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Home » Opinion » Chinese Views
You can't force filial piety but you can help migrants go home
By Ni Tao |
January 13, 2011, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
TWO hundred fifty-seven yuan (US$39) mean different things to different people.
For some it is peanuts that barely suffice for a decent meal, or a drinking binge at a pub.
For Ma Guofu, a migrant, the sum is as much as he can afford for the train trip home, a place he visits, by tradition, once a year.
Monday's Oriental Morning Post ran a close-up photo of a handwritten note by Ma, on its frontpage, in which the Sichuan native said, "A hard bunk train ticket costs 257 yuan, my weekly income."
The photo also shows a clutter of similar notes, piled layer upon layer beneath Ma's, each detailing a plan for the trip home and its cost.
But it is not the sheer load of information that made the picture stand out, rather, it is Ma's simple claim, following description of his modest financial means, that struck a chord -- "I want to go home."
Nowhere is this longing for home and hearth more acutely felt than among China's hundreds of millions of migrants during the annual passenger rush before the Spring Festival, an important occasion for family gatherings.
This year the clamor began on Sunday.
But this mass outpouring of homesickness cannot always find a big enough outlet.
The hardship migrants endure - braving winter chills in long queues overnight - to get affordable tickets for homeward bound trains do not ensure each can get one.
It has become a norm for railway workers to reserve some tickets to handle surges in passenger volume and to please their scalper friends, contributing to a severe shortage of tickets on certain routes this year.
And for most, bullet train services are simply priced out of reach.
Distant homes
The Post reported on Monday that a couple who haven't visited their home in Chongqing since coming to work in Shanghai 12 years ago mistook someone else for their son during a rare Shanghai reunion in 2008 when the boy met his parents at the bus station.
After so many years of separation, they could not recognize him.
The fare, nearly a quarter of the couple's combined monthly wages, makes the arduous journey a source of great financial misery.
Similar stories of separation, filled with pathos, abound.
Home feels close yet seems like a thousand miles away.
In a culture that sets much store on dutiful observance of filial piety, children are advised against traveling to faraway places when parents need to be taken care of.
Thus the fear of not being able to go home for the festival gnaws at the migrants as well as their elderly parents.
This is when one starts to appreciate more the sacrifices migrants make in fueling the nation's double-digit growth.
But these sacrifices don't seem to have figured in the minds of policy makers when they recently proposed an amendment to China's law on care for the elderly by their adult children.
According to the draft amendment, parents can sue their children if they neglect their family visit obligations.
Adults who live separately from their parents should visit them at least once a year to show spiritual support, said a newly added provision.
The disturbing trend of fraying family ties in recent years, especially the diminished attention paid to the elderly, has prompted calls for legislation that mandates home visits and better care for parents.
This need has become more urgent with the nation's rapidly graying population.
China now has 167 million people aged over 60. By global standards, it is already an aging society.
Almost half of them, dubbed "empty nesters," live in solitude, said Wu Ming, an inspector with the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Bleak mockery
But if it is passed, the draft amendment, though born of the desire to revive the Chinese virtue of filial piety, will only be a bleak mockery of China's legislators.
More home visits, especially mandated ones, won't necessarily engender better spiritual care and support.
The proposed amendment doesn't say what the punishment will be should adult children fail to practice filial piety - and lose their case against their parents' lawsuit.
Hence it poses no deterrent for violators.
And it's a no-brainer that more home visits won't guarantee the emotions generated are genuine - if they are generated at all.
In some extreme cases that media reports brought to light in the past few years, children had already committed crimes by withholding food, shelter and warm clothes from their parents, who later died of starvation or exposure to the elements.
Will the draft amendment prompt soul-searching on the part of these erring adults or make their feelings any more sincere when paying mandatory home visits?
I doubt that.
On the other hand, the fact that many live away from parents and cannot visit home frequently doesn't diminish their true emotions, even if the link is only a couple of phone calls, letters, and maybe e-mail.
Commentator Zhang Ruoyu wrote in the Guangzhou-based New Express newspaper on January 6 that the home visit mandate resembles an intruder, jabbing his finger at "amoral" children and accusing them of not effusively showing their emotion at a family gathering.
Do-goodism
It is therefore inappropriate for laws to interfere in a sphere that is usually governed by social ethics, for it will only distort, rather than facilitate the expression of emotion, added Zhang.
Hear, hear.
What do-gooders should indeed care about, instead of wasting time and resources on futile deliberation of a well-meaning measure, is to provide community services that keep "empty nesters" company when they feel lonely.
If that proves too ambitious or long-term a vision, then they should at least do something to help the migrants catch home-bound train rides they can afford - not the tickets priced ridiculously high to cover unnecessary luxuries.
