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Changing family values
Family affects values
Family affects values
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People might ask themselves, how, whether they have strayed away from their parents' beliefs or what their religion expects of them? Some would say that they do not go to church enough, others might say that they have done some things that their parents of which they would not approve. When Wang Lung was growing up, and until he was wealthy, he had to work in the field all day to keep his house and to feed him and his father. Lung accepted the customs that his family had always valued. However, when he becomes wealthy, his sons, instead of being raised as Lung was raised, are raised as young lords and their values differ from their father's. In The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, Wang Lung's children are raised in an atmosphere of privilege, leading them away from their family’s traditional values. …show more content…
They never understood what the land has done for them. The land allowed the family to become rich and for a while, their whole house was made of the dirt. Lung has spent so much time on the land and sustaining his family to get them to where they are now. Only one of his sons knows what it is like to work in the field. Lung's youngest son was going to be the one that stays and works in the fields and tends to crop. The other sons did not want to stay and work in the fields or even keep the fields. Lung's sons were going to sell the land as soon as he died. Lung decides to educate his son so that the son could do all the market work that Lung had no idea how to do, Lung was not educated enough to read and write. When the other son heard about this he complained and eventually Lung gave in and sent them both to school. One was going to learn to become a merchant and the other was keeping hold of the
In her book, The House of Lim, author Margery Wolf observes the Lims, a large Chinese family living in a small village in Taiwan in the early 1960s (Wolf iv). She utilizes her book to portray the Lim family through multiple generations. She provides audiences with a firsthand account of the family life and structure within this specific region and offers information on various customs that the Lims and other families participate in. She particularly mentions and explains the marriage customs that are the norm within the society. Through Wolf’s ethnography it can be argued that parents should not dec5pide whom their children marry. This argument is obvious through the decline in marriage to simpua, or little girls taken in and raised as future daughter-in-laws, and the influence parents have over their children (Freedman xi).
The great inventor Albert Einstein once said, “Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.” In The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, Wang Lung does the opposite. At the beginning of the novel, when he is still a young man, Wang Lung is an individual who is very moral and has a strong sense of his values, most of which are traditional family values that have been passed on for generations. He worships the gods of the fields, has a good sense of filial piety, and knows his place in society - a lowly, uneducated farmer. However, when he becomes a man of great wealth and power, he lets other’s influence his values.
The excerpt being reviewed in this paper is the story of An Lingshou whose “secular surname was Xu” (Shi 307). She is an upper class woman who “was intelligent and fond of studies” and “took no pleasure in worldly affairs” (Shi 307). She is devoutly Buddhist and doesn’t want to be married, but her father Xu Chong disagrees, accusing her of being “unfilial” (Shi 307). She responds that her “mind is concentrated on the work of religion” and questions why she must “submit three times before [she is] considered a woman of propriety” (Shi 307). Her father thinks this is selfish and goes to see a “Buddhist magician monk” who tells him to “keep a vegetarian fast and after three days . . . come back” (Shi 307). Xu Chong does so and the monk “spread Xu Chong’s palm with the oil of sesame seed ground together with safflower” and has him read what’s there (Shi 307). He sees “a person who resembled his daughter” as Buddhist preaching to a large group. The monk tells him that it “is a former incarnation of” his daughter who left her house to help the world at large and that “she indeed shall raise her family to glory” and help them find Nirvana (Shi 307). Lingshou is allowed to become a nun and “cut off her hair, discarded secular ornaments, and received the rules of monastic life from” the monk who spoke to her father and another famous nun (Shi 308). Lingshou goes on to be a famously great nun who “built five or six monastic retreats” and her family goes on to be honored and promoted (Shi
From the beginning of Wang Lung’s marriage to O-lan, she saved him time, money, and effort without complaint. She offered wisdom when asked and was smart in the ways of the world. During the famine, when the family went south in search of food, O-lan taught her children how to beg for food, “dug the small green weeds, dandelions, and shepherds purse that thrust up feeble new leaves”(p. 128). She raised her children prudently. She knew how to bind her daughter’s feet, and she gave them a better childhood than she had had. O-lan knew that the land was the only consistent thing in her life, so she willingly helped Wang Lung as he bought more and more land. O-lan knew her place in the family was as a wife and mother. As a wife, she fe...
Most critiques of The Good Earth are preoccupied with the authentic quality of the novel, and while the Western critiques praise it as a novel based on facts, the Chinese hold a different view. Kang Younghill, a Chinese man, in reference to the image Pearl Buck created of China, stated that "it is discouraging to find that the novel works toward confusion, not clarification" (Kang 368). This statement illuminates Kang's feelings that the details, which Buck had presented as factual in the novel, were contrary to the actual life of the Chinese. Yet researches have shown that Buck was rightly informed and presented her information correctly. One detail that she paid special attention to was the family structure within the rural Chinese family, which she presented in the form of the Wang Lung household. The family structure demonstrated by Buck is not restricted to the Wang Lung family, but was a part of every rural Chinese home in the early 1900s. Every member's experiences within the family structure are determined by the role and expectations placed on them by the society, and Buck was careful to include these experiences in Wang Lung's family.
Chua believes that Chinese parents force their children to be academically successful in order to reach “higher” goals in life. She emphasizes this when she states “…Chinese parents have … higher dreams for their children…” (Chua 8). Although Amy set higher s...
Taoism is an ancient Chinese religion, a religion of peace focused on universal balance. The religion itself, though generally surviving today, was almost entirely wiped out in ancient times. Taoism’s primary symbol is still visible on the global market in modern times, though it tends to carry somewhat different meanings then it necessarily did previously. An incredibly life-structure oriented religion, it has permeated through society and is more easily understood through analysis of Taoism’s historical origins and leaders, its types and beliefs, ethics, and the modern influences of Taoism on society.
Through the characters and their experiences in The King of Children, Ah Cheng shows the effects that the Cultural Revolution had on education and how that affected the people’s search for personal meaning in education. The Cultural Revolution and Down to the Countryside’s elimination of all practical and economic incentives for receiving an education caused characters to find moral and ethical incentives for education, such as to protect others and to be able to communicate effectively.
This novel tells the story of Wang Lung. He is a man who rises from being a poor farmer to a very wealthy man because of his faith in the good earth. In the beginning of the story Wang Lung tries to see as little water as possible because he feels safest with his land under his feet. His family is very poor so he must feed his father corn gruel and tea.
As a child I remember hearing stories about a lost family fortune from my father’s side of the family. I never put a lot of stock into those stories, but evidently they were true. My father’s side was comprised of farmers for many generations. The Owens family owned thousands of acres of land in Kentucky, on which they farmed tobacco and raised horses and cattle. My father, Leland, blames his grandfather’s generation for whittling away the family’s money. Even with the loss of prestige of owning such an abundance of land, the family continued to farm. I suppose it is all they knew. They became good, working class farmers and small business owners, working on their modest-sized farms. But they did own the land which separates them from the working poor. The sizes of the farms dwindled over the generations; my father’s father, Harlan, owned about 30 acres in northern Kentucky. Harlan’s brother Ralph has expanded his wealth over time and now owns about 600 acres of land in Kentucky.
Religion usually plays a big part in the cultures of the world and is the basis for their beliefs and values. In many countries religion is very important, so important that some cultures use it in every aspect of their lives. China l...
In this article, the author begins by stating the growth of Protestantism is now booming everywhere in China, from cities to the most rural of areas. Gardam gives us a brief look at China’s past with religious regulations. He mentions the regulations that churches in China had starting in the mid 1950’s, when the Communist came to power. A decade later, Christianity would have another set back. In the 1960’s and 70’s, Mao Zedong started the Cultural...
In conclusion, Chinese society more likely to increase in stability as Christianity expands in China. From a political standpoint, Christianity’s growth will work to improve the support of the Communist party in China. In terms of economics, Christianity’s expansion in China will spur both national economic growth and individual income improvement. Culturally, Christianity’s development in China will create a universal moral code that unifies the country and promotes parity. Christianity’s role in Chinese society is more important than the average observer would recognize. To the believer in China or abroad, the growth of Christianity in China needs to celebrated and its effects on societal stability seen as evidence of God’s grace in the redemption of all people.
Many people employ the New Testament in seeking guidance, confirmation, and inspiration; similarly, Khiok-Khng Yeo uses the New Testament passage 1 Corinthians 8 to formulate a solution to the current religious climate of ancestor worship in Chinese culture. In the engaging article “The Rhetorical Hermeneutic of 1 Corinthians 8 and Chinese Ancestor Worship,” Khiok-Khng Yeo chooses a passage in the New Testament because it is sacred literature that is known and respected around the world and also because Paul addresses in his letter to the church of Corinth the issue of idol worship troubling the Corinthians. Specifically, the writer chooses 1 Corinthians 8 because the people of China are currently facing similar hardship that ancient Corinthians
Upon reviewing the film series of the “Mandate of Heaven” by Michael Wood and reading the views of Will Durant in his book Heroes of History, I am rather indifferent to either opinion as a whole. Although I do agree on certain things more than the other, overall I align with Durant’s view. The way Durant approached his views on Chinese traditions corresponds to the seeking of knowledge as the ultimate way to better oneself and to advance their society forward for a “better life.”