Reflections on The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars

各位留学生大家好!今天100due教员组给大家分享的是一篇传统文化essay代写范文，主要内容是讲：对二十四位孝道模范的思考。自古以来，孝道就被中国传统视为一种不可动摇的美德，并被广泛地植入文学作品中，进一步在人们的日常生活和政治生活中推广。其中，《二十四孝典》（网1）是元代以来被视为孝道教科书的经典著作。本文将通过考察这些典范的几个代表性故事，来探讨萧的重要性，即家庭内部的服从，尤其是对统治者的服从，以及萧的影响。

Introduction

Since ancient times, filial piety has been taken as an unshakeable virtue by Chinese traditions, and has been embedded in a wide range of literature works to further promote it in people’s daily and political lives. Among these works, The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars (Net. 1.) is a classic that has been regarded as a text book on filial piety since Yuan Dynasty. This essay is going to discuss the importance of Xiao, that is, obedience within the family, especially to rulers, and its influences by examining several representative stories from these paragons.

Part I: Background

Kinship played a vital role in Chinese families when it came to issues like division of property and offering sacrifices to ancestors. Tied by blood relations, traditional Chinese families were connected together and fought against any forces that tried to split their families or harm their interests. Since Zhou Dynasty, Xiao has included obedience not only to parents, but also to the emperor. Yet, it was in Han Dynasty that filial piety was officially and widely promoted on the political stage by a Confucian interpretation that the whole state as a family. Under this presupposition, the whole nation were of the same origin and they should doubtlessly bond together in face of disputes and wars against other countries, which met the needs of the ruling class. To some extent, filial piety worked as a weapon of the ruler to construct a harmonious and stable society. Stories of this theme reflected the way filial piety was utilized by the ruling class and even led people to make sacrifices to the benefit of their country when interests of their family conflicted with those of the country.

Part II: Profound Meanings of Xiao

Introduction

The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars provided us with an epitome of traditional Chinese model families. Trough vivid stories and unexpected plots, this collection presented different kinds of Xiao, like being gratitude and tolerant even when parents wanted to harm ourselves (as in His Filial Piety Moves Heaven and Earth), regarding parents’ demands as priorities (as in He Carried Rice for His Parents and He Buried His Son for His Mother), and close connections between parents and children (as in He Cried at His Mother's Grave When He Hears Thunder), etc. On the one hand, a sincere sense of taking care of parents from all possible aspects should be appreciated today to reserve a place of love and care in this increasingly materialistic world. On the other hand, we have to notice some rigorous and demanding requirements of filial piety in these stories and their political functions by examining these in a rational point of view. The two angles mentioned above could offer us with a fair and comprehensive evaluation towards these twenty-four paragons of filial piety. 

Positive side of The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars 

We have been continually touched and motivated by simple and truehearted love within families displayed in the twenty-four paragons. For instance, Huang Xiang would fan his father’s pillow in summer and warm his father’s blanket first in winter to ensure that his father could sleep comfortably at night without being annoyed by the heat in summer and coldness in winter. His considerateness pushes us to think about ourselves whether we could care about our parents at the most common but easily ignored basic needs. It reminds us that filial piety should be conducted through these details rather than making hollow promises. Besides, these paragons are mainly concerned with a protagonist under extremely hard living conditions, like poverty. Thus, a contrast is achieved when they could satisfy their own food and clothing, but make sure that their parents have enough to eat and wear. Exceptions are stories of emperors like Emperor Wen of Han, who insisted on tasting his mother’s medicine first to ensure it was safe and not too hot for her to take.

To rethinking these stories in today’s fast-developing world, we are constantly reminded by these stories that filial piety is more than some material needs, but a caring heart. It is never too much to care about our parents. These characters in the twenty-four paragons motive us to spare ourselves from struggling for higher social status and more wealth, slow down to make a phone call to our parents about their daily lives, and get them involved in our daily live without giving them a distant feeling.

A Discuss on Unreasonable piety in paragons

Some rigorous and unreasonable demands of filial piety could be spotted from these paragons, like Yu Qianlou who tasted his father’s faeces in worries about his father’s illness and Guo Ju who buried his son realizing he might not be able to feed them both. These stories exaggeratedly elaborated how children should dedicate all their time, even their heirs and lives, to better serve their parents. As these stories spread across the society, they became popular for such impressive plots and touching family bonds. We should think behind these unreasonable and sometimes ridiculous behaviors by asking ourselves why these people were at that time treated as moral standards without being questioned and criticized for their blind devotion to their parents.

