down and let me speak to you. You received your body, hair and skin from your parents, you should not let them come to harm; this is where child piety begins. Do what is right and walk on the path of good and thus bring a good name to posterity, so that the ancestors are honored that is the culmination of piety. It begins with serving one's parents, leads to service with the king and ends with gaining a character ... "

In a dissertation from the Technical University of Chemnitz from 2005, the author Zhang Wei writes:

“Piety means that the children look after their parents and the elderly in the family, whose work capacity is constantly decreasing. It includes economic support, daily care, medical treatment, nursing and death bed presence. According to a traditional view of the Chinese, children are cared for in order to be cared for in their old age.

Zhang Wei divides the virtue of filial piety into two main aspects:

  1. Piety as care for parents and the elderly
  2. Piety as obedience to parents and superiors

In the Great Chinese Dictionary , piety is defined as follows:

“According to Confucian ethics, piety or filial affection (xiao) was a cardinal virtue, that is, children owed obedience to their parents and respect for older family members. So it was a matter of course that in ancient China the family not only looked after its young but also its old members. "

24 examples of filial piety

Representation from 24 examples of filial piety , 1846

Also famous are the 24 examples of filial piety (二十四孝), which represent the exercise of the same in the past.

  1. Shun舜: His piety moved God.
  2. Zeng Shen 曾参: He felt pain when his mother was injured.
  3. Tan Zi 郯 子: fed his parents with deer milk.
  4. Lao Laizi 老 莱 子: Acting childishly to please his parents.
  5. Zi Lu: Carried rice to feed his parents.
  6. Zi Qian: Endured the cold to protect his mother.
  7. Cai Shun 蔡 顺: Gathered mulberries to feed the parents.
  8. Jiang Ge 江 革: Worked as a day laborer to take care of his mother.
  9. Dong Yong 董永: Sold himself to bury his father.
  10. Huang Xiang 黄 香: Fan cooling and warm the bedspread.
  11. Ding Lan 丁兰: Honored his parents' image.
  12. Guo Ju 郭 巨: Wanted to bury his baby to save his mother.
  13. Jiang Shi 姜 诗: Fetched water for his mother from a distant river.
  14. Lu Ji 陆 绩: Hid an orange to please his mother.
  15. Wang Xiang 王祥: Lie on the ice to catch a fish for his mother.
  16. Liu Heng 刘恒: Gathered medicine for his mother.
  17. Meng Zong 孟 宗: Looking for bamboo shoots for his mother in the cold. (The moso bamboo is named after the Japanese pronunciation .)
  18. Wang Pou 王 裒: Went to his mother's grave when a thunderstorm hit.
  19. Wu Meng 吴 猛: Got bitten by mosquitoes so his parents could sleep peacefully.
  20. Yang Xiang 杨 香: Fought a tiger to save his father.
  21. Yu Qianlu 庚 黔 娄: Tried his father's bowel movements.
  22. Cui Shannan: fed her mother-in-law with her own milk.
  23. Zhu Shouchang 朱寿昌: Quit a civil servant post to take care of his mother.
  24. Huang Tingjian黄庭坚: Even as a senior official, he cleaned his mother's chamber pot.

Problem

For Christian Westerners , this principle can sometimes act as a deterrent. Modern social developments in Europe and America loosen the relationship between parents and children, which is in contrast to Confucian child patience, which is interpreted in an exaggerated manner as unconditional respect and submission.

The writer Lu Xun (1881-1936) describes a sinister aspect in his essay on the twenty-four illustrated examples of filial piety ( 二十四孝 圖  /  二十四孝 图 , Èrshísì Xiàotú ). One of his abstract examples tells of a starving couple who decide to kill their own child to feed their grandmother. As a child, this thought particularly frightened him when his parents once again complained of their poverty:

"Just the sight of my white-haired grandmother worried me, because I had the feeling that one of us was too much."

literature

  • Brunhild Staiger, Stefan Friedrich, Hans-Wilm Schütte (eds.): The great Chinese dictionary. History - Geography - Society - Politics Economy - Education - Science - Culture. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2003.
  • Wu Jingyu, Tan Choun Wai: 24 Stories of Filial Devotion. Asiapac Books, Singapore 1997, ISBN 981-3068-60-4 .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wei Zhang: Social affairs in China. Dissertation, TU Chemnitz 2007, urn : nbn: de: swb: ch1-200701074 (full text available).
  2. ↑ Brunhild Staiger (ed.): The great Chinese dictionary. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2003.