“Meng Mu San Qian” is a well-known old Chinese parable. As coming from China, I understand this story very well, and there is an invisible value behind the story that I would like to share with you today. Furthermore, by reading the second story of the “American Born Chinese” cartoon book, I believe that the author must have learned something from this story.
So first, let’s look at this old Chinese parable and see why it could make this author write about it. Long time ago, Mencius (Meng) was keen on playing in his childhood and was good at imitativeness, his mother (Meng Mu) successively moved their house three times (San Qian) for preventing him from learning any bad behaviors through their neibours. For the third time of their move, Mother chose to live near the school. As a result, Mencius learned etiquette and knowledge along with the other school students, and mother felt very happy and no longer moved.
According to our assigned reading, we can notice that the author thought of “Meng Mu San QIan” story when he and his family making a move from one place to another. Meng Mu decided to move because she wanted his son to stay with good neighbourhood, and learn from them based on his outstanding mimic ability. The author cried and wrote may be due to,
1) The author was then a little fond of playing boy. After recalling this old story, he might realized that what he did before depressed his mother, and his mother chose to move because she wanted her son to be influenced by some good neibours. As soon as he noticed this, he felt really sorry to his mother, and decided to study very hard along with the hard working circumstances of his living community.
2)The author might also want to point out this social problem that some parents may concern. Since bad living environment would probably affect children development, some particular parents should keep alert and take an action sometimes.
The invisible value behind the story, as I mentioned before, is that it emphasized the importance of the living environment to children development. When children live in a good/ positive community, they will naturally behave positively along with those good neighbours. Vice – versa, when children live in a bad/negative community, they will behave negatively along with those bad neighbours. Although the story is old, its spirit and idea have been still spreading by people nowadays.
Before, “Zhang Jia Jie Daily Newspaper” reported that, “In China, according to our ancient story “Meng Mu San Qian”, most elementary school, middle school, and high school have been made an agreement on developing education, cultivating talented-students, and beautifying campus are important to our education development, which also needs to proceed right away.” China government spent a huge amount of money to this project because the government believe that a good learning environment would definitely make an effort to students.
Not only the China government, but also some Chinese parents act to build the best living and learning environment for their children. Take me for example. When I went to high school in China, my parents signed a three-year lease of an old apartment near to my school, and set there as our home for those three years. Since high-school students in China are normally grouped as the poorest students in China, they can never finish reading books or doing homework. Most Chinese parents, including mine, would like to move for their kids. In this case, they could let their children sleep maybe ten more minutes. And also, they decided to live with them for taking good care of. They always show their best responsibility to their kids. In another word, they are also showing the very responsibility to our society, to the future.
I guess you might be interested in watching this "Meng Mu San Qian" Cartoon, in Chinese. Try it, it will be really fun!
Hi Chao, I think you did a good job on analyzing the detail part of this story. I am impressed that you actually dig into the part where most of the people choose to neglect. I had read the story of “Meng Mu San Qian” when I was young and I think it is a very important practice. I strongly agreed that this is one of the significant Asian cultures that truly represent the positive side of us. I also agreed that there is definitely reason/s the author chose to mention this story in the comics, as the opening part for Jin Wang, and I really like the way that you made assumptions on why the author chose to do that. My assumption for this is that maybe author wanted to emphasis that it is very difficult for foreigners to settle their lives in a specific place due to many reasons, and parents wanted to let their children to feel how much their parents love and care about their future which could definitely be the reason of moving from place to place. Many Asian parents really take good care of their children, from their food, desires, education, necessities and needs, living and learning environment, etc. They are willing to scarifies their job opportunity, spend most of their money, and put as much effort as possible for their kids because for them kids are their most valuable asset in life. Used me as an example, I considered myself benefiting a lot from living in a great and positive environment. I was been raised up with good manners and right conducts, this attitude end up giving me a lot of friends, opportunities and successes.
ReplyDeleteHello Chao,
ReplyDeleteYour blog on the parable "Meng Mu San Qian" is very interesting. You are one of the few people who did not write about the characters of "American Born Chinese". Rather, you wrote about the parable. After reading your blog, I learned something new about Chinese culture. The parable is very similar to one of the Vietnamese parables as well: It's dark to be near ink, it's bright to be near a lamp. Anyway, the meaning of these two parables are the same. What a person will become when they grow up depends heavily on the environment around him/her. If a person grow up in an environment filled with love, and good teachings, he will most likely become a good person. In contrast, a bad environment where crimes are exposed to children, the children will most likely grow up to be criminals. This is a universal truth that everyone should know. It is also interesting to learn that the Chinese government spend a lot of money to develop learning environment for children in China. I believe it is right to do so. If a nation focus on nurturing its young generation, especially on the aspect of education, that nation will surely become developed and strong in the future. I am also touched to know that your parents decided to move near your school when you were young in order to help you studying. Chinese parents indeed take care very well of their children. I believe your parents must have missed you a lot since you came to the United States. And I am sure you also missed them too. You should go back and visit them when you can =).
It's interesting that you think a lot about the "Meng Mu San Qian" story from the comics. I heard of this story when I was a little girl, and I remember that I dislike the story then. I felt at that time that it's a very stupid idea to move to different places. I thought that environment is just a little factor. If one always feel dissatisfied with the environment, should he keep moving? But when I rethink about this story now, I feel that at some point this idea makes sense. I'm not a kid anymore, but a senior college student. I have a lot of experience about the influence of environment. I must admit that environment is important and it may influence me in a bad or good way. Parents know this regulation too, so that's why in the comic Jin's parents keep moving to different places, to find a best grow-up environment for Jin. And that's why in China a lot of parent would like their children to come to America's universities to study, because they think America holds a good learning environment.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, I will say that people should choose good environment when it's possible, because it will implicitly has an effect on them, but at the same time, people should not be limited and controlled by the environment. People should learn to control and adapt to the environment. Nobody can always have the choice to move around. What we can do is to learn the good things from the environment and get rid of the bad things. We should be the master, not the environment.
I love that you included the background story which enhanced "American Born Chinese". I had no idea about the Chinese parable but once you mentioned it and put it in context with Jin and what his mother was trying to do for him, it made sense. Environment does contribute to shaping us. Like you said, it can be both a positive or a negative but I think it depends on the circumstances and the individual. I agree with you that "we should be the master" but sometimes I think that the outside influences from the environment that we are in are more prominent and therefore it is easier to become influenced by them. For instance, in the story, Jin's parents move him around looking for a good school or place to raise him. However, due to him being Asian-American and viewed as the "other", he chose to become influenced by the environment and ultimately morfed into Danny to gain acceptance. The environment that he was in made fun of him and instead of moving, he changed himself. Especially being a young boy, he wanted to fit in and not be ridiculed for being Asian-American unfortunately he forgot who he was in the process. I enjoyed your post. It provided additional insight into the story that I did not originally receive since I was unaware of the meaning behind that Chinese story.
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