Southeast Flies the Peacock: Conflict between Happiness and Social Norms
In traditional Chinese society Confucian beliefs were viewed as social "norms" that governed the social acceptability of a person 's conduct. A key component of Confucianism is the "Doctrine of the Mean", which is a set of principles that a person must abide by in order to be considered virtuous. The first principle states that a young woman should not express her love and should be quiet both physically and mentally. The second principle states that a person should not be excessive in expressing their emotions, and that one should be especially mindful of expressing too much happiness or sadness. The "Doctrine of the Mean" starkly contrasts the new "Doctrine of the Heart" which states that a person must be free to express themselves, as it is their emotions and feelings that make a person unique. In Yuan Changying 's Southeast Flies the Peacock the conflict created within a family is illustrated when the traditional "Doctrine of the Mean" is not upheld due to a younger generations desire for freedom to express their emotions.
The first instance of conflict occurs when Mother Jiao finds a sash embroidered with a pair of mandarin ducks that Zhong 's fiancée Lan hid in the robes. Mother Jiao is quite critical of the embroidery stating: "Her embroidery isn 't bad, but her theme isn 't very tasteful." (Yuan 222) Mother Jiao does not care for Lan 's embroidery because mandarin ducks are love birds that are paired for life, by her future daughter-in-law embroidering the ducks she is indirectly expressing her love thus breaking the first principle of the "Doctrine of the Mean". The embroidery theme causes Mother Jiao to suspect her future daughter-in-law ...
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...re always based on your own personal views of that particular situation. If a mother believes that her children, particularly her daughter-in-law are not acting properly towards her and respecting her as she and society expects them to, then that will cause a mother to feel like she has been wronged and betrayed by them.
Throughout Southeast Flies the Peacocks we have observed how traditional Chinese beliefs revolve around human relationships. Despite Mother Jiao 's good intentions for her son she ends up making him feel isolated and unhappy. While Zhong and Lan would have been viewed as egotistical unfilial children just by wanting to be together simply because they did not focus on familial or societal duties. In the end we see that following your feelings or expressing your emotions would most likely leave you unable to fulfill your duties as a filial child.
Before her first words she is already considered a disappointment, “a girl child is Mo Yung- useless” (32). From the time she is born, her grandmother, “the old one” (choy), relentlessly tells her how the world will treat her as a girl. She explains to Jook-Liang, ‘“If you want a place in this world… ‘do not be born a girl child’”(31). She is cast aside before she is given a chance and is never given the same opportunities as her brothers. Instead she is forced to help take care of her little brother (insert quote). The excitement surrounding a baby is always extreme, and it doubles in Chinese culture when that baby is a boy. When her little brother is born, she is truly considered to be nothing in the family. “ I recalled how Sekky had received twice the number of jade and gold bracelets that I had got as a baby, and how everyone at the baby banquet toasted his arrival and how only the woman noticed me in my new dress, and then only for a few minutes to compare Poh Poh and step mother’s embroidery”(32). She is a ghost in her own family, and treated as nothing from the moment she is born. It is because of her gender that she is looked upon as a burden and never given the same opportunities as her brothers so that she may excel in life. Through the shadowed life of Jook Liang one can see how gender roles are enforced by cultural
Specifically, in the book of Ritual and the Moral Life, Xianglong Zhang, Ph.D. at Chinese Academy Of Sciences , notes that "western philosophers, such as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and feminists... neglect the idea of filial piety as a family love." (108) Accordingly, this explanation clearly points out the powerful meaning of the parent-child-relationship in Asian culture including Vietnam. Therefore, children must have this awareness since they were a child, and execute the filial duties when growing up. Because of the powerful meaning of hieu thao, the Vietnamese children who love others while not loving their parents will be criticized for being bat hieu
