Midterm
It was a little over a year since I had last seen my grandma, but as luck would have it, I fled the LA fires to San Diego on her birthday weekend. I sat at the kitchen counter as Aunt Olivia prepared a 6-course meal. My cousins, twin boys, bickered over the parrot in the living room.
“You know, their grandma changed completely after I had them. I guess it’s a cultural thing.” Olivia said. I nodded. She chopped celery. “She was so sweet and then basically overnight: ‘You’re not doing this right, they’re supposed to be raised this way, and that’s wrong.’ It was like something in her just switched. It took years for her to tell me that in her family, the daughter-in-law is supposed to move into the mother-in-law’s house. She was almost expecting to raise them herself.”
The doorbell rang – my uncle had returned with my grandma. Her small figure shuffled into the room.
“August! Did you lose weight? Your face is slimmer.”
My grandma is a complicated person. Raised the youngest girl of 7 siblings, she has been described to me as sheltered, narcissistic, and abusive. She also gave up her education and a decade’s worth of sweatshop salary (along with each of her sisters) to put her brother through medical school. She lies compulsively. Her husband died in 1991. She has never changed a diaper. She grows oranges, guavas, and persimmons in her backyard. She wishes I would call more often.
As I grew up half Indian and half Chinese, my mom would quip about what aspects of our family were from each side, partly for education and partly for amusement; “Fighting over the bill is Chinese,” she would say. Or, “Skinny babies are Indian.” Garlic: Chinese. Cumin: Indian. There’s a lot of leeway as to what’s considered in either category, especially taking into account the wide breadth of cultural, religious, and philosophical practices within each. And yet, it’s undeniable: my mom’s decision to cut off all communication with her mom is not Chinese.
It was difficult to get through dinner. My grandma spent the evening attempting to garner sympathy, then doling out guilt in equal measure. In my mom’s absence, I wasn’t sure how to navigate my relationship with my grandma (or lack thereof). In search of a philosophy to guide my approach, I turned to Confucianism.
Of the East Asian philosophies to emulate, Confucianism offers an unequivocal view of family relations. In fact, Confucianism is the reason why the concept of “no contact” feels so Western and un-Chinese; its foundation of filial piety bends other traditions in East Asia to its expectations.
For example, in Mencius’ writings, the character Shun was said to have wept and cried to the heavens from grief and longing. Explaining this, Mencius said, “The reason why the approval of men, the love of women, wealth, and honor were not enough to dispel his sorrow was that it was a sorrow that could be dispelled only by being in harmony with his parents.” (Mencius 5A1.) In this instance, there is no happiness that can replace the vacuity of filial devotion.
In addition, the Analects emphasize even loyalty to the law as inferior to familial loyalty. “The Duke of She told Confucius, ‘In our part of the country there is one Upright Gong. His father stole a sheep, and the son bore witness against him.’ Confucius said, ‘In our part of the country, the upright are different from that. A father is sheltered by his son, and a son is sheltered by his father. Up-rightness lies in this.’” (Analects 13:18.)
While Mencius discusses the filially pious individual’s emotional experiences, Confucius outlines what morality looks like realistically in the context of a situation where there might be familial friction. However, this text can be interpreted in multiple ways; framed as solidarity of the immediate family unit, I could be validated for standing with my mom. On the other hand, read as an extended metaphor for the hierarchy of family in general, my mom could be in the wrong for cutting contact with her mom, putting me in the wrong.
Extending past the direct family unit, the Analects outline a general philosophy of the Way. When asked to provide “one thing that runs throughout” the tradition, Zengzi replied, “The Master's Way is loyalty and reciprocity, that is all.” (Analects 4:15.) This is a clear indicator for me to return my grandma’s calls, and yet the idea of loyalty is unspecific.
Ideally, according to the Confucian tradition, I would advise my grandma on how to amend her relationship with my mom. Ideally still, my mom wouldn’t cut off contact with my grandma in the first place; as the texts state, the relation between father and son or mother and daughter isn’t up for debate, it’s a natural order that needs to be followed. But in my interpretation, true loyalty has to mean loyalty to my mom.
When my mom was growing up, she was sexually abused by a relative. At the time, she was convinced that her mom didn’t believe her. At every opportunity to protect my mom, my grandma dismissed her as lying or attention-seeking. As with my aunt, it took years–decades, for my grandma to admit the truth: that she believed, and that she knew, but that she was too afraid to do anything about it, out of fear of repercussions from extended family. Out of loyalty to the hierarchy of family, and not loyalty to her family themselves.
These days, my mom’s relationship with my grandma is more comparable to mourning. She mourns her childhood, her trust, and the relationship itself. I’m reminded of Confucius’ approach to parents dying.
“The Master said, ‘When a person's father is alive, observe his intentions. After his father is no more, observe his actions. If for three years he does not change his father's ways, he is worthy to be called filial.” (Analects 1:11.) An aspect of interpretation that is often overlooked is the distinction between “intention” and “action.” Confucius used exact parallelism whenever possible, so why not here? The unspoken emphasis is on the importance of this discrepancy: between words and actions, intent and result. The result is a surprisingly humanistic perspective on generational trauma.
In another example, Zai Wo insists that only a year, not the prescribed three, is enough to mourn one’s parents, citing that observing the rites for so long prevents the child from maintaining an estate. Confucius responds, “How inhuman Yu [Zai Wo] is! Only when a child is three years old does it leave its parents' arms. The three years' mourning is the universal mourning everywhere under Heaven. And Yu–was he not the darling of his father and mother for three years?” (Analects 17:21.) This logical framework paints reciprocity in a different light, promoting the idea of “paying back” parents rather than pursuing loyalty for its own sake.
I appreciate the structure of this class for its emphasis on applying East Asian philosophies to students’ personal lives consciously, and with interpretation. This is where modern religion, whether following the Way, the Bible, or Capital, often goes awry: we forget that our purpose is to serve our fellow human and ourselves; that philosophy is a means to an end, a tool for community building, family connection, and moral cohesion. Modern Confucianism and its plights are often due to deficiencies in interpreting the paternal. What happens when women aren’t traded between households like livestock anymore? What does loyalty mean to a broken family? Who can you trust when your mother betrays you? These are all questions we seek answers to, we just need the courage to find them for ourselves.
Sources
Confucius. Selections from the Analects
Mencius. Mencius. Bloom, Irene. Columbia University Press.
