Sandwiched Grandparents and Biological Health Risks in China

This study examined the cross-sectional associations between intergenerational caregiving and health risks among sandwiched Chinese grandparents who provide care to grandchildren, great-grandparents, or both. Drawing on biomarker data from the 2011 wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (N range = 2,189–3,035), we measured age-related biological health risks of hypertension, diabetes, inflammation, and allostatic load. We found that health risks did not necessarily increase with the intensity of intergenerational caregiving. Providing care to grandchildren and great-grandparents simultaneously was not as detrimental to health as reported in earlier studies from the United States. Sandwiched grandparents could benefit from providing care to grandchildren or great-grandparents only. These unexpected findings might be related to the cultural mandates of filial piety and family solidarity in China. Grandfathers and grandmothers experienced different associations between varying types of intergenerational caregiving and health risks.

Attachment relationship with parents and Taiwanese middle-aged adult children’s filial anxiety: The mediating role of dual filial piety beliefs

Given the aging of the global population, the experience of adult children preparing to care for their aging parents is increasingly valued. In this article, I not only examined the associations between Taiwanese adult children’s attachment relationships with parents and their experience of filial anxiety but also took a psychocultural perspective to explore the mediating role of filial piety, the most representative value in the Chinese family. I collected survey data from 1305 middle-aged Taiwanese adults over 40 years old whose father or mother was alive and over 65 years old. The results from the first model for both father–child and mother–child datasets showed that secure attachment relationships with parents had a significant positive association with adults’