Confucianism should not be confused with other influences that affect how Chinese parents bring up their children.

 

"How is blaming a school of philosophy more reasonable than blaming the society, culture and the people who have interpreted him to suit their particular time(s), need(s) and belief(s)?"

 

It is a logical point to make that since apples are not oranges, one should not compare them. They are fundamentally different. The only time one can make some sort of sweeping generalisation about the two is when both are rotten.

You might be asking what on earth I am trying to say. I shall not beat around the bush (or apple tree, for that matter) any longer.

What I want to say is that inasmuch as there has been enthusiastic debate over the role of Confucianism in how Chinese parents bring up their children– some of the bases of comparison are quite flawed. Consider Betty Ming Liu’s “Conned by Confucius” (Feb 7, 2011).

She writes: “The ancient, so-called sage preached that children should honour and respect their elders in a way that amounts to emotional child abuse.”

“Under Confucianism, kids work hard, excel at school and must avoid bringing shame on their families…these might sound like reasonable expectations. But the reality can be very different, especially when you throw in the old guy’s teachings for the female gender: a woman must obey her father, husband and son(s). What a crime that Asian society has been boxed into these rules for centuries.”

I suspect there is a logical fallacy in equating a dictum to honour and respect your elders (or ‘xiao’, 孝¹) with ‘child abuse’. Betty Liu equates Confucian ethics of ‘xiao’ with the emotional oppression of a child. Well, leaving children free to do whatever they want in their formative years is, in many ways, crippling their potential to become responsible members of society as well.

If sociological discourse² suggests there are inherent linkages between one’s family environment and one’s relative propensity toward crime and anti-social behaviour, it may be pushing the issue too far to consider Confucian “xiao” a veritable form of “emotional child abuse.”

Furthermore, it is not a universally accepted truth that Confucius was a hopeless misogynist.

For me, taking the experience of a childhood under socio-cultural norms and blaming it on Confucian philosophy is taking things too far out of context.

But I don’t want to make this an academic discussion of philosophical meaning. A theory can mean many things to many people. For me, taking the experience of a childhood under socio-cultural norms and blaming it on Confucian philosophy is taking things too far out of context.

While I can accept an accusation that Chinese traditions have tended towards the conservative and indeed, in many cases, have had a historically male-bias (foot-binding still gives me the creeps), I really fail to see how this is Confucius’s fault.

How is blaming a school of philosophy more reasonable than blaming the society, culture and the people who have interpreted him to suit their particular time(s), need(s) and belief(s)?

I accept of course that people are entitled to their own views, but I really do think things should be understood in their context:

Betty Liu says, “Since I obeyed my parents, I wasn’t encouraged to think independently. My mom limited my friends to Chinese kids in our Chinatown neighbourhood. My dad decided what courses I took in college.”

This can hardly be a reflection on Confucianism. The tendency to want one’s children to interact within one’s ethnic group is hardly a uniquely Chinese trait. Beyond cultural exceptionalism, this is often a reflection of the exigencies of immigrant life.

Choosing educational paths for children is not something limited to the Chinese. Furthermore, it is wrong to criticise the mentalities of our parents with respect to educational choices. These days, students take to the streets in defence of what they see as a universal right to higher education – but that was not always so.

 

Betty Liu says, “Family and family honour always came first. We never publicly aired anything that might make us ‘look bad’.”

And “Being an individual was never discussed. My sister and I were constantly compared to each other… Let’s not even get into how our parents complained that their friends’ kids were smarter and better than us.”

What’s so wrong with a value system that puts the family and its honour first?

What’s so wrong with a value system that puts the family and its honour first?

I do see what Betty Liu is saying about the paranoia surrounding external perception. But again, neither is this Chinese nor the result of Confucian ideology. In any case, Foucault noted that what passed for madness tended to differ over time, and reflected social attitudes more than any medical assessment.

Likewise, a sense of competition and superiority is not Chinese, let alone Confucian. “Notre fille ne se mariera pas” (Our daughter won’t get married) is a play by Cameroonian Guillaume OyônôMbia which humorously mocks the attempts of a mother to make her son understand that he is from a privileged class in society, and must not mix with the other children; that he should embrace the Francophone culture of the elite classes.

This brings back memories of my grandmother telling me to eat my dinner slowly, and properly, and to use my chopsticks in the accepted manner because we were an ‘educated’ family. Was this Confucius speaking? Or was it some other social dynamic?

 

Betty Liu says: “The insular lifestyle had me socially awkward. I went to church instead of parties. I didn’t know how to date or talk to boys. Being around people of other races was uncomfortable.”

Was this the result of a Chinese Confucian upbringing, or was it reflective of the particular dynamics of an immigrant society, or class differences, or something else, or all of them?