Yan Zhitui states that, "women take charge of family affairs, entering into lawsuits, straightening out disagreements, and paying calls to seek favor...the government offices are filled with their fancy silks." (Differences between north and south, 111). Yet, even in the Qing dynasty women were still restricted by and expected to uphold more traditional ideals, especially in the public eye. So, in the end, through her virtue, Hsi-Liu’s two children we able to become upright. Here, there is a split between what a woman is supposed to be according to old Chinese tradition, and the realities facing women in Tancheng. The loss of her husband, and economic hardship had forced His-Liu to behave in a different way, as if she were usurping the power from the eldest son so she could teach the two boys a lesson about being good family members. While she still maintains the ideals of bearing children, and being loyal to her husband, even after he dies, out of necessity she is forced to break from Confucian ideals of being only concerned with the domestic issues. This too put her at odds with the more traditional society around her, as the villagers pitied her sons, but vilified the Hsi-Liu for being so strict with them (Woman Wang, 65). Had she remarried, she would have been looked down upon even more because she would had broken her duty to remain faithful to her deceased
Confucius believed that proper behavior within all types of relationships was dictated by a hierarchy that should be honored and preserved in order to maintain harmony within oneself and the rest of society (Bulliet 86). Zhao respected and supported these ideas in her own writings as she regularly makes reference to the notion that relationships between married men and women should be guided by the principles of yin and yang. According to Zhao, “as Yin and Yang are not of the same nature, so man and woman have different characteristics”, hence while the yang is firm and strong, the yin must be flexible and gentle (Zhao). Her advice to her daughters and the rest of her female audience was meant to help them avoid the shame that came with breaking the rules of society and promote a happy, harmonious lifestyle. To Zhao and most others, the inequality that existed between men and women was an inherent and necessary quality of traditional Chinese life. The historical context in which Zhao lived gives sufficient information to understand her position and motivations in Lessons for a Woman, nonetheless, her views on education add a unique dimension to her
The Confucian method of directing the challenging demands and characters we play in a community is to make equilibrium between them and “find the single gentle
To begin, Confucianism is a system of philosophical and ethical teachings founded by Confucius. Confucianism was the code of ethics accepted as the certified religion of most of the immense empires in the territory since the Han Dynasty. Confucianism provided an outline of ethical and religious beliefs that most of the Chinese expanded to make other religions such as Daoism and Legalism. To expand, Confucianism was founded by Confucius and his beliefs on the political and social order of China. Confucius believed that everything would fall into place if children had respect for their parents and if the rulers were honest. In Confucianism, specific roles were followed by each person in the family. The head of the family, the father, was the one primarily in control and then it was the oldest son that was next in line. Confucius had the belief that a ruler has to be everything he wants
Many people react against the values of their culture. This can many cause conflicts in someone’s culture. The realistic fiction novel, Homeless Bird, by Gloria Whelan, and the autobiography, Chinese Cinderella, by Adeline Yen Mah, display many cultural conflicts. Homeless Bird was about an Indian girl named Koly. Koly had many conflicts due to her Indian culture such as having an arranged marriage, and being left in the city. Chinese Cinderella was about a Chinese girl named Adeline. Adeline suffers from many conflicts because of her Chinese culture including, being neglected by her parents, and being left in a boarding school. A person’s cultural background can cause many conflicts within a person.
Li Yu's Male Mencius's Mother epitomizes the normalization of homosexuality through the characters' strict adherence to Confucian gender norms. While initially a condemnation of homosexuality citing the rebelliousness towards the divine design of heterosexuality and the complementary nature of male and female, the story instead romanticizes the self-sacrifice and devotion of the homosexual relationship of two men. The presentation of the homosexual relationship is designed to maximize the acceptance of homosexuality through the application of heterosexual components, such as the definition of a "male" and "female" to Jifang and Ruilang respectively. Jifang establishes his dominance as "male" through his taking of a wife and fathering a child, while Ruilang accepts his "female" definition through the physical transformation of castration and psychological transformation into the Confucian chaste wife and dutiful mother.
