Performing Filial Piety in Northern Song China

Performing Filial Piety in Northern Song China PDF Author: Cong Ellen Zhang
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 082488440X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Educated men in Song-dynasty China (960–1279) traveled frequently in search of scholarly and bureaucratic success. These extensive periods of physical mobility took them away from their families, homes, and native places for long periods of time, preventing them from fulfilling their most sacred domestic duty: filial piety to their parents. In this deeply grounded work, Cong Ellen Zhang locates the tension between worldly ambition and family duty at the heart of elite social and cultural life. Drawing on more than two thousand funerary biographies and other official and private writing, Zhang argues that the predicament in which Song literati found themselves diminished neither the importance of filial piety nor the appeal of participating in examinations and government service. On the contrary, the Northern Song witnessed unprecedented literati activity and state involvement in the bolstering of ancient forms of filial performances and the promotion of new ones. The result was the triumph of a new filial ideal: luyang. By labeling highly coveted honors and privileges attainable solely through scholarly and official accomplishments as the most celebrated filial acts, the luyang rhetoric elevated office-holding men to be the most filial of sons. Consequently, the proper performance of filiality became essential to scholar-official identity and self-representation. Zhang convincingly demonstrates that this reconfiguration of elite male filiality transformed filial piety into a status- and gender-based virtue, a change that had wide implications for elite family life and relationships in the Northern Song. The separation of elite men from their parents and homes also made the idea of “native place” increasingly fluid. This development in turn generated an interest in family preservation as filial performance. Individually initiated, kinship- and native place-based projects flourished and coalesced with the moral and cultural visions of leading scholar-intellectuals, providing the social and familial foundations for the ascendancy of Neo-Confucianism as well as new cultural norms that transformed Chinese society in the Song and beyond.

Performing Filial Piety in Northern Song China

Performing Filial Piety in Northern Song China PDF Author: Cong Ellen Zhang
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 082488440X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book

Book Description
Educated men in Song-dynasty China (960–1279) traveled frequently in search of scholarly and bureaucratic success. These extensive periods of physical mobility took them away from their families, homes, and native places for long periods of time, preventing them from fulfilling their most sacred domestic duty: filial piety to their parents. In this deeply grounded work, Cong Ellen Zhang locates the tension between worldly ambition and family duty at the heart of elite social and cultural life. Drawing on more than two thousand funerary biographies and other official and private writing, Zhang argues that the predicament in which Song literati found themselves diminished neither the importance of filial piety nor the appeal of participating in examinations and government service. On the contrary, the Northern Song witnessed unprecedented literati activity and state involvement in the bolstering of ancient forms of filial performances and the promotion of new ones. The result was the triumph of a new filial ideal: luyang. By labeling highly coveted honors and privileges attainable solely through scholarly and official accomplishments as the most celebrated filial acts, the luyang rhetoric elevated office-holding men to be the most filial of sons. Consequently, the proper performance of filiality became essential to scholar-official identity and self-representation. Zhang convincingly demonstrates that this reconfiguration of elite male filiality transformed filial piety into a status- and gender-based virtue, a change that had wide implications for elite family life and relationships in the Northern Song. The separation of elite men from their parents and homes also made the idea of “native place” increasingly fluid. This development in turn generated an interest in family preservation as filial performance. Individually initiated, kinship- and native place-based projects flourished and coalesced with the moral and cultural visions of leading scholar-intellectuals, providing the social and familial foundations for the ascendancy of Neo-Confucianism as well as new cultural norms that transformed Chinese society in the Song and beyond.

Beyond Filial Piety

Beyond Filial Piety PDF Author: Jeanne Shea
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1789207894
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
Known for a tradition of Confucian filial piety, East Asian societies have some of the oldest and most rapidly aging populations on earth. Today these societies are experiencing unprecedented social challenges to the filial tradition of adult children caring for aging parents at home. Marshalling mixed methods data, this volume explores the complexities of aging and caregiving in contemporary East Asia. Questioning romantic visions of a senior’s paradise, chapters examine emerging cultural meanings of and social responses to population aging, including caregiving both for and by the elderly. Themes include traditional ideals versus contemporary realities, the role of the state, patterns of familial and non-familial care, social stratification, and intersections of caregiving and death. Drawing on ethnographic, demographic, policy, archival, and media data, the authors trace both common patterns and diverging trends across China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, and Korea.

Personal Salvation and Filial Piety

Personal Salvation and Filial Piety PDF Author:
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824863933
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was a handsome prince when he entered China. As Guanyin, the bodhisattva was venerated from the eleventh century onward in the shape of a beautiful woman who became a universal savior. Throughout the last millennium, the female Guanyin has enjoyed wide and fervid veneration throughout East Asia and has appeared as a major character in literature and legend. In one tale, Guanyin (as the princess Miaoshan) returns from the dead after being executed by the king, her father, for refusing to marry. The most popular version of this legend is The Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain (Xiangshan baojuan), a long narrative in prose and verse and a work of considerable literary merit. It emphasizes the conflict between father and daughter, in the course of which all conventional arguments against a religious lifestyle are paraded and rebutted. A lengthy description of Guanyin’s visit to the underworld, which focuses on the conflict between grace and justice, is also included. Personal Salvation and Filial Piety offers a complete and fully annotated translation of The Precious Scroll, based on a nineteenth-century edition. The translation is preceded by a substantial introduction that discusses the origin of the text and the genre to which it belongs and highlights the similarities and differences between the scroll and female saints’ lives from medieval Europe. There follows a translation of the much-shorter Precious Scroll of Good-in-Talent and Dragon Daughter, which provides a humorous account of how Guanyin acquired the three acolytes—Sudhana, Nagakanya, and a white parrot—who are often shown surrounding her in popular prints. As the first English-language translation of major "precious scrolls," Personal Salvation and Filial Piety will appeal to a wide range of readers—from scholars of Chinese literature to students of Buddhism. Beyond the field of East Asian studies, it will interest specialists in comparative religion and literature and feminist theologians. Because of its lively and moving narratives, the text is suitable for courses on popular Buddhist religiosity (particularly female religiosity) in Chinese society.

Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History

Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History PDF Author: Alan Chan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134328133
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
The phenomenon of filial piety is fundamental to our understanding of Chinese culture, and this excellent collection of essays explores its role in various areas of life throughout history. Often regarded as the key to preserving Chinese tradition and identity, its potentially vast impact on government and the development of Chinese culture makes it extremely relevant, and although invariably virtuous in its promotion of social cohesion, its ideas are often controversial. A broad range of topics are discussed chronologically including Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism, making it essential reading for those studying Chinese culture, religion and philosophy. This is a multi-disciplinary survey that combines historical studies with philosophical analysis from an international team of respected contributors.

Filial Piety

Filial Piety PDF Author: Charlotte Ikels
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804747911
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
How have rapid industrial development and the aging of the population affected the expression of filial piety in East Asia? Eleven experienced fieldworkers take a fresh look at an old idea, analyzing contemporary behavior, not norms, among both rural and urban families in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Each chapter presents rich ethnographic data on how filial piety shapes the decisions and daily lives of adult children and their elderly parents. The authors’ ability to speak the local languages and their long-term, direct contact with the villagers and city dwellers they studied lend an immediacy and authenticity lacking in more abstract treatments of the topic. This book is an ideal text for social science and humanities courses on East Asia because it focuses on shared cultural practices while analyzing the ways these practices vary with local circumstances of history, economics, social organization, and demography and with personal circumstances of income, gender, and family configuration.

Xiaojing The Classic of Filial Piety

Xiaojing The Classic of Filial Piety PDF Author: Confucius
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description
"For teaching the people to be affectionate and loving, there is nothing better than filial piety" Traditionally attributed to Confucius, "The Classic on Filial Piety" is a text focusing on social relationships, especially that between father and son. Divided into 18 paragraphs, the Xiaojing gives concrete instructions for the display of filial piety. The concept of Xiao is presented not only as a way of life for individuals, but also as a way of ordering the entire society.

Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History

Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History PDF Author: Alan Chan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134328125
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
The phenomenon of filial piety is fundamental to our understanding of Chinese culture, and this excellent collection of essays explores its role in various areas of life throughout history. Often regarded as the key to preserving Chinese tradition and identity, its potentially vast impact on government and the development of Chinese culture makes it extremely relevant, and although invariably virtuous in its promotion of social cohesion, its ideas are often controversial. A broad range of topics are discussed chronologically including Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism, making it essential reading for those studying Chinese culture, religion and philosophy. This is a multi-disciplinary survey that combines historical studies with philosophical analysis from an international team of respected contributors.

Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History

Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History PDF Author: Alan Kam-leung Chan
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415333658
Category : Conduct of life
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
The phenomenon of filial piety is fundamental to our understanding of Chinese culture. An international team of contributors provides an excellent collection of essays that explore its role in various areas of life throughout history.

Li Kung-lin's Classic of Filial Piety

Li Kung-lin's Classic of Filial Piety PDF Author: Richard M. Barnhart
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 0870996797
Category : Scrolls, Chinese
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
The subject is a 15.5-foot handscroll painted by Li Kung-lin, the preeminent figure painter of 11th-century China, illustrating a work that dates to between 350 and 200 B.C.--a dialog between Confucius and a disciple on the meaning and application of filial piety in the affairs of the individual and of the state. Barnhart's (art history, Yale) elucidation is accompanied by contributed chapters on the calligraphy of the work and on the conservation and remounting of the scroll. Generously illustrated. 9.25x12.25" Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Classic of Filial Piety (2013 Edition - EPUB)

The Classic of Filial Piety (2013 Edition - EPUB) PDF Author: Asiapac Editorial
Publisher: Asiapac Books Pte Ltd
ISBN: 9812296735
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
The Xiao Jing or Classic of Filial Piety is a Confucian classic treatise giving advice on filial piety. It teaches how one should behave towards a senior such as parents, elder brother or ruler. The text consists of a dialogue between Confucius and his disciple Zeng Zi, and whose students probably compiled the treatise around 400 BC. It has become associated with the Confucian school of philosophy which became the ideology of imperial China and its neighbours such as Korea, Vietnam and Japan. It is unique in being probably the world's first text devoted to filial piety. The family unit has long been regarded as the foundation of society in China and filial piety is seen as being especially important to social order and national stability. To make the text relevant to readers of today, this book includes representative stories from not only China, the traditional bastion of filial piety, but also other cultures around the world. In this way, readers will appreciate filial behaviour as a universal value.