Long ago, there were two brothers. The older brother was terribly unfilial. Not only did he not listen to his parents but he was also lazy, shiftless, undependable. The younger brother, on the other hand, was totally different. He was a model son who did his utmost to show his love for his parents, to comfort them in their old age, and to make them proud. He was known far and near for being a filial son.
And just as people say, "Fish gather with other fish; shrimp gather with other shrimp," the two brothers each married a woman just like himself in character. Thus the aged parents gained a wonderful honorable daughter-in-law with the younger son's wife; with the older brother's wife, this was much less true.
Now it happened that the father fell sick and was confined to bed. The younger son and his wife stayed by the bedside around the clock, doing their best to comfort and to aid the stricken old man. As for his older brother and sister-in-law? They did what they normally did--they ate and fooled around.
In time the father's conditioned worsened. Sensing the end was near, he summoned his two sons and said, "You, my older son, have been a perfect disappointment. I've waited in vain for you to mature and to assume your duties. I had some hope that once you married that would happen. Now I am afraid that once you receive your inheritance, you will only waste it.
"In any case, you are still my older son, and I will not deny you an inheritance. After I am gone, you and your younger brother are to divide my property and money evenly between the two of you. As for your mother, my wife, once I am gone, you, my younger son, will take care of your mother."
He died not long after and was buried.
Then it came time to divide up the property.
"All right, " said the older brother to his younger brother, "this is how it shall be. I am older and now the head of the family. I am taking full ownership of the house and the land. I will, when I'm ready, give you some of the money, but for now, this is how it shall be. Do you understand?"
The younger brother smiled and nodded. He didn't argue.
So that is how it went. The two couples and the widowed mother still had their own rooms, and everybody lived under the same roof. The older brother was loud, lazy and abusive with his new power, but his younger brother said nothing. He accepted it all, though it was far from a happy situation. He just contented himself by working hard. He purchased a wheelbarrow, went up the mountain, chopped firewood, and sold it for cooking oil, salt, rice and other grains.
Now one day he was up on the mountain, gathering wood when from afar he could see two people approaching. They came closer and closer. Then he saw not who they were but what they were--a green ghost and a red ghost. The younger brother was frightened out of his wits. He climbed all the way up the nearest tree, a kujian tree. He hid himself at the top as the two ghosts approached, each one carrying a bulging sack. To his relief, they walked right by him and the tree, muttering something to themselves as they passed. They then stopped at a nearby boulder lying against the side of the mountain.
The younger brother watched them carefully.
The red ghost turned and faced the boulder. Then he shouted, "Ha!"
One side of the boulder slowly moved away from the side of the mountain, like a door, to reveal a cave. The ghosts then carried their sacks into the cave. Minutes later, they left the cave with their now empty sacks. The green ghost turned to the boulder and shouted, "Ha!" The boulder then slowly swung shut. The two ghosts then left on the same path that had brought them up the mountain.
The younger brother waited until he made sure the two ghosts were gone. He climbed down the tree and crept over to the boulder. He faced it and shouted, "Ha!" As expected, the boulder slowly opened to expose a cave entrance. The younger brother walked up to the cave entrance and peered inside. He nearly fainted, for from where he stood, he saw nothing but precious jade, pearls, agate, coral and silver and gold--mountains of priceless objects!
Well, he dumped his wheelbarrow of firewood and instead loaded up on the treasures of the cave. He shouted the magic word to close the cave and made it back home, where he showed his riches to his mother. He recounted in detail exactly what had happened.
"You are a filial son," his mother said. "Old Heaven has eyes; it has rewarded you!"
The younger daughter-in-law was also overjoyed. In fact, she was so delighted she immediately went to her brother-in-law's to borrow his scale to see just how much the gold and silver weighed.
"Why do you need to borrow my scale?" asked the older brother-in-law.
The younger wife immediately told him the whole story of how her husband, his younger brother, had spied on the red ghost and the green ghost, how they had opened up the entrance to a cave of riches, and so on.
The very next day, the older brother went up the mountain with his own wheelbarrow right to the spot just beyond the kujian tree. Not only that, he also intoned the magic sound, "Ha!", entered the cave and then closed the entrance behind him. All the jewels and riches lay before him. He had just begun planning how he would cart everything away when the boulder slowly swung open. Standing in the entrance were none other than the red ghost and the green ghost, each carrying a sack.
"Well, well, well!" said one of the two ghosts. "Look who's here! The same disgusting lowlife scoundrel who was here yesterday and who stole some of our wealth! You've got a lot of nerve, my friend, returning here for some more!"
"No, no, wait!" said the older brother.
Right away the two ghosts were upon him and throttled him to death. They then dragged the dead older brother's body out by the kujian tree and left it there underneath its branches.
Hours later, the older daughter-in-law, out looking for her husband, found his body. There was no sign of any cave entrance anywhere.
And so the older brother, who, true to his father's fears, had never amounted to much, caring more about eating, sleeping and other pursuits rather than respecting his elders or working hard, was buried. The younger brother-in-law and his wife invited the widowed older sister-in-law to live with them, which she did.
