Читать книгу Watching the Tree: A Chinese Daughter Reflects on Happiness, Spiritual Beliefs and Universal Wisdom - Adeline Mah Yen - Страница 9

The earliest act of filial piety I ever witnessed involved my father. My grandmother (Nai Nai) was still alive and I must have been about four. A French relative of my stepmother, Niang, had given her a beautiful red and gold tin of expensive imported bonbons. Each chocolate was wrapped in silver foil and studded with bits of crunchy nut. After dinner Niang opened her gift and showed off the tempting sweets. However, she presented a candy to each of the grown-ups only.

As we five stepchildren salivated, she closed the lid with a final snap of her wrist. ‘I’m afraid there isn’t enough to pass around,’ she announced. ‘These chocolates are very special and came from Belgium. They are made with the best eggs, butter, sugar, chocolate and nuts. My brother-in-law had to stand in line for twenty minutes at Kiessling’s to buy them. Now they’re already sold out. I must reserve the rest for your father’s important guests. You children are not to touch them, do you hear? Otherwise your father and I will be very angry.’

We nodded but our eyes lingered longingly on the sparkling box. Big Brother (Gregory), who was Nai Nai’s favourite, ran over to her and begged in a whisper to have a tiny little bite of hers. She could never resist him and even though the chocolate was halfway into her mouth, she bit off a piece and gave it to him. Big Brother then picked up the wrapper and licked it clean.

That night I was awakened from a deep sleep by loud voices from downstairs. I crept out of bed and stood by the banisters to watch. Second Older Brother (Edgar) was cowering between Nai Nai and Father on the landing below and sobbing uncontrollably. He was dressed in pyjamas and his face was covered with blood. From their conversation, I gathered that Second Brother had got up in the middle of the night to help himself to the forbidden sweets. Niang surprised him in the act and summoned Father, who rushed down and caught him trying to escape. In his anger, Father slapped Second Brother so hard that he caused a tear in his scalp with his ring.

Hearing Second Brother’s cries, Nai Nai had tottered down in her small, bound feet to protect him. ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ I heard Nai Nai shout in her quavering voice. ‘How dare you go on beating him when I ordered you to stop?! Just because he took some candy! Look at all the blood! Are you trying to kill him? Why don’t you kill me first?’

There was a short silence. Father hung his head.

‘Don’t you remember the words of Confucius?’ Nai Nai continued. ‘The body and hair and skin are received from your parents and may not be harmed. Here you are, beating your own son almost to death because of a few chocolates. If you didn’t want him to be tempted, why were the sweets shown to him in the first place? When you were growing up, did anyone ever beat you like that?

‘You heard me ordering you to stop as I came down the stairs and you still went on! How dare you! You are an unfilial son to disobey me! Kneel down! Kneel down and apologise! Remember the words of Confucius! Being unfilial is the worst crime!’

Then I saw my father fall slowly to his knees in submission to my grandmother.

For over 2000 years Confucius had a greater influence on China than any other individual. He was a philosopher, not a prophet, and Confucianism was a way of life, not a religion. His word was law and a quote from Confucius ended all arguments. He taught that xiao (translated as ‘filial piety’) was the root of virtue and the origin of culture. A more accurate description of xiao is ‘filial devotion’ or ‘the dominance of elders in the relationship between parents and children’. Morality in China was based on this singularly Confucian concept.

Confucius was born in 551 BC in the state of Lu, which is now the province of Shandong in north-eastern China. His surname was Kung . The name Confucius is a latinised version of ‘Grand Master Kung’ ( Kung Fu Zi). Confucius’ father died three years after his birth and he was brought up by his impoverished mother. Though he was from a noble and educated family, he was without rank and made his living as a book-keeper, working for the government. He was married and had children. The Analects, a book of his sayings written by his disciples, reveals the living Confucius as a fussy and demanding man. When food was mushy or not cooked according to his taste, he refused to eat. When ginger was used to flavour his food, he refused to eat. When rice was spoilt by heat or damp, he refused to eat. When vegetables were not in season, he refused to eat. When meat was not sliced properly or a dish served without its proper sauce, he refused to eat. When wine or shredded meat were purchased ready-made from the market, he refused to eat. Rice could never be white enough and minced meat could never be chopped fine enough. Consequently, according to his students, he did not eat much, and after some years his wife left him.

By all accounts, he was athletic and adept in sports such as archery, hunting, fishing, driving chariots and riding. He had a passionate temperament and described himself as ‘a person who forgets to eat if he is enthusiastic about a project; someone who becomes unaware of worries or the approach of old age when happy.’ Once, after listening to a piece of music, he was so overcome that, for three months, he could not taste meat, saying, ‘I never thought music could be so beautiful.’

During his life China was only nominally united under the royal house of Chou (1122–256 BC). The various states were in effect miniature kingdoms, each with its own ruler, court, bureaucracy and army. The kings fought battles against each other almost as a past-time, while oppressing and mercilessly taxing their subjects to finance their wars.

Distressed by the misery and chaos, Confucius resigned his post and spent the next fifteen years teaching. Gradually, a group of young men gathered around him and became his disciples. He studied the character of each and sought to develop the total man by teaching him how to think and find answers for himself. He conversed with his students and these dialogues were recorded by them in The Analects. Of his followers, more than half were ultimately successful in obtaining government posts in different states.

In his dialogues, whenever Confucius used the word ‘world’, he meant the Chinese world. When he used the term jun zi (ideal person), he meant men and not women. He was a misogynist and treated women as second-class citizens who should stay home and perform household chores. Once he declared that ‘only uneducated women were virtuous’. On another occasion he identified females as ‘little people’ ( xiao ren), suggesting that the two were similar.

At the age of fifty Confucius was given a high post in the government of his native state of Lu, supposedly as the Minister of Justice and Assistant Minister of Public Works. However, it was a ceremonial post without authority and he was unable to put any of his ideas into practice. After four years he resigned in disgust and spent the next thirteen travelling from state to state in search of an enlightened ruler who would appoint him as chief administrator. He was imbued with the belief that he had a ‘heavenly mission’ to carry out political and social reforms. However, no ruler would employ him, and he spent the last five years of his life teaching in his home state of Lu until his death in 479 BC at the age of seventy-three.

Confucius seldom spoke of the supernatural; nor did he seem to worry about the immortality of his soul. However, he did not deny the existence of spirits or the possibility of life after death. When asked directly, he replied, ‘When one does not understand life, how can one understand death?’ Elsewhere he said, ‘Offer sacrifices to the spirits as if the spirits are present … Respect the spirits, but keep them at a distance.’

Confucius advocated a doctrine of practical common sense which attempted to create order and harmony in the society of his era. His sayings stayed close to home and wrestled with human life and human problems. In short, he was not a prophet but China’s first educator and foremost sociologist. Confucianism was welcomed by dynastic rulers throughout China’s long history because it viewed the state as a big family headed by the emperor, who was like a benevolent father, constantly devoted to his people’s welfare. Confucius taught that all territory and all citizens belonged to the sovereign, whose right to rule was given by the Mandate of Heaven. Though the emperor’s power was absolute, he was to rule by moral example and not by force. A ruler who failed to live up to the Mandate of Heaven because of personal amorality and corruption should abdicate in favour of a virtuous man; if necessary he should be overthrown by revolution.

Confucius listed five cardinal relationships in society: between ruler and minister; father and son; husband and wife; older brother and younger brother; friend and friend. Of these, only the relationship between friends is equal.

As a corollary of the five cardinal human relationships, he expounded the doctrine of social status, giving every person his ‘proper place’ in society. The term li may be defined as a combination of etiquette, propriety and correct naming. A person’s name and title denoted a social code, an attitude and a mental background. An emperor must be a true emperor. No emperor deserves to be called an emperor unless he fulfils his function. No father should be called a father unless he acts like one. Reality and function, name and actuality, must correspond. So must action and words. The minister must kowtow in front of his emperor. A son must show respect and gratitude towards his father. Social obligations between people in China necessitate certain codes of behaviour, which in turn provide order and stability.

In the 1940s, during my early childhood, Tianjin was ruled by the Japanese and the French. Although my grandfather loathed these foreigners, he was always respectful and law-abiding towards them. Once he prevented a youthful employee from sticking nails into the tyre of a Japanese army officer’s car. ‘It is Heaven’s will that we are governed by these loathsome creatures,’ he said. ‘We must accept our fate and adapt. When the right time comes, a new ruler will arrive.’ This type of Confucian logic probably explains why an enormous country like China could be dominated by handfuls of westerners for over 100 years. When Japan lost the Second World War, my grandfather treated officials from Chiang Kai-shek’s government with the same obedience. Later on, in Hong Kong, he was equally deferential to the British colonialists.

