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Filial piety via WeChat can help but not replace personal visits to parents
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DO you often chat with your parents while you work away from your hometown? If not, do it from now on.
That’s the message in a commentary published by People’s Daily (online edition) on Tuesday, urging young people not to forget their duty of filial piety. “Don’t just focus on your own work. Be more patient and pious when you chat with your parents,” said the signed commentary, written at a time when young people increasingly abandon their rural hometowns to make a living in cities.
In fact, lack of communication with parents defines not only rural migrants into cities, but also many other people who leave their hometowns to work and settle elsewhere.
“If you cannot go home frequently to see your parents, you may try to teach them to use online chatting software,” People’s Daily suggested. “China has around 600 million netizens, but many old people cannot keep up with the new technology. So when you enjoy the convenience of modern technology, don’t forget to teach your parents.”
For many years, I was one of those people who failed to use the Internet or other video chatting gadgets to communicate with my parents. I just made a phone call now and then. After my mother passed away last month, my sister, who now takes care of our 87-year-old father, asked me to buy a video-chat device so that my wife and I could talk from Shanghai with my father in Yangzhou, around 300 kilometers away in Jiangsu Province.
Last Friday night in Shanghai, I used a new iPad with a video app to talk with my father for nearly an hour. He felt much uplifted from his sorrowful memories of my mother’s passing.
The next day, my father sat at the computer at my sister’s home and asked: “Who will chat with me today?” He was hoping to communicate with me, my brother, my niece or my nephew, all living away from Yangzhou. Unfortunately, none of us was available that day.
On Sunday, my wife “broadcast” live my playing guqin and practicing calligraphy for my father at the other end of the Internet. He was very glad to see that I played and wrote well.
And on Tuesday afternoon, as I was writing this article, my sister sent my wife and me several video clips of my father practicing calligraphy — to my great surprise. I saw a smiling father writing very beautiful Chinese characters with a brush, although he had never practiced calligraphy before.
Effective chatting
It is said that practicing calligraphy is a recipe for longevity because it combines the movements of body and mind. It is our hope that our father will practice calligraphy together with us so that he will not be immersed in endless sorrow. And it seems he has heeded our suggestion through online video chatting.
It’s my belief that only a person of filial piety can be trusted as a friend or partner.
In ancient China, when a parent or parents died, children were required to suspend their work and return to their parents’ home to mourn for three years. This was even required of a prime minister, unless the emperor decided otherwise.
I would be grateful if Chinese law today would allow me three years’ absence form work so I could care for my frail father. Now, instead of three years, it’s three days off for anyone who has lost one or both parents.
Filial piety is not something to be bargained over or compromised. It should not be sacrificed for the elusive modern concept of efficiency. Video talk is fine, but in cases of bereavement, Confucius said three years of sincere mourning was the minimum for a truly pious person.
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