letters

These short passages are taken from a book called, Letters from a Chinese Official, written at the end of the 1800s, purportedly by a Chinese, but apparently actually by an Englishman based on information from a Chinese person.

"Our society is Confucian though and through. But to say that it is Confucian is to say that it is moral; or, at least, that moral relations are those which it primarily contemplates."

Comparison of Chinese and Western family "To you, so far as a foreigner can perceive, family is merely a means for nourishing and protecting the child until he is of age to look after himself. as early as may be, you send your boys aways to a public school, where they quickly emancipate themselves from the influences of their home. As soon as they are of age, you send them out, as you say, t "make their fortune"; and from that moment, often enough, as they cease to be dependent on their parents, so they cease to recognize obligations toward them. They may go wherever they will, do what they will, earn and spend as they choose; and it is at their own option whether or not they maintain their family ties. With you, the individual is the unit, and all the units are free. No one is tied, but also no one is rooted." ... "We look first to the society and then to the individual. Among us, it is a rule that a man is born into precisely those relations in which he is to continue during the course of his life. As he begins, so he ends, a member of his family group, and to this condition the whole theory and practice of his life conforms. He is taught to worship his ancestors, to honor and obey his parents, and to prepare himself from an early age for the duties of a husband and father. Marriage does not dissolve the family; the husband remains and the wife becomes a member of his group of kinsmen. And this group is the social unit."