On Filial Piety

Note: The blogger has recently forwarded a story entitled “Job Application - Lesson Learned” to some friends and e-buddies. He is delighted to receive a feedback from Dr JB Lim that is worthwhile to be shared with readers of this blog. Reproduced below are the story and email from Dr Lim respectively.
The Story:

This is a powerful message in our modern society. We seemed to have lost our bearings & our sense of direction.
One, young, academically excellent person went to apply for a managerial position in a big company.

He passed the first interview. The director who did the last interview, made the last decision.

The director discovered from the CV that the youth's academic achievements were excellent all the way, from the secondary school until the postgraduate research. He never had a year when he did not score.

The director asked, "Did you obtain any scholarships in school?" The youth answered, "None".

The director asked, "Was it your father who paid for your school fees?" The youth answered, "My father passed away when I was one year old. It was my mother who paid for my school fees.”

The director asked, "Where did your mother work?" The youth answered, "My mother worked as a clothes cleaner.” The director requested the youth to show his hands. The youth showed a pair of hands that were smooth and perfect.

The director asked, "Have you ever helped your mother wash the clothes before?" The youth answered, "Never, my mother always wanted me to study and read more books. Furthermore, my mother can wash clothes faster than me. "

The director said, "I have a request. When you go back today, go and clean your mother's hands and then see me tomorrow morning."

The youth felt that his chance of landing the job was high. When he went back, he happily requested his mother to let him clean her hands. His mother felt strange, but with mixed feelings, she showed her hands to her son.

The youth cleaned his mother's hands slowly. His tears fell as he did that. It was the first time he noticed that his mother's hands were so wrinkled and that there were so many bruises in her hands. Some bruises were so painful that his mother shivered when they were cleaned with water.
This was the first time the youth realized that it was this pair of hands that washed the clothes every day to enable him to pay the school fee. The bruises in the mother's hands were the price that the mother had to pay for his graduation, academic excellence and his future.

After finishing the cleaning of his mother hands, the youth quietly washed all the remaining clothes for his mother.

That night, mother and son talked for a very long time.

Next morning, the youth went to the director's office.

The Director noticed the tears in the youth's eyes and asked, "Can you tell me what you did and learned yesterday in your house?"

The youth answered, "I cleaned my mother's hands, and also finished cleaning all the remaining clothes.'

The Director asked, "Please tell me your feelings."

The youth said, "Number 1, I know now the meaning of appreciation. Without my mother, there would not be the successful me today. Number 2, by working together and helping my mother, only now I realize how difficult and tough it is to get something done. Number 3, I have come to appreciate the importance and value of family relationship."

The director said, "This is what I am looking for in my new manager. I want to recruit a person who can appreciate the help of others, a person who knows the sufferings of others to get things done, and a person who would not put money as his only goal in life. Son, you are hired.”

Later on, this young person worked very hard, and received the respect of his subordinates. Every employee worked diligently and as a team. The company's performance improved tremendously.

A child, who has been over protected and habitually given whatever he or she wanted, would develop the entitlement mentality and would always put himself first. He would be ignorant of his parents’ efforts. When he starts work, he assumes that every person must listen to him, and when he becomes a manager, he would never know the sufferings of his employees and would always blame others. This kind of person, may be good academically and may be successful for a while, but eventually would not feel a sense of achievement. He will grumble and be full of hatred and fight for more. If we are this kind of protective parents, are we really showing love or are we destroying the kid instead?
You can let your kid live in a big house, eat good meals, learn piano, watch a big screen TV. But when you are cutting grass, please let him experience it. After a meal, let him wash his plates and bowls together with his brothers and sisters. It is not because you do not have money to hire a maid, but it is because you want to love him in the right way. You want him to understand, no matter how rich his parents are, one day their hair will grow gray, same as the mother of that young man. The most important thing is your kid learns how to appreciate the effort and experience the difficulty and learns the ability to work with others to get things done.
You would have forwarded many mails to many and many of them would have back mailed you too... but try and forward this story to as many as possible... this may change somebody's life...-------------------------------

Date: Sunday, 18 September, 2011 1:30 AM

From: lim juboo

Dear Sifu Ir. Lau,
Thanks for the moral story on young children looking for a job in order to be successful. Didn’t Kong Fuzi (Kung-fu-tzu) teach us the ancient traditional family values on the need for children to pay 'xiao' (filial piety) to their parents especially at old age as part of their moral obligation? This has been in practice in ancient China since 2500 years ago.

Unfortunately children these days are no longer interested on these moral duties. They no longer follow the teachings of Kong Fuzi. Instead, they have their own ways. They can’t even take care of themselves in the first place, let alone their aged parents. They conveniently send their aged parents to an old folk’s centre or a nursing home and leave them there to die naturally.

They are more interested in playing with computers, the Internet, SMS and phone to their friends all day long. I have heard many complaints from parents, including Malays and Indians families where their children demand money from their aged parents instead to support their bad habits.

If their parents have no money, or refuse to give them money, they would simply bash up their parents. What kind of filial piety is that? This has never happened in our parents’ time when we allowed our parents to retire and rest comfortably for bringing us up since small. When our parents were no longer able, our elder siblings will take over, and the eldest will always take turn to look after our younger brothers and sisters even to the extent of supporting them into the university. This has been the Chinese family tradition for thousands of years - to look after our younger ones. We still cherish this value.
But children these days even though they are working, do not make this their moral responsibility of taking care and supporting their parents anymore, let alone take care of their younger siblings. There have been so many complaints about this attitude of present day children from other races too. I heard a lot of stories from the Malays and Indians about their children also.

Fortunately there are still many young Chinese and children from other races who are still very responsible. Many of them sacrifice themselves, education, marriage and all to support their parents and families, especially in poor families where they struggle to make ends meet. May God bless and help these beautiful children abundantly

In this age of computers and IT, some children are more interested in playing with the Internet, use mobile phones to phone their friends, SMS to others, or go out into the streets chitchatting with their friends all day long. Else they will play with their laptops in WiFi enabled coffee houses, malls and shopping complexes. They are not be bothered if their parents left at home all day long live or die, let alone support them at old age.

Instead, they do the reverse. They still demand money, free food, lodging, water and electricity supply, and even expect their aged parents still wash all their clothes, dry and iron them for them. They only come home to bathe, sleep, and expect the washed, dried and ironed clothes ready for them. They expect their parents to die-in-harness for them.

What kind of filial piety is that? Who is going to take care of their children when they can’t even take care of themselves, and when their parents die?

Just let them suffer without any children to take care of them when their aged parents die. God works in very, very wonderful ways to pay these ungrateful children.

Jew-B Lim-------------------

Dear Dr. Lim,

I share the same sentiment with what you have written. There is this Chinese saying that goes “百行孝為先” (băi xíng xiào wéi xiān) which means “Filial Piety is the Virtue Held Above All Else”. Any human being who doesn’t practice filial piety to his/her parents cannot claim to possess any other better virtues!

I wish to post your letter into my blog to share with all interested readers, in a small way to spread around the message of the importance of filial piety and I hope you wouldn’t mind it.

Thank you very much.

Best regards,

T.O. Lau19/09/2011