the Role of Filial Piety in Modern Society

My grandfather recently passed, dying after struggling with three
different cancers for over 30 years...he was quite a remarkable man,
having fought in World War II, Chinese Civil War, and the Korean War,
starting his military career as a 17-year-old anti-Japanese guerrilla
fighter and ending it as a colonel leading his artillery regiment in
the North Korean battlefields. After suffering various wounds that
made continuation of his military impossible, he became a high ranking
administrative official, becoming the dean and headmaster of various
major academic institutions...he certainly was the pride of my
extended family.

With that said, obviously his passing is a big deal around here. That
is especially true for me, his oldest grandson and legitimate heir (of
what, I still am not sure...his legacy of military and administrative
success, I suppose?)...and then here comes the biggest irony of all:
while he was breathing his last breath on the hospital bed, surrounded
by his other family members, I, who is more important to be there
compared to anyone else, was "mysteriously absent" and busy applying
for US citizenship over in San Diego (obviously, we can't tell that to
someone who almost died under American hands in Korea, so he got the
lame and watery "your grandson has some errands he needs to run"
explanation as he died...not exactly satisfying in your last moment)

Yes, I should and I do feel bad about this whole situation, but I am
sort of criticized (not out in the open to preserve family unity but
pretty sure people are talking) for being rather cold-hearted and
careless...well, I guess I should concede that I have been sort of
that (and still is) but really, I think I am at least a bit righteous
in believing that the same standards under similar circumstances these
family members would apply to themselves, their peers, or even my
peers who grew up in China should be much less applicable for a person
of my life experience and different background.

It is as they always say about Chinese kids who grew up in the US and
other Western countries: these guys are independent (thats the word
they use when they are nice, they use "selfish" when they are angry)
and are always decisively choosing what they want to do without much
consideration of their families (of course, like any other sweeping
generalizations about people, such characterization is but a simple
stereotype and I can certainly find enough examples of
Chinese-Americans who are oppose of these...but I suppose the comment
applies to myself rather well...)

I really get angry when I hear about these sort of things in the
context of things like my grandfather passing. What should I do to
show that I am not selfish and I love my family? Cry in front of his
grave for a few days?! Wear black and not eat meet for a month?! Put
everything I do on hold for a long long time so that I can show love
for my grandfather? Yeah, historically, people quit their jobs and
watched over their father's or grandfather's grave for a year (there
is actually a tradition like that in China)

Of course from an economic sense people can't be expected to do
something like that anymore, but still, right now I am being pressured
to stay for two weeks with my grandmother because "I have nothing
better to do anyways"...right, as if I am really excited to stay with
my grandmother and listen to her tell stories about grandpa for that
long (all the while suffering the non-verbal criticism from the other
family members...looks like I am really giving all Chinese kids who
grew up in America a bad name around here...) I really don't think I
can tolerate more than three days, a notion that my parents sure
aren't finding to be amusing in any way...

To make matters worse, recently my mother seems to be suspecting my
father of adultery with a cousin of his (yeah, sounds real legit,
right?) and expects me to openly criticize the cousin while covertly
try to pull father back into the "embrace of the family"...this is
coming from a family who whose four immediate members have practically
always lived in three different places (sometimes three different
countries) for the past four years...

Given such a reality, my mother's "family unity above anything else"
mentality is quite ridiculous (ok, there sort of is an economic
explanation: she doesn't want to live in the US anymore after my
brother goes off to college, but she won't be able to find a job in
China then, so she needs my father to stay a loyal financier for her
retirement life)...

As for me, it certainly sucks that the family unity is broken, but I
really don't care what my grandmother's sad stories are and who my
father sleeps with, thats their personal private businesses and they
are better kept to themselves. Intrusions from immediate family
members, even with "family love and compassion" (my mother started
using this term recently, sounds incredibly stupid coming from a
mutually agreed long-distance family) will only serve to draw out the
defensive mechanisms in others and worsen the situations at hand.

But no matter how many times I explain, my mother seems to not
understand this concept of "picking at the scab of a deep wound"...for
her traditional mind, any lack of transparency within a family is
considered unacceptable and the transparency needs to be aggressively
enforced through verbal coercion and what not...she seems to forget
that being a part of a family does not make the individual less of an
individual in anyway. Humans are social animals, but are also private
animals with needs for personal space even in intimate environments.

And growing up in the Western society, where privacy and personal
space are much more valued, has made we, the Chinese Americans, more
unlikely to intrude on the affairs and feelings of family members for
fear of evoking undesirable emotional responses. At times, some
people and their affairs should be left alone for they themselves to
sort out. Sure, the family is here to help if they would like the
family to do so, but the family has no right to encroach the personal
space of an individual just because he or she is a family member and
seems un-family-like in some behaviors.

But, as some people ask me, would living in a country like Japan,
where traditional Confucian values like filial piety seems to be much
more protected than anti-"feudal" communist China, makes a Chinese kid
more filial over time?

The answer is a definite no. The reason is two-fold. First,
capitalism is fundamentally incompatible with such Confucian thought
because Confucianism developed in times of war and instability when
normal economic transactions and communications/migration of human
beings cannot be conducted without great difficulty. The modern
capitalist society in peace and development does not need the
protective nature of united family, instead, it often requires
entrepreneurial spirit and risk-taking as well as hard work and
distant social networking, actions in which perhaps the first and
biggest sacrifice is the family. The family can only be hindrances to
economic success, and the low marriage rate and birthrate in Japan is
a genuine attestation to just how insignificant family is in a modern
society.

And second, for the young immigrant in a foreign country, the
functional value of the family declines to practically zero. As we
understand in the Confucian viewpoint, the older members of the family
pass down knowledge and experience that helps the younger ones survive
in society. Yet, in a foreign society (and in societies where rapid
development completely transforms society economically and
socio-culturally, such as China), the youth often has better grip of
the reality and the deep knowledge of the elders becomes completely
useless as they cannot adapt their experiences to changed
environments.

Yet, even as the elders' knowledge become incompatible with reality,
they seem to not realize (or refuse to realize) that their decades of
life experiences can be useless to their immediate descendants. They
choose to continue lecturing their sons and grandsons on things that
the youth like us definitely have better understandings of, inciting
rebelliousness of the youth in front their condescending elders...

Basically, the different generations have to understand the
fundamental differences in their different worlds, and allow each to
live within his or her own without unnecessary intrusions on the
others. Even if the family members are of the same generations, their
differing experiences means that excessive communications can often be
counter-productive as they are really not on the same page with regard
to many issues...no, family is not bound by communication or passing
down of knowledge but simply blood relations and mutual benefits. The
best way to care about your family members is simply let to have their
independent ways as much as they wish.