In the book chapter Culture, Power, and the Discourse of Filial Piety in Japan: The Disempowerment of Youth and Its Social Consequences, Hashimoto articulates well her critical point of view on what she calls “the piety ideology” and its social consequences of among Japan’s youth, giving many examples of youth’s disobedience and resistance against adults, especially parents. She argues that although the family law dissolved Ie system and implemented western ideal of nuclear family, which values equality, individual rights, freedom of choice, and voluntary unions had changed the children’s expectation for their relationship between their parents, the parents’ expectation for the filial piety (Oyakoko) has not changed. As she states the importance of obedience in Japanese family, she explains the details of how Japanese family, especially mother and teachers at school play an important role to create the filial child who understands the value of filial piety though the piety socialization and discourse. To explain how the piety ideology has survived in post-war Japan, she introduces three narratives to understand the piety discourse and its history. First, she states that the sacrificial mother and a strong mother-child tie enhance the reproduction of obedience by exposing child with the interchange of sacrifices between mother
Filial piety is the virtue of respecting your parents, elders. Teachers and other’s parents to give your family a good name. Filial piety was a key virtue of the Chinese. (Xing). Filial piety was usually practiced at home with the parents.
Confucian ideas of filial piety are the source of this respect and fear of elders, parents, and ancestors. “Dishonor brought to the family by any one member reflects on all family members,” so students must be very careful to do everything in their power
The society of Rome and Han China demonstrated the values of Ancient Rome. Ovid, an Ancient Roman poet, wrote “don’t delight in curling your hair with tongs” in regard to how to look in public places (PSR 58). The fact that he, a Roman, advocated remaining unadorned in appearance reveals simplicity because the most basic form of societal living was supported by not “delighting” in unnecessarily beautifying oneself. The Han concept of filial piety centralizes on respecting your elders and those who are superior to you (Presentation Society and Culture). As a result, the side of honesty that deals with fairness in conduct is brought out by filial piety because of the respectful treatment of other people required by it.
Chinese people believe that only those who are concerned with and practice filial devotion to their parents would be honest, faithful, and be grateful to others and seek ways to return their kindness" (Lao, 2007, P.19) To respect parents is the basic factor to achieve a harmonious family and is also the basic factor to have a harmonious country. The Chinese family is relatively more conservative than the American family.
The importance of grandchildren/offspring can be linked to a contextual element that is crucial to the film, this is Confucianism. Confucius emphasised the fulfilment of duties , ‘Filial piety’ can be anything from simple chores or expectations but for first sons or only sons such as Wai-Tung he has a duty to continue on the family name by producing offspring. It is one of Confucius’ beliefs that your life is unfulfilled if you do not have children and this is a sentiment that is still apparent in China
From my childhood, parents taught me to respect the elderly in the family and older relatives, especially grandparents, parents, older siblings and to be grateful to parents for the gift of birth, rearing and education. Being children in the family, parents’ wishes are duties that such our brothers will fulfill in the future. We are always expected to think of family first and do things not only for our sake but also for the family honor, harmony and welfare as well. Therefore, naturally, family is always considered the most valuable thing in our subconscious, we are supposed to love, care and company my parents for their old ages. In my view, these values have partly written up the fine tradition of Vietnamese nation and they are also absolutely suitable for ethical values from thousands ancient times of our ancestors.
Multiple terms like filial responsibility, filial obligation, felt obligation, filial piety and filial reciprocity have been used to describe the sense of responsibility and obligation that emerges in children as their parents age and need caregiving. Stein (1992) describes felt obligation as “expectations regarding appropriate behaviour as perceived within the context of specific, personal relationships with kin across the life cycle”. This
Just like how the idiomatic expression “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” is perceived, ‘moral values’, to a different person, has a distinct meaning. Moral values, more often than not, are defined according to the cultural beliefs. Each culture has its own sets of rules and beliefs to determine what is crucial, trivial, right, wrong, good and bad. For instance, it is vital for Chinese children to practice filial piety as it is an essential value of Chinese traditional culture (POŠKAITĖ, 2014); hence, living with parents, regardless of the marital status, is the right thing to do for it is good. On the contrary, Western children are not entitled to such obligation.
Just like how the idiomatic expression “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” is perceived, ‘moral values’, to a different person, has a distinct meaning. Moral values, more often than not, are defined according to the cultural beliefs. Each culture has its own sets of rules and beliefs to determine what is crucial, trivial, right, wrong, good and bad. For instance, it is vital for Chinese children to practice filial piety as it is an essential value of Chinese traditional culture (POŠKAITĖ, 2014); hence, living with parents, regardless of the marital status, is the right thing to do for it is good. On the contrary, Western children are not entitled to such obligation.