Another important Chinese term is min fen or ‘duty accorded by name’. In Chinese families, children (or relatives) are not called by their given names but by names corresponding to their place in the family. The oldest son is called Big Brother, the second son Second Brother, and so on. There are separate Chinese words for ‘older brother’ ( ge) and ‘younger brother’ ( di); ‘older sister’ ( jie) and ‘younger sister’ ( mei). The younger brother (or sister) is expected to listen to and obey the older brother (or sister) so that order can be preserved in the family. At home, we younger children called our oldest brother Big Brother ( Da Ge). My oldest sister, who was one year older than Big Brother, called him Da Di (Big Younger Brother). However, when a member of the older generation such as our parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts called him Da Di, the words took on the meaning of ‘oldest son’. This type of nomenclature provided a clear and unequivocal social stratification which defined a person’s status in his family.

I never cared for my sister Lydia. As the oldest of seven children in our family, she was known to us as Da Jie (Big Sister). She was often put in charge and would flaunt her authority. When I was little, she hectored me mercilessly and often beat me.

After a long separation we met each other again. By then, a reversal of fortune had taken place. I was no longer the despised little sister whom she could bully at will but a successful physician practising in America. She, meanwhile, had been stuck in a loveless marriage in Communist China for thirty years. Although I was shocked by her downtrodden appearance and humble demeanour, all the familiar emotions of respect and fear re-emerged as soon as she uttered my childhood name, Wu Mei (Fifth Younger Sister). Suddenly, I reverted to my former status. Respectfully, I called her Da Jie and dutifully agreed to do everything she asked. I did not trust her but was eager to please and felt compelled to help her although I could not understand why. I knew my sister was ruthless but not once did I consider refusing her. Perhaps my mind was so conditioned by Confucian concepts of min fen that I could no longer think for myself.

The word xiao has no true equivalent in the English language. Confucius considered xiao, or filial piety, to be life’s most important virtue and the origin of Chinese culture. In the Classic of Filial Piety he said, ‘The jun zi (ideal person) teaches filial piety so that man may respect all the fathers in the world. He teaches brotherliness so that younger brothers may respect older brothers in the world. He teaches duty to the subject so that subjects will respect all who are rulers in the world.’ Morality and li (etiquette) in the family, he hoped, would be disseminated outside the family to become the foundation for morality and li in general so that people might live together in peace and harmony: ‘Peace in the state begins with order in the family … The people who love and respect their parents would never dare show hatred and disrespect to others.’

As my grandmother told my father that night in Tianjin,

The body and hair and skin are received from the parents and may not be injured: this is the beginning of filial piety. To do the right thing and walk according to the right morals, thus leaving a good name in posterity, in order to glorify one’s ancestors, this is the culmination of filial piety. Filial piety begins with serving one’s parents, leads to serving one’s king and ends in establishing one’s character.

A person could not be good to anyone else unless he was first good to his parents. Family was the bridge between the individual and society. A family should be held together not only by blood, property and shared responsibilities; but also by common ideals such as love of virtue and honour as well as earthly goals such as wealth, success, longevity, many sons and happiness.

My grandfather once showed me a schoolbook from his own childhood in the 1880s. He told me that it had been written during the Song dynasty (960–1271); the same text had been taught to Chinese children for over 750 years. The author had adapted the teachings of Confucius specially for children and mapped out a life plan for them based on filial piety.

When my siblings and I were growing up in China, we younger generation invariably treated our elders with deference. Age was honoured to such a degree that it was not unusual for my grandfather and his generation to add a few years to their chronological age when asked. At Chinese New Year my brothers and I used to kneel before our parents to wish them happiness and longevity. We continued to do so even after our graduation from British universities. This custom was known as bai nian : bai means ‘to worship or do obeisance’; nian means ‘year’.

These rites and rituals reinforced the concept of filial piety so effectively that I don’t remember any of us uttering a single disrespectful remark to our parents’ face. Instead, we were fearful and obedient and our lives were focused on pleasing our unloving parents. We never dared complain, even when unjustly punished. We also accepted blindly what our parents decided for us.

