Parent, Child and State in Chinese Children’s Books
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21153/pecl2015vol23no1art1121Keywords:
parents, children, State, Chinese children's booksAbstract
A marked characteristic of Chinese society is its alertness to hierarchical differences and its expectation of obedience to proper authority. From the Confucian point of view, tranquillity and happiness within society can only be achieved through xiao (filial piety), the principal value of Confucian morality. Filial piety is also central to the Confucian rationale for organising social order, revolving around conceptions of superior-inferior status in human relationships: children ought to obey parents, wives ought to obey husbands, and subjects ought to obey their emperor. The prevalence of such indoctrination in Chinese children’s books can be traced to the Confucian belief that children are able to reach their full potential sense of benevolence by imitating the proper behaviour of their elders and role models in books. Indeed, the political role of the moral training in books worked effectively following the adoption of Confucianism as the state doctrine around 100 BC, and helped to maintain dynastic reign for about two thousand years, until Western warships and guns shattered Chinese confidence in Confucianism in the late nineteenth century.
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