A story in the People's Daily reports on a survey of people in China 60 years old and above. They are not happy:
Older people are finding themselves in a more passive position in today's rapidly developing society, the survey found.
"In history, China has been a country where authority grows along with your age when deciding family and social affairs," said Zhang Xuwu, standing committee member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). However, figures now show that about 60 per cent of interviewed people said that their children do not consult them over some decisions, Zhang said.
Sounds like the kinds of complaints one might here in the US:
... they have few opportunities to participate in social activities, ...
Their lives are quite dull, and they spend too much time indoors.
The survey found that the most important leisure activity for 85 per cent of old people is watching TV. More than 60 per cent say their main work is doing the housework.
This is not terribly surprising. China has taken off economically and its society is changing. Young people are being swept up into new jobs, new homes, new cars. For the young, the opportunities and conspicuous consumption are beyond anything their parents could ever have imagined. So, of course, attitudes and behavior toward the older generation will also change. Those attitudes had already started to change: under Mao, and especially during the Cultural Revolution, youth were encouraged to break away from "old thinking." Now, they don't need a tyrant to tell them to strike out independently from their parents: the market does it for them.
This makes me think of Confucius and whether his admonition that age must be respected can be maintained under conditions of global modernity. Perhaps it can in some ways. But the expectation that parents will have absolute authority over their children once they have reached adulthood is untenable. If we want to adapt Confucianism for a modern setting, we will need to scale back our understanding of what adult children owe their parents. Either that, or consign Confucius to utter irrelevance.
The story is also a reminder of how China is not really a "Confucian society." I am not sure it ever was a "Confucian society" in any complete manner (Confucius's writing, especially the Analects, has always struck me as an ideal for what China should be, not a description of what it was). It may have been patriarchal (many places have been that), but not wholly Humane in a Confucian sense (I'm not sure any place has been wholly Humane). The Legalist influence has been too great. In any event, whatever China might have been in the past, it is certainly far, and every day moving farther still, from any Confucian ideal.
hahaha hahahah hahahaha
Posted by: hdfhahh | March 30, 2007 at 09:33 AM