Filial piety dictated that my oldest sister Lydia should remain silent when our parents ordered her to leave school and enter an arranged marriage at the age of seventeen. After graduating from Cambridge University, my brother James was ordered back to Hong Kong to work at Father’s side and did so for a meagre salary even though he was inundated with offers from other firms. Louise Lam was introduced to him by our stepmother as his prospective bride and he dutifully married her. I myself turned down a job as assistant lecturer in the department of medicine at Hong Kong University Medical School to be an intern at a government hospital in order to please my parents.

Confucius thought that religion should exist for the purpose of education and moral cultivation. He did not believe in divination, fortune-telling, or conjectures concerning Heaven and Hell; his approach was much more pragmatic and rational. To him, the tao or Heaven stood for a positive, just force in the universe. It was the source of truth, goodness and moral law. Good and evil deeds would bring their own consequences.

He advised men to direct their own destiny, rather than resorting to a fatalistic reliance on spirits. He promoted ceremonies and rites to worship Heaven, honour the ancestors and commemorate great men. Expressions of respect towards ancestors and great men should not end with their death: ancestor-worship was merely the continuation of a human relationship. Immortality was to be obtained through an individual’s own endeavours, through virtue and wisdom.

In Confucian (as well as Chinese) though, the word tian , translated as ‘Heaven’, means much more than the sky above. Because the word God does not exist in the Chinese language, the term tian encompasses all the following concepts relating to God: supreme being; prime mover; divine light; the tao; ultimate reality and many other synonyms. As with other expressions concerning religion, tian’s interpretation depends on one’s personal convictions. The exact definition of the Chinese word tian became the focal point of the Rites controversy, a bitter quarrel between the Jesuits and other orders of the Catholic Church that began in seventeenth-century China and lasted for nearly two hundred years. It was a metaphysical dispute involving the didactic question of whether the concept of God and Heaven should conform only to that taught by the Catholic Church. Were Chinese rituals of ancestor-worship and the cult of Confucius idolatrous practices or were they social occasions to pay respect to one’s elders? Was the Chinese idea of Heaven (tian) spiritual or material? Did the term tian mean ‘dweller of Heaven’ as well as ‘Heaven’?

My grandfather was very open-minded about religion. He professed himself a Buddhist but often read my father’s copy of the Bible in Chinese. Once he told me there was no contradiction between Confucianism, Buddhism and Christianity. All three preached similar concepts.

‘It’s all a question of viewpoint,’ he said. ‘The Christians believe in Jesus whereas Confucius believed in jun zi (the ideal man). The priests talk of rewards in Heaven after death. Confucius taught us to concentrate on being a good person on earth. Why can’t a person be a Confucian, a Buddhist, a Catholic and a Protestant at the same time? Why does one belief have to exclude another? After all, they all teach the same principles.’

Further comparing the teachings of Jesus to that of Confucius, he continued, ‘The Christian idea of charity is the same as our Confucian concept of jen (benevolent concern for one’s fellow men). Christian charity means love and justice. This is exactly what Confucius meant when he said, “Virtue is to love man and wisdom is to understand man.” Both taught the principle of reciprocity: “Ji suo bu yu, wu shi yu ren” (Do not do to others what you do not wish others to do to you). Both condemned force as a way of life and frowned upon profit or advantage as the only standards of value.

‘Instead of the Ten Commandments, we Chinese try to live by the ethical code contained in the tao and attempt to become an ideal person of noble character with honour and integrity.

‘The Christians believe in life after death, whereas we Chinese Buddhists believe in reincarnation. The main difference seems to be our concept of xiao (filial piety) and our belief that our ancestors’ spirits remain active and exert beneficial influences on our behalf

Confucian beliefs were revolutionary when they were first propounded because jun zi originally meant a member of the social elite – someone who had been born into the aristocracy. But according to Confucius, any man whose conduct and character warranted it might become a jun zi regardless of his ancestry. He emphasised the obligations rather than the rights of individuals. The adoption of the teachings of Confucius during the Han dynasty (202 BC–AD 221) led to the eventual downfall of feudalism in China and the emergence of a more classless society. Every man was given the opportunity to rise in the world through education. Titles and ranks were now determined by ability and not by heredity. Confucius emphasised individual worth; he thought that anyone should be able to become a sage. Nobility was based on merit, not birth. ‘In learning,’ said Confucius, ‘there should be no class distinction.’

He advised kings to hand authority over to their ministers: ‘Kings should reign but not rule.’ The government should be administered by the most talented and capable men in the nation, carefully chosen for their character, education and ability. Ministers should be sincere, incorruptible and rule by moral example. A good government should aim to bring about the well-being and happiness of the people because all men desire happiness. Humanity could only find happiness if the nation existed as a cooperative community of free men.

Confucius believed that force must be made subordinate to the power of justice and used only as a last resort. Soldiers could only fight effectively if they were convinced of the justice of the cause they were fighting for. A soldier’s morale depended on his moral conviction and Confucius advised his students to become not men of the sword but men of moral nobility; not fighters but scholar gentlemen. This is in striking contrast to the Japanese ideal of bushido or the Way of the Warrior, and the samurai notions of fighting to the death, along with a fanatical loyalty to the emperor.

Matteo Ricci, the Italian Jesuit priest who was a missionary in China for twenty years and died in 1610 in Beijing, was awestruck by the ‘scholar-philosophers’ who held power in the China of the Ming dynasty.

The entire kingdom is administered by the Order of the Learned, commonly known as the Philosophers. The responsibility for orderly management of the entire realm is wholly and completely committed to their care. The army, both officers and soldiers, hold them in high respect and show them the promptest obedience and deference, and not infrequently the military are disciplined by them as a schoolboy might be punished by his master … The Philosophers far excel military leaders in the good will and respect of the people and in opportunities of acquiring wealth. What is still more surprising to strangers is that these same Philosophers, as they are called, with respect to nobility of sentiment and in contempt of danger and death, where fidelity to King and country is concerned, surpass even those whose particular profession is the defence of the fatherland.

Besides cultivating the intellect and imparting knowledge, the purpose of education was also to discipline a student’s morals and emotions, as well as to train his character and develop leadership potential. Confucius pointed out the way and asked questions, expecting his disciples to find their own answers. He taught with tireless zeal ( hui ren bu juan) and dreamt of an enlightened citizenry and universal education based on intellectual democracy.

He had a strong sense of history and looked to ancient sages as models. He frequently referred to the past in discussions with his disciples: the study of history, he thought, would show them how moral principles could be extrapolated from historical events. Goodness would lead to happiness, prosperity and peace; whereas evil would invite suffering and chaos.

Perhaps because of the influence of Confucius, history has been taken very seriously in China for the last 2000 years. Great men and events of the past have provided endless fascination and founts of material for the scholars, story-tellers, novelists, dramatists, poets and painters who came later. Since the time of the great historian Si Ma Qian (145–90 BC), who wrote his seminal book Shi Ji (Historical Record) while incarcerated in a prison cell, emperors have employed salaried bureaucrats to record the daily happenings of their reign. These writers were paid to fulfil a function and their writing reflected this. They often concealed evil deeds and whitewashed defeats.

These records were then edited into two versions: a national history of the current dynasty, which of necessity was a list of citations joined by platitudes and cliche-ridden flattery; and a standard history of the previous dynasty, which was more objective and accurate. The Chinese emperors believed that the history of a dynasty should be compiled in its entirety and made public only by the dynasty following it. Lu Qi, a third-century writer and critic, described such historical records as ‘the enclosure of boundless space in a square foot of paper’.

During the Song dynasty the prominent scholar-philosopher Zhu Xi (1130–1200) selected four books from the Confucian Classics to form the basic texts for the imperial civil service examinations. These four books (si shu ) exerted enormous influence in China until the examinations were abolished in 1905.

Under this examination system the process of book-learning acquired astronomical prestige. Every scrap of paper with written words on it was treated with respect.

My grandfather told me that in his youth, large boxes, painted red, were placed at street corners as receptacles for scraps of waste paper covered with writing of any sort. Four gilded characters (jing xi zi zhi – ‘respect and cherish words’) were painted on the boxes. Men with bamboo rods and baskets patrolled the streets to pick up any stray pieces of paper with writing. The contents of the receptacles were gathered together by successful examination candidates at regular intervals and burnt at a special shrine in the Temple of Confucius. Music was played during the ceremony while the scholars prostrated themselves in worship.

Confucian ideals and the emphasis on education became ingrained in the consciousness of the populace. Only through scholarship could a man gain access to power and wealth. Even today, a century after the abrogation of the imperial examinations, their legacy and prestige survive in the imaginations of people influenced by Confucianism (Chinese, Japanese, Korean or otherwise), no matter where they may be in the world. In many Chinese minds, an educated person, no matter how poor, still commands more respect than one who is rich and ignorant.