Confucianism is a philosophy and way of life formed in China by Confucius, an early Chinese philosopher. It began as a simple concept with ideals of personal virtue, simple filial piety, and basic gender distinctions and social inequalities. But, over time with the emergence of Neo-Confucianism it began to transform into a way of life that was degrading towards women with certain hostilities towards rivaling religions. In its early period, from around 500 B.C.E to the Common Era, Confucianism changed in that it became the leading belief system and a major part of Chinese tradition. From the transition into the Common Era to the end of the Classical time period, Confucianism was altered because of a loss of popularity following the collapse of the Han dynasty and the corruption in the governing political system. In its ending period, the post-classical era, Confucianism underwent perhaps its biggest adjustments with the emergence of Neo-Confucianism. The ideas and virtues presented in the “rebirth of Confucian philosophies” of intolerance of foreign religions and extreme filial piety...
Patricia Ebrey has mentioned to the audience that in the very early times in China Society, the roles of men has been pointed as a patriarchy in a family. Women in early times in Chinese seemed to be a trouble in men’s eyes. The author also said that a basis of a family begins from a birth of son, and not the birth of a daughter. She also points out an interesting view that women are yin and men is yang. Throughout Ebrey explanation that yin will never control yang. In my thought, it will be soon a time for the old family structure to be disappeared in modern society as in today. The precursors to whom a Shang or Zhou tradition lord made penances were his patrilineal predecessors, that is, his predecessors connected only through men such as
The teachings according to Confucius refer to Confucianism. Confucianism is the multifarious classification of ethical, collective, political and pious philosophy developed by Confucius and the old Chinese practices (Bertrand, 1999). Confucianism aim is actually making an individual honorable but also making such an individual the character of learning and of proper manners. The ideal and faultless man has to combine the characters of a saint, an intellectual and gentleman. Confucianism is a religious conviction whose adulation is focused on offerings to the dead. The idea of responsibility is extensive beyond the precincts of morals and holds close to the minutiae of daily living.
Throughout Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club, the reader can see the difficulites in the mother-daughter relationships. The mothers came to America from China hoping to give their daughters better lives than what they had. In China, women were “to be obedient, to honor one’s parents, one’s husband, and to try to please him and his family,” (Chinese-American Women in American Culture). They were not expected to have their own will and to make their own way through life. These mothers did not want this for their children so they thought that in America “nobody [would] say her worth [was] measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch…nobody [would] look down on her…” (3). To represent everything that was hoped for in their daughters, the mothers wanted them to have a “swan- a creature that became more than what was hoped for,” (3). This swan was all of the mothers’ good intentions. However, when they got to America, the swan was taken away and all she had left was one feather.
Jing-mei’s independence soon followed her skepticism and realization of the ordinary, which stemmed from her hatred of performing tests, and the raised hopes and disappointment that subsequently ensued (Tan 241). When her mother demanded that only an obedient daughter could live in their house, Jing-mei did everything in her power to follow her own mind (Tan 247). As a first act of independence, Jing-mei began to perform lazily and inadequately on her mother’s tests. With her growing defiance, she decided to test her mother’s limits by playing a game to see how long it took before her mother gradually gave up, which did not take long. As a further act of independence, Jing-mei purposefully played the wrong notes at piano practice because she “was so determined not to try, not to be anybody different” (Tan 244). Jing-mei’s independence appears to be a plea with her mother, wondering why she wants her to change. Again, her “pleading child” characteristics pop
Work cited Legge, James, a Trans. Confucius — Confucian Analects, The Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean. New York: Dover Publications, 1971. Nivison, David S. The Ways of Confucianism: Investigations in Chinese Philosophy.
Filial piety, a Confucian belief, describes the relationship and duties of each family member in relation to others: “these values emphasize solidarity, hierarchal relations, and filial piety” (Pyke 2000). Much of the focus is on the family as a whole and less on the individual. In Sophia’s family, her dad is at the top of the hierarchical family structure. For both her paternal and maternal side, her dad has the most influence ultimately. She expresses: