Watching the Tree: A Chinese Daughter Reflects on Happiness, Spiritual Beliefs and Universal Wisdom. Adeline Mah Yen

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СКАЧАТЬ important Chinese term is min fen or ‘duty accorded by name’. In Chinese families, children (or relatives) are not called by their given names but by names corresponding to their place in the family. The oldest son is called Big Brother, the second son Second Brother, and so on. There are separate Chinese words for ‘older brother’ ( ge) and ‘younger brother’ ( di); ‘older sister’ ( jie) and ‘younger sister’ ( mei). The younger brother (or sister) is expected to listen to and obey the older brother (or sister) so that order can be preserved in the family. At home, we younger children called our oldest brother Big Brother ( Da Ge). My oldest sister, who was one year older than Big Brother, called him Da Di (Big Younger Brother). However, when a member of the older generation such as our parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts called him Da Di, the words took on the meaning of ‘oldest son’. This type of nomenclature provided a clear and unequivocal social stratification which defined a person’s status in his family.

      I never cared for my sister Lydia. As the oldest of seven children in our family, she was known to us as Da Jie

(Big Sister). She was often put in charge and would flaunt her authority. When I was little, she hectored me mercilessly and often beat me.

      After a long separation we met each other again. By then, a reversal of fortune had taken place. I was no longer the despised little sister whom she could bully at will but a successful physician practising in America. She, meanwhile, had been stuck in a loveless marriage in Communist China for thirty years. Although I was shocked by her downtrodden appearance and humble demeanour, all the familiar emotions of respect and fear re-emerged as soon as she uttered my childhood name, Wu Mei

(Fifth Younger Sister). Suddenly, I reverted to my former status. Respectfully, I called her Da Jie and dutifully agreed to do everything she asked. I did not trust her but was eager to please and felt compelled to help her although I could not understand why. I knew my sister was ruthless but not once did I consider refusing her. Perhaps my mind was so conditioned by Confucian concepts of min fen that I could no longer think for myself.

      The word xiao has no true equivalent in the English language. Confucius considered xiao, or filial piety, to be life’s most important virtue and the origin of Chinese culture. In the Classic of Filial Piety he said, ‘The jun zi (ideal person) teaches filial piety so that man may respect all the fathers in the world. He teaches brotherliness so that younger brothers may respect older brothers in the world. He teaches duty to the subject so that subjects will respect all who are rulers in the world.’ Morality and li (etiquette) in the family, he hoped, would be disseminated outside the family to become the foundation for morality and li in general so that people might live together in peace and harmony: ‘Peace in the state begins with order in the family … The people who love and respect their parents would never dare show hatred and disrespect to others.’

      As my grandmother told my father that night in Tianjin,

      The body and hair and skin are received from the parents and may not be injured: this is the beginning of filial piety. To do the right thing and walk according to the right morals, thus leaving a good name in posterity, in order to glorify one’s ancestors, this is the culmination of filial piety. Filial piety begins with serving one’s parents, leads to serving one’s king and ends in establishing one’s character.

      A person could not be good to anyone else unless he was first good to his parents. Family was the bridge between the individual and society. A family should be held together not only by blood, property and shared responsibilities; but also by common ideals such as love of virtue and honour as well as earthly goals such as wealth, success, longevity, many sons and happiness.

      My grandfather once showed me a schoolbook from his own childhood in the 1880s. He told me that it had been written during the Song dynasty (960–1271); the same text had been taught to Chinese children for over 750 years. The author had adapted the teachings of Confucius specially for children and mapped out a life plan for them based on filial piety.

      When my siblings and I were growing up in China, we younger generation invariably treated our elders with deference. Age was honoured to such a degree that it was not unusual for my grandfather and his generation to add a few years to their chronological age when asked. At Chinese New Year my brothers and I used to kneel before our parents to wish them happiness and longevity. We continued to do so even after our graduation from British universities. This custom was known as bai nian

: bai means ‘to worship or do obeisance’; nian means ‘year’.

      These rites and rituals reinforced the concept of filial piety so effectively that I don’t remember any of us uttering a single disrespectful remark to our parents’ face. Instead, we were fearful and obedient and our lives were focused on pleasing our unloving parents. We never dared complain, even when unjustly punished. We also accepted blindly what our parents decided for us.

      Filial piety dictated that my oldest sister Lydia should remain silent when our parents ordered her to leave school and enter an arranged marriage at the age of seventeen. After graduating from Cambridge University, my brother James was ordered back to Hong Kong to work at Father’s side and did so for a meagre salary even though he was inundated with offers from other firms. Louise Lam was introduced to him by our stepmother as his prospective bride and he dutifully married her. I myself turned down a job as assistant lecturer in the department of medicine at Hong Kong University Medical School to be an intern at a government hospital in order to please my parents.

      Confucius thought that religion should exist for the purpose of education and moral cultivation. He did not believe in divination, fortune-telling, or conjectures concerning Heaven and Hell; his approach was much more pragmatic and rational. To him, the tao or Heaven stood for a positive, just force in the universe. It was the source of truth, goodness and moral law. Good and evil deeds would bring their own consequences.

      He advised men to direct their own destiny, rather than resorting to a fatalistic reliance on spirits. He promoted ceremonies and rites to worship Heaven, honour the ancestors and commemorate great men. Expressions of respect towards ancestors and great men should not end with their death: ancestor-worship was merely the continuation of a human relationship. Immortality was to be obtained through an individual’s own endeavours, through virtue and wisdom.

      In Confucian (as well as Chinese) though, the word tian

, translated as ‘Heaven’, means much more than the sky above. Because the word God does not exist in the Chinese language, the term tian encompasses all the following concepts relating to God: supreme being; prime mover; divine light; the tao; ultimate reality and many other synonyms. As with other expressions concerning religion, tian’s interpretation depends on one’s personal convictions. The exact definition of the Chinese word tian became the focal point of the Rites controversy, a bitter quarrel between the Jesuits and other orders of the Catholic Church that began in seventeenth-century China and lasted for nearly two hundred years. It was a metaphysical dispute involving the СКАЧАТЬ