Three Chinas by Bill Purves

Author:Bill Purves [Purves, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Asia, China, Social Science, Developing & Emerging Countries
ISBN: 9781550210910
Google: P_I8lL5xtSUC
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 1994-01-09T16:18:41+00:00

7

Family Matters

Neither Andrew nor Pat can look forward to retiring on any sort of pension. If the past 40 years were anything to go by Su could expect to be taken care of by his work unit in his old age, but with the current economic turmoil in China even he can’t be entirely sure. Of the three, though, only Pat feels she has anything to worry about. Only she might somehow end up unmarried.

The centre of Chinese religious belief is often described as ancestor worship. While this may be a bit of a distortion it does give an idea of the importance of family ties in Chinese culture. The traditional way of life was, of course, agricultural. As owners, tenants or both at the same time, an extended family ideally lived together in a copse of trees amid the fields that were their sole livelihood. The seasonal tasks of growing crops, raising and slaughtering animals and erecting and repairing buildings were shared out among all the members of the family according to their abilities. In return the family pooled its resources to support the sick or the school fees of particularly able children. The various nuclear branches of the extended family would ideally share a single large house or a collection of buildings in the form of a compound and, most important, all eat from the same stove.

A rich farmer aspired to build a home which could be extended to provide a wing for each of the branches of the family while all came together for meals in a central kitchen. In practice not many families attained this ideal. Even in China there were always the tensions you’d expect among various nuclear branches of the extended family. They often led to relatives sharing the same house but operating separate kitchens and perhaps boarding up certain connecting doors to emphasize the private use of particular areas. Nevertheless, both the family and the neighbours considered such measures as a source of embarrassment and a deviation from the ideal.

The traditional Chinese family on its farmland operated a sort of co-operative business enterprise. The enterprise had a formal organization clearly understood by everyone inside and outside the family. The organizing principle was primogeniture – elder ruling younger, among the males and separately among the females. Each Chinese dialect has a whole constellation of terms to precisely describe family relations. For example, the relations that an English speaker would be forced to specify as “an older male cousin with the same surname as myself,” “a younger male cousin with the same surname” and “an older male cousin with a different surname” would each have its own distinct label in each dialect of Chinese. As in any business, these titles were known to everyone and conveyed succinctly who was a Group Vice-President and who was just a Divisional General Manager. The eldest living male reigned as patriarch and had the final say in any family matter. His brothers and nephews were delegated aspects of the family affairs to manage under his guidance.

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