Filial Piety in Many Asian

Filial Piety

In many Asian cultures, loyalty plays an extremely important part in all areas of life. This is particularly true in professional and family life. As such, certain roles have been determined not only for the different professions, but also for the genders and their roles in family life. As part of the loyalty paradigm, filial piety is an East Asian tradition that has shown a tenacity above all others. This tradition focuses on the family, and particularly upon children and how they should treat their parents. While young children should honor their parents while growing up in their home, particular importance is also placed upon caring for aging parents.

The paradigm of filial piety however also placed particular strain upon children to act and live in a certain way. With the mixture of various cultures often resulting from globalization however, there has been a shift in focus from the importance of honoring and caring for parents towards a more Westernized, exploratory spirit among the East Asian youth. The cultural evolution in these nations then provides evidence of the changing values resulting from this change of viewpoint.

According to Kyu-taik Sung, for example, industrialization and urbanization have brought about a change in filial piety that is less based on constrictive rules than on affection and reciprocity. While honoring parents during their role in the young child's life and caring for them during old age are still seen as extremely important, this importance is now based upon a different set of values. Filial piety is no longer a value that is inherently a parental right, regardless of how children were treated. Instead, evolution has proved that reciprocal respect and affection are more effective as a basis of filial piety. It is also however important to note that the importance and form of the basic tradition has not change. Parents are acknowledged for their role in the young child's life by being cared for in their old age. In this way, children traditionally show their love and appreciation for the effort that the parents made during their lives. This is however a simplified and very general view. East Asian countries, like the rest of the world, are exposed to Westernized television and values. These values necessarily communicate themselves to impressionable youthful minds, and are subsequently often manifest in rebellious behavior that had previously been unheard of.

Shanghai Baby by Wen Hui is an example of this in the Chinese tradition. The book concerns a young Chinese girl, Coco. In exploring her emerging sexuality and power as a young woman, Coco separates herself from her parents, whose values she sees as outdated and irreconcilable with her own, westernized values. Coco wishes for independence and the freedom to explore her world as a grown-up. For her parents, however, filial piety is more important than Coco's individual wish to make the most of her own life. The gap between parents and child widen with every sexually explicit step the young Coco takes. Furthermore, the depiction of Coco's Chinese boyfriend as impotent in contrast with the virile foreigner juxtaposes in sexual terms the view of the traditional, "impotent" values of Coco's home against her new-found, individualized values. In the end, a reconciliation between Coco and her parents is only achieved once they all acknowledge their differences and become willing to live with them rather than change them.

Hui's book demonstrates the potential negativity connected to the restrictive power of filial piety. A woman is not traditionally free to live according to her own values. She is bound first to her own family, and then to the family of her husband. To prove unable to bear children - and especially sons - is to bring shame upon the family. These are the paradigms against which Coco rebels in Hui's book. This is a trend that is often perpetuated by a combination of filial piety restrictions and a deluge of American values offered to the Asian youth through the media and other links with the global culture.

In the Korean context, filial piety appears to have seen greater evolution together with the changing cultural values that are a product of forces such as industrialization and globalization. In this culture, filial piety in its ancient form is as restrictive as that in the Chinese culture. According to Kim Jun-hee, filial piety in this context takes the form of extreme restriction in the name of "proper behavior." For sons, proper behavior constitutes taking a wife and producing sons in order to perpetuate the family name. For daughters, this meant that their family obligations shifted upon marriage from the original home to the husband's family. As such, the woman was seen as a vessel for producing an heir, and little more. Much of a woman's honor was also inherent in her ability to bear healthy sons. So extreme was this directive in the past, that men were allowed to take a second or third wife, or even to adopt a male family member, for the purpose of perpetuating the family name.

While filial piety is still seen as extremely important in the Korean culture, Jun-hee cites modern forces such as busy schedules, industrialization and globalization ash shaping the form this phenomenon takes today. Thus, while it has not changed as a basic Korean virtue, the specific manifestation of filial piety in the culture has. Filial devotion in terms of funerary rites, for example, has been altered to coincide with the schedule demands of young, modern Koreans. Furthermore, the importance placed upon the male heir is no longer of such extreme importance that a second or third wife is allowed, or that adoption is preferred to having a family with only daughters. Indeed, according to Jun-hee, modern Koreans are reported to prefer daughters to sons.

It therefore appears that, in Korean culture, filial piety has evolved to match the demands of modern living. As such, it is not as restrictive a force in this culture as it often is in other Asian cultures. Instead, the tradition appears to have survived by evolving to include a more loving, reciprocal, and also tolerant relationship between parents and children. The same ideal is portrayed by Hui's Shanghai Baby. In Hui's book, however, the problem is that the restrictions imposed by filial piety results in a culture of rebellion and self-destructive promiscuity. According to Jun-hee's explanation of the Korean paradigm, in contrast, the ability of the filial piety paradigm in this culture to adapt to the demands of the modern lifestyle ensures its survival.

The ideal of filial piety is closely integrated with religion and philosophy. In China, particularly, the paradigm is highly integrated with the ideals put forward by the philosophy of Confucius. In both China, Korea and Japan, many folk tales focus on the filial piety theme to demonstrate the cultural desirability of such values. Many modern books and films, such as the above-mentioned Shanghai Baby, however demonstrates the rebellion brought about by the constraints of such values.