Respect for elders in contemporary society

¶ … ancient China there once lived a prosperous family in the province of Zhe Jiang. A banker and his wife had a beautiful and gifted son. They lived in the biggest house in the richest village overlooking the Hang Zhou River. Every year it seemed their wealth grew and every year the family prospered. When the family finally became the richest banking family in the entire province, Mother decided to invite her parents to live with them in their massive estate. Mother had grown up in poverty; her parents were nothing but simple farm hands and lived all of their lives in a poor village. When she had become old enough to leave, she went to a large city and married into the family of wealthy bankers and completely rejected her past life.

Now that she was extremely rich she thought, she could finally bring her parents to live with her and see what a wonderful success she had become. Only to her disappointment did she realize that her parents acted like old farm hands, with leathery skin and unkempt manners. They did not fit into the pristine wealth that she was accustomed to. Soon she grew bitter and angry, she looked down on her parents because they could not possibly appreciate what she had achieved. Every day she talked down to them, she made her mom clean her rich clothes like any maid, and her dad took care of her precious son like a servant. Years went by and the same pattern continued, mother looked down on her parents as if they were slaves, she placed them in the most rundown section of the estate, and never let them eat at the family dinners. She addressed them with disdain and constantly berated and ordered them around. Many times Grandmother bemoaned that their lives were worse now, then back in their village, where they were at least respected leaders of their community. But they loved their daughter despite her flaws and her ego, and stayed on in misery.

Meanwhile the Son continued to grow and prosper. He was treated as the crown prince of the family, receiving only the best in everything. When he turned ten years old he had five tutors and every toy or luxury available for a ten-year-old. Not only did he grow up to be tall and handsome, he was also exceedingly smart. By the time the banker finally decided to retire, his son had already become fully groomed to take over. He was viewed not only as the most eligible bachelor in the province but a brilliant banker and financier.

In the next few years, life went in a routine, Mother preened and pestered her son while berating her parents and treating as the worst kind of servants. Many years past and soon Grandmother and Grandfather passed away, Mother barely gave them a funeral, instead of putting their graves back with their sacred ancestors, and she had them dug out her estate, with only the smallest of markers. No ceremony was held and she did not shed a tear, thinking that they deserved their fates for being bad parents. Soon after, the Banker died as well, and the entire family fortune and responsibility fell on the Son.

With the passage of her husband, Mother was now no longer the head of the household, but she was confident nothing would change, after all her son loved her. When she came back from a vacation trip after a hot summer, she went into her room only to find that all of her possessions were missing. In a panic she ran to her Son's room and found him sitting on his desk.

Where are my things my beautiful son, where did you move them to?," she cried.

Why to grandmother's room of course," he diffidently stated.

What? To that dirty little shack, you cannot expect your mother to live their?!," she screamed.

Her son looked up at her and blinked his eyes. "Why are you so angry, I am treating you no better and no worse than you treated your parents." Then he turned back to his readings without looking up again.

Mother looked down at her hands and found that they no longer were soft and silky smooth, they had become the hands of an old woman, just like her mothers. Without a whimper she left the room, and lived out her days just as her mother had, cleaning and prepping, serving under the whims of her daughter in law. So the old Chinese adage goes, "As you sow, so shall you reap."