Chapter 6 family of six chinese

Mr. Zhu has sixteen family members, plus three male servants and four female servants, so it is conceivable that he occupies a high position.In such a large family, seven servants are quite simple, and it is not uncommon for four maids to serve a wife, a concubine, and four or five grandchildren.As the head of the family, Mr. Zhu is responsible for every member of the family.Even if he is very reluctant to take on these responsibilities, he has to take them.This is the Chinese way of life. The Chinese family system is rooted in Chinese society.The system was formed from the idea that men do not live alone but in groups, that the first lesson a man must learn is to learn to get along with men, and that the last The natural place is at home.So the home is the top priority and everything is seen from the perspective of the family.If a person is prosperous, the whole family will benefit from it and develop; if a person has no job, his family will help him.

Like a large tree, the branches of the tree form the common shade.Some branches die, others grow again, so the tree will live forever.If there are three brothers, and one of them dies and has no children, the incense can be continued by adopting a brother's child as the deceased's child. In the Chinese saying, it is "continuing the incense". Son's brother's tombstone. In addition to Mr Chu's immediate family, he is also responsible for several other members of his family who today live with and depend on him.Among them were two widowed aunts, an uncle who did not have a job, and two or three cousins ​​of the same race who needed him to support their education.

In China, after the death of the father, the brothers sometimes divide up the family property, and usually do not divide the family.There is often the notion, but if absent or disputed, that surviving parental relatives are still considered beneficiaries of the property.But like it or not, an uncle without a job is entitled to help. Mr. Zhu's grandfather didn't like the idea of ​​dividing the family, or dividing up the family property among the brothers.So it is true.Even if one of the widowed aunts has enough money to support herself, she has the right to live under the roof of the offspring.Another widowed aunt had adopted a child for a second uncle because the second uncle had no children.The idea is not important, but the continuation of the blood of a family is the most important.Now, when the second uncle passes away, he will continue to have a son to continue the "incense".Of course, the whole family has to support this aunt.

In Chinese society, the family is a kind of social insurance.People in need get help at home.Usually it is not too difficult for a family to provide assistance, if all assistance is a bed or a dining table, then a bed is just a place to sleep, a dining table just means "one more bowl and another pair The chopsticks are on the table". This proverb comes from the Chinese tradition of sharing food with everyone at the dinner table.Same for anyone, no special service.An ordinary banquet has three or four dishes, a bowl of soup, and all the dongbai are placed in the center of the table.This is not an extra meal for a surprise guest.The staple food of the Chinese diet is rice (noodles and steamed buns are common in the north), and meat and vegetables are just "rice".If there is only one more person, you can tell by looking at it. There are fewer ordinary dishes on the table, and you can just fill your stomach with rice.

Chinese cooking is customary to cook meat and vegetables in a variety of ways - cooking is a great art in itself - and most dishes are affordable.Cooking vegetables and meat together can cook more tricks, and vegetables can cook more tricks together.Anyway, there are all kinds of dishes in Chinese diet.It is possible to order a very decent feast without a lot of expensive meat.At the same time, the dishes in this menu are rich in nutrition. But material help is not the most important part of Chinese family life, family honor is its backbone.This is an important part of Confucianism, one of the three major schools of philosophy in China.In the teachings of Confucianism and in real life, the only direction of a person's behavior is to protect the honor of the family, at least not to despise the family.A boy who steals from his neighbor invites social disdain for the family, an event that demonstrates the family's lack of "bringing."If a man is rude or has no manners, it is also a sign of a bad parenting, and society blames him less than society blames his parents, because the parents did not teach him this at home, and the responsibility is on the parents.According to Confucian teachings, being a good son is the "first virtue".If a man brings honor to his family by passing a state exam, he is forgiven many past sins.When two young scientists of Chinese descent won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957, the mother of one of the scientists was lavishly congratulated at her home in Florence because she had taught her son well.

This sense of family honor as a goal in life sometimes goes to the point of sparing no effort.In an extreme example, a Chinese living far away from his hometown in Singapore, 1,000 miles from mainland China, willingly paid off his dying brother's debts in order to preserve the family's honor, even though he was not legally obliged to pay the debts.Sometimes family responsibilities go to the other extreme.Once upon a time in my hometown, a criminal was executed for murder, and his mother was whipped at the end, just because his mother did not educate him well when he was a child. So when a mother spanks a child, everyone understands.Everyone understood that she was carving a piece of rotten wood until one day he could stand on his own.Children also understand this truth.When he grows up, at least he can tell which things are right and which things are wrong.

