The First of all Virtues – Part 9/9

February 1, 2010

There are always exceptions when it comes to practicing piety. Even in China, there will be the occasional rude individual. The thing is, I haven’t seen or heard one yet, and I have visited China many times since 1999.

I did have a disrespectful, American born Asian student (once) during the thirty years I was a teacher.

I also had a small number of hard-working, respectful students from all ethnic groups—even those that were American born, but those types seem to be a dying breed in Western culture.

My best students were usually immigrants that came to the United States after living in their birth country for several years.

In addition, I had one American born student enter high school as a freshman after being home taught for eight years by his Caucasian, conservative Christian parents. He was a great person—polite and he worked hard.

He never said, “Hey, old man.”

Visit this site and you will quickly discover that someone does not agree with me about China. China, rude, dirty and annoying.  Maybe this person has a Chinese face.

The Chinese can be very abrupt and rude with each other but usually treat foreign faces with respect.

Return to The First of All Virtues Part 1 or return to Part 8

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

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The First of all Virtues – Part 6/9

January 31, 2010

It seems the rolls have reversed.

Today, it is as if older people are to be invisible and silent while handing over everything they worked hard for to youngsters that expect to do or get whatever they want. In North America, we have spawned more than one generation of narcissists.

There are other countries where children are still taught to be respectful of their elders and value the work it takes to gain an education. China is one of those countries.

More than twenty-four hundred years ago, Confucius dedicated his life to the moral training of his culture. He lived during the Warring States period before China was unified. Living with all of that violence and death, he dreamed of a land where people could live happily and harmoniously together.

Only in this sense can one understand the tremendous emphasis placed on filial piety, which is regarded as the ‘first of all virtues’.

To learn more about Confucius and piety, check out this site at the Journal for International Relations. I’m not saying what Confucius taught was perfect but it served China well for centuries and still play a vital part of the culture in China.

Go to The First of All Virtues Part 7 or return to Part 5

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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The First of all Virtues – Part 3/9

January 30, 2010

Since the episode with the punk kids, that mother who thought I needed reason for keeping them off our driveway doesn’t talk to me or acknowledge that I am alive if we pass each other on the street.

After all, I ratted out her precious, perfect child and called the police about his pack of unruly punks. In addition, one of the other children that wanted to play in our driveway argued with me after I politely asked them to go somewhere else.

Of course, I’ve heard the, “kids will be kids” crap as a teacher. However, I do not except that excuse for rudeness and unruly behavior.

My wife and I value our privacy. That’s why we bought a house at the end of a cul-de-sac. We also don’t like the liability of kids using our steep driveway for cheap thrills since we live in a litigation nation where everything you worked hard for can vanish in a court of law.

In reading this post from Always on the Verge, I discovered one of the idiots that advocates a world run by rude punks. I don’t think this author has ever considered the other side of the coin beyond her small world.

Go to The First of All Virtues Part 4 or return to Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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The First of all Virtues – Part 2/9

January 30, 2010

“Hey, old man, you can’t stop us. You can’t take our picture because it’s dark.” Those were the words I heard after dark one night during the summer of 2008 from a pack of kids taunting me as they raced in and out of our steep driveway on their bicycles.

I finally called the police, and the next day walked the neighborhood door to door seeking support to stop the harassment that had gone on for two years—mostly during the summers when school was out.

When I talked to the mother of one of these kids, she asked, “What was your reason for not letting them play on your driveway?”

Do I need a reason? In a piece about The Eternal Value of Privacy, the author never mentioned the tyranny of neighbors and punk kids.

Go to The First of All Virtues Part 3 or return to Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

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The First of all Virtues – Part 1/9

January 30, 2010

I read ‘any damn fool can be a parent’, and it made me think that North America is not a comfortable place to be if you become a geezer. Geezer is the endearing term our teenage daughter used to call me.

When I was a kid, youngsters were to be seen and not heard. We treated our elders with respect. And I was born in America.

After the birth of Disneyland, fast food, MTV, the Internet and the iPod generation, something valuable caught a cancer that spread through too much of American culture. That something is killing off ‘respect’. In China it is called piety and piety is very much alive. In other Asian countries like South Korea, piety is just as strong. You can read more about this in Hello Korea.

Go to The First of All Virtues Part 2 or discover Deep Family Roots

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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