Now one day, relatives were having a wedding celebration and feast. The mother was too infirm to attend, so the younger daughter-in-law decided to leave the party early to take a platter of the sumptuous wedding food back to her mother-in-law.
"Now there goes a true honorable daughter-in-law!" someone said. "She could have stayed and had even more to eat, but she thought about her mother-in-law!"
"Yes," said another, "she is indeed a model of what we call 'filial.'"
The younger daughter-in-law was happy to take some food back to her husband's mother. She was thinking about how happy her mother-in-law would be when, due to the rain, she suddenly slipped, allowing the food to fall upon the ground, some of it in a puddle.
Now what could she do? Arrive home empty handed? Go back to the party and ask for more? She thought quickly and looked at the food. Some of it hadn't touched the ground; some of that which had landed in the puddle could be rinsed and salvaged; the rest could be thrown away. So that is what she did: she separated the edible from the now inedible, making sure any dirt and grit had been washed away before happily presenting the food to her mother-in-law.
The aged woman beamed with joy when she saw the food her daughter-in-law had brought her and ate it all up! However, not long after, dark clouds gathered over the town; thunder and lightning boomed, shaking the house and rattling the windows.
Immediately the younger daughter-in-law thought: "I caused this. The God of Thunder has seen what I have done, to feed my own husband's mother dirtied food. He's going to punish me with thunder and lightning! Let me be the one, not Mother!"
She immediately looked up to the ceiling and cried out: "I am unfilial! I fed my own mother-in-law bad food! Please punish me! I am ready!"
She ran to the front door, threw it open and ran outside into the thunderstorm. She stopped before a large tree and faced heaven.
Instantly a large fireball shot down from the clouds, rocketed past her and split the tree right behind her. She was unharmed but the tree was totally cleft, revealing inside a hidden cache of gold, silver and pearls.
She gathered the treasure up and took it home.
Very soon, the older daughter-in-law learned of the younger daughter-in-law's bonanza and how it came about; she became very jealous.
That's absolutely unfair! she thought. I am the older daughter-in-law, the widow of the first-born son! I am entitled to as many, if not more, riches!
She waited for the right chance. Then, one day, it came.
There was another relative's wedding party. When the mother once again excused herself from attending, the older daughter-in-law sprung at the chance to bring food home for Mother.
"Let me bring food home for you this time, Mother!" she said. "Just rest and I'll soon be home with some delicious food!"
The mother-in-law nodded.
The older daughter-in-law selected some nice food from the banquet, wrapped it up and excused herself to take it back to her beloved mother-in-law.
The older people all beamed at this display of filial love and watched her leave.
When she was good and far from the banquet hall, the older daughter-in-law headed over to a puddle and dropped the food in. She then separated the edible from the inedible and wiped clean the food she felt could still be eaten. She then headed directly home with her mother-in-law's dinner.
"Wonderful!" said the mother-in-law. "Very, very nice food!"
The mother-in-law continued to eat as the sounds of distant thunder rumbled. The older daughter-in-law looked outside. As expected, dark, menacing clouds had gathered in the sky.
"Eat up, Mother!" said the older daughter-in-law.
Only when the house was buffeted by thunder and lightning crackled outside did the older daughter-in-law abruptly stand up, look up at the ceiling, and cry out, "What have I done! I have fed my own blessed mother-in-law polluted food! God of Thunder, punish me!"
She ran to the front door, pushed it open and charged into the lightning storm. She ran to the nearest tree and stood with her back to it. She raised her arms up, looked to heaven, and said, "Here I am! Punish me!"
Immediately a lightning bolt split the woman in two.
Notes
from Shi Cuifeng, pp. 22-26
Filial piety is the Confucian concept that teaches each child to respect and to love his/her parent. It suggests unquestioned obedience and loyalty to members of the older generation, and its commands extend to the parents, who must offer utmost respect and love to their own parents as well. By extension, rulers are likewise loved by their local subjects. The pyramid reaches all the way to the top, to the emperor, loved, respected and obeyed by everyone else. The respect accorded to parents continues after the parents' deaths; there are then regularly scheduled memorial rites to be observed and to be picked up, eventually, by the grandchildren. And so the cycle continues. I think the best exposition of filial piety can be found in the classical Chinese statement, Daxue, "The Great Learning."
Filial piety is a defining characteristic of being a Chinese. What has it contributed? It has taught generations of children the need to be grateful to their parents and to excel in their studies, for doing the latter is a sign of devotion to the family in general and to the parents in particular. Many, if not most, go on to become highly devoted to their parents for the remainder of their parents' lives. Virtually all my students of Chinese descent from fifth grade on up already know the Chinese term for "filial piety": xiaoshun [孝顺]. I wonder how many non-Chinese youngsters know the term or a close cognate. I certainly was not aware of it until I took the late Professor Laurence G. Thompson's Chinese civilization course at USC so many years ago. Thank you, Professor Thompson.
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