Such an limitation has to be viewed and evaluated under specific contexts, which is closely related with intentions of the ruling class. Traditional Chinese rulers actually had broadened the concept of Xiao into politics through all sorts of measures, which included popularizing filial stories and setting strict moral standards mentioned above. Through these efforts, the concept of an integration of nation and family was reinforced. Under this circumstance, societies at that time promoted an idea that one should never show any signs of noncompliance to the elder and always stay loyal to his emperor. Disobeying his parents would bring about severe punishment, whereas treason would definitely bring about results that were even more cruel. In this way, a harmony between the devotion within a family together with that within the state was finally achieved. The ethics promoted in these stories worked as a chain that tied people’s contribution to family with responsibilities to sacrifice for their country. People grew up in this environment would lose the ability to question their parents and rulers. Instead, they would be totally obedient and become order-takers.

Stories of the same theme not only help the governing class in effective implement of orders, but also convey a message that people would get paid in forms of gold and promotion once their filial piety was recognized, like Guo Ju’s digging of gold and Jiang Ge becoming a government official which was specially set for people of excellent filial practices. This message echoed with the social reality that filial piety was a standard in selecting and promoting officials. It presented common people with a new approach in getting an official position instead of immersing oneself in preparation for difficult imperial examinations. If we compared the imperial examination to be a single-plank bridge, Xiao and Ti would mean to open up a brand new way to earn a career. If one devoted all his life to serve the elderly and managed to make his story well-known, he would save a lot of time preparing for those tedious examinations and get a direct ticket to serve his country. For these reasons, filial obedience became the mainstream.

Part III:

Measures Taken towards Interest Conflicts between Family and Country

In the process of equaling family with state, conflicts between interests of families and those of country were sometimes inevitable. The ruling class took measures to enjoy benefits brought by promoting filial piety without damaging his own interest when conflict arose. One of the most inflectional approach occurred in the Later Han Dynasty, when a famous successor of Confucianism, Dong Zhongshu, equaled the imperial power to “the supreme ultimate”. Thus, the imperial power became superior to that interests of a family, which undoubtedly catered to the need of the emperor. People who listened to these stories at an early age treated these as a model and would never say no to any order of their elders, superiors and the Emperor.

Since the government put the Emperor’s interests before parents’, conflicts in one of the most majestic Chinese event, death ceremony, could be easily solved. Usually, the ceremony involved a series of complicated funeral procedures, mourning and periodical tomb-visitings. Most bereaved officials may ask for a chance to quit and go back to their hometown to express their Xiao and love to the deceased by standing as guards at the bier and looking after funeral events. Unwilling to break an obedient circumstance, the Emperor usually temperately accepted his officer’s resignation and called him back shortly after the funeral came to an end. Then, the sheep-like officer had no choice but to take the offer to avoid cruel punishment, and his retirement ended as well. Acts like this though may arouse frustration to some extent, the rulers usually took out a considerable amount of gold and other rewards as a compensation for their loyalty and filial piety. Through a combination of forceful orders and gentle remedy, the Emperor kept his faithful subordinates without violating filial piety. And because filial piety to the emperor ranked higher than that to their families, officials were obliged to come back to office to serve their country. 

Conclusion

Though filial piety was highly eulogized in stories like The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars and the ruling class usually presented themselves to be a model of such quality as well, the history of Chinese politics was indeed a continual bloody violation to that standard with brothers, fathers and sons killing each other to gain the “supreme power”. Thus, in addition to recognize the positive sides of these paragons, we have to reflect on an invisible hand behind the popularity of these paragons, that is, the rulers’ intention to foster an obedient mind of the whole nation for his own advantage.

Holding these in our mind, we could judge The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars in an objective way and extract an appropriate filial standard to guide our own behaviors. First, these filial exemplars teach us to treat our parents with a true heart. Time is actually short when we and our parents could share each other’s companion. We should cherish present to avoid regretting after our parents leave us. Meanwhile, The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars work as a counter-example in warning us of foolish piety. If we could realize that the rise of foolish filial piety internally relates with the need to construct the national ideology, we would then be able to establish a healthy set of filial values with core values of love, respect and independence, etc. Xiao should never be a bondage of blood ties and interests. It requires parents to view their children as an equal individual who could make their own choice; it also asks children to take on the responsibility to provide material and mental aids to their parents and accompany them in their life journey especially in their loneliness.

The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars is also a lesson to the one in power, reminding them that foolish obedience is an impasse. Using moral standard to chain people’s minds and lure people with money and power could never bring about a real prosperity in thoughts and physical world. Instead, they should lead their people to discover the real beauty of virtues like filial piety, through which a real success could be achieved by establishing a state of sincere and wise love and care.

In conclusion, The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars reflects traditional filial piety with certain limitations. It inspires us to release ourselves from relentless pursuit of wealth and power and treat our parents with appropriate filial piety. The irrational parts of it, partly due to the ruler’s political need, contain a blind sacrifice, which is not applicable in our modern world. So it gives us some clues to form and revise our own standard of filial piety.

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