All Under One Roof

I saw this documentary on the role filial obedience played in the lives of the peoples of China. It was strange yet familiar. The filial piety that a child showed to his parents and the piety one showed to ones ancestors runs deep in every family. They had several varying examples from the older generation and their required acts of devotion to their ancestors and their parents to those who place their parents in nursing homes. With each new generation there is a further step away from this duty. Of course they showed teenagers who rebel from this idea and want nothing to do with this filial dutifulness, and then there was this man who was forced, by this idea of "piety", to marry a peasant woman when he was in love with a city woman. On his wedding day he said "in all this wedding celebration I am the only one who is sad" but then he went on to say that his sadness did not matter in the whole of having happy parents and happy family in his marriage. They also said that your parents' happiness was what mattered and one felt this way toward them even after they died because they were the ones who gave you life.

I watched it and thought "wow how sad and horrifying" yet I know that I feel this extreme obligation to my parents and have also been brought up by this idea that my wants and needs came second to theirs. Now don't get me wrong, it's not as extreme as that but I do jump and ask how high when they say. Weird how they raised me this way... well okay, I guess it stems from being raised in a mulit-generational household. Man the first four years of your life really does make the deepest impressions, and yet I don't think Mike, who wasn't raised as I was, feels any sense of this. I like the idea of having the different generations living in one household, or as I did, my aunts and uncles lived next door and we were all enclosed in a "compound". One family celebrated a holiday and there were 30 people living all under one roof. One of them said something like we put aside any idea of "self" and always think about one another. There is no "I". I can see how that can cause some problems, especially as a teenager searching for an identity, but the idea of having so many people to turn to also has its merits. Okee, I gotta run.

Oh that reminds me. I saw the movie "Hero" with Jet Li. Never have I seen such a beautiful, luscious , eye-sensational movie. The story was ok.

Me.

P.S. m-w.com's word of the day is "epenthesis" and it's the addition or development of an extra letter or sound to a word. For example... do you know someone who says "ath-a-lete" in place of athlete? That's epenthesis. heehee.

Have a great day all!

Me