To railway authorities: Home needs not be that distant, agree?
For some it is peanuts that barely suffice for a decent meal, or a drinking binge at a pub.
For Ma Guofu, a migrant, the sum is as much as he can afford for the train trip home, a place he visits, by tradition, once a year.
Monday's Oriental Morning Post ran a close-up photo of a handwritten note by Ma, on its frontpage, in which the Sichuan native said, "A hard bunk train ticket costs 257 yuan, my weekly income."
The photo also shows a clutter of similar notes, piled layer upon layer beneath Ma's, each detailing a plan for the trip home and its cost.
But it is not the sheer load of information that made the picture stand out, rather, it is Ma's simple claim, following description of his modest financial means, that struck a chord -- "I want to go home."
Nowhere is this longing for home and hearth more acutely felt than among China's hundreds of millions of migrants during the annual passenger rush before the Spring Festival, an important occasion for family gatherings.
This year the clamor began on Sunday.
But this mass outpouring of homesickness cannot always find a big enough outlet.
The hardship migrants endure - braving winter chills in long queues overnight - to get affordable tickets for homeward bound trains do not ensure each can get one.
It has become a norm for railway workers to reserve some tickets to handle surges in passenger volume and to please their scalper friends, contributing to a severe shortage of tickets on certain routes this year.
And for most, bullet train services are simply priced out of reach.
Distant homes
The Post reported on Monday that a couple who haven't visited their home in Chongqing since coming to work in Shanghai 12 years ago mistook someone else for their son during a rare Shanghai reunion in 2008 when the boy met his parents at the bus station.
After so many years of separation, they could not recognize him.
The fare, nearly a quarter of the couple's combined monthly wages, makes the arduous journey a source of great financial misery.
Similar stories of separation, filled with pathos, abound.
Home feels close yet seems like a thousand miles away.
In a culture that sets much store on dutiful observance of filial piety, children are advised against traveling to faraway places when parents need to be taken care of.
Thus the fear of not being able to go home for the festival gnaws at the migrants as well as their elderly parents.
This is when one starts to appreciate more the sacrifices migrants make in fueling the nation's double-digit growth.
But these sacrifices don't seem to have figured in the minds of policy makers when they recently proposed an amendment to China's law on care for the elderly by their adult children.
According to the draft amendment, parents can sue their children if they neglect their family visit obligations.
Adults who live separately from their parents should visit them at least once a year to show spiritual support, said a newly added provision.
The disturbing trend of fraying family ties in recent years, especially the diminished attention paid to the elderly, has prompted calls for legislation that mandates home visits and better care for parents.
This need has become more urgent with the nation's rapidly graying population.
China now has 167 million people aged over 60. By global standards, it is already an aging society.
Almost half of them, dubbed "empty nesters," live in solitude, said Wu Ming, an inspector with the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Bleak mockery
But if it is passed, the draft amendment, though born of the desire to revive the Chinese virtue of filial piety, will only be a bleak mockery of China's legislators.
More home visits, especially mandated ones, won't necessarily engender better spiritual care and support.
The proposed amendment doesn't say what the punishment will be should adult children fail to practice filial piety - and lose their case against their parents' lawsuit.
Hence it poses no deterrent for violators.
And it's a no-brainer that more home visits won't guarantee the emotions generated are genuine - if they are generated at all.
In some extreme cases that media reports brought to light in the past few years, children had already committed crimes by withholding food, shelter and warm clothes from their parents, who later died of starvation or exposure to the elements.
Will the draft amendment prompt soul-searching on the part of these erring adults or make their feelings any more sincere when paying mandatory home visits?
I doubt that.
On the other hand, the fact that many live away from parents and cannot visit home frequently doesn't diminish their true emotions, even if the link is only a couple of phone calls, letters, and maybe e-mail.
Commentator Zhang Ruoyu wrote in the Guangzhou-based New Express newspaper on January 6 that the home visit mandate resembles an intruder, jabbing his finger at "amoral" children and accusing them of not effusively showing their emotion at a family gathering.
Do-goodism
It is therefore inappropriate for laws to interfere in a sphere that is usually governed by social ethics, for it will only distort, rather than facilitate the expression of emotion, added Zhang.
Hear, hear.
What do-gooders should indeed care about, instead of wasting time and resources on futile deliberation of a well-meaning measure, is to provide community services that keep "empty nesters" company when they feel lonely.
If that proves too ambitious or long-term a vision, then they should at least do something to help the migrants catch home-bound train rides they can afford - not the tickets priced ridiculously high to cover unnecessary luxuries.
To railway authorities: Home needs not be that distant, agree?
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