Family worship is a symbol of the integrity of the Chinese family.There are many ancestral halls in cities and villages, and wealthy families have separate ancestral halls, just as in European castles, nobles also have private chapels.There are no images on the tablets of the ancestors, and the names of the ancestors are engraved on pieces of wood that have been repaired to look like large squares. They are placed in rows in the center of the altar and incense sticks.On anniversaries or the first day of the New Year, or any significant occasion, such as a family member being promoted to a high-ranking government official, incense and candles are burned, offerings are placed on the altar, and children and grandchildren kneel in front of the tablet to pray for blessings.This day is also a day to remind future generations to give thanks to their ancestors.

In everyday life, the habit of thinking of things in terms of the family can be seen in many ways.A man's wife was called a "daughter-in-law"—"Has your son married a wife?"—because the bride was chosen by the head of the family.Therefore, a person attending a wedding is to see a man marry a "new daughter-in-law". What the bride gives birth to is not a "child" but a "grandson". Compared with Western family members, China's is more complicated.There are various titles, depending on whether she is the older brother's wife, the younger brother's wife, or the wife's sister.Aunt, uncle and cousin are also called in the same way.Thus, a father's sister is

"Gu", a mother's sister is "aunt", an uncle's wife is "aunt", and so on. A natural result of the Chinese family system is: respect for the elderly, respect for the elders.In the United States, a family usually consists of a couple and their children, and in many parts of China and Europe, family members also include grandparents. In such a unified pattern of life, there is inner beauty.Parents take care of the children when they are young, and they take care of their older parents when they grow up.Life is so round.When you are a helpless baby, the young mother takes care of you; when she is old and unable to live, you take care of your mother.In the eyes of the Chinese, this is a matter of course.

In ancient times women did not take part in public life.Today Chinese women can be seen everywhere working in government departments, banks and commercial buildings.As in the United States, women are rarely in high office.However, unprecedented emphasis has been placed on the status of women in the family in ancient Chinese traditions.Once one realizes the importance of family in China, one can understand how important and honored that role is.Even if the son is the prime minister, he has to shut up immediately when his mother speaks, and even kneels down to apologize if he makes a big mistake.

There is such a description in the greatest Chinese novel, and all the women in the novel are so great and charming.Men don't know much about how to manage household chores, and if they do, it always looks a little funny.When husbands and fathers talk about family matters, all they can do is be assertive, which of course is hilarious.No Chinese would say that women have no wisdom. To educate a girl in ancient China was to raise a lady to excel in feminine arts, including needlework, cooking, literature, art, and music, just as in eighteenth-century Europe.Foot-binding is a pernicious consequence of excessive femininity.Because its essence is the result of gender pursuit.Women desire to have a pair of small feet, the smaller the better.So mothers expected and hoped for a pair of proud little feet, and adults began to bind girls' feet when they were very young, so as not to let the feet grow naturally.In ancient China, bound feet were considered beautiful.In addition, they completely changed the walking gait and women's manners, just like the effect of women wearing high heels.Now women seldom have their feet bound, but even if the custom continues, women with small feet have nothing to be proud of. The concubinage system provided a solution to the problem of older marriages.In the West, the breakdown of a marriage is resolved through divorce.In China, the husband settles by taking a concubine, usually a girl from a remote place or a place of entertainment.Legally, the status of the wife is higher than that of the concubine, the wife has the status of headman and mother, and the children of the concubine are legal and treated equally with the children of the wife.According to Chinese law and tradition, a husband has the right to take a second wife—a concubine—if his wife is infertile by the time he is forty. Divorce also occurs in China, but it is extremely rare.If the daughter-in-law mistreats the in-laws, or starves them, or discriminates against them, the husband can confidently obtain a divorce judgment in the yamen.Parents are always more important than Liao in Chinese families.According to Chinese law, after a husband becomes rich, he is not allowed to divorce his wife who has shared hardships.There is a Chinese proverb that says, "A wife of dross will never go to court", even if you become successful. Ancestor worship and the idea of ​​the family as the foundation of society became part of Confucian teachings.Of course, compared with family moral education, the content of Confucianism is more extensive.But family morality is an important part of it, and it is the basis for cultivating other social virtues.Confucius did not create or create ancestor worship, the concept had been formed seven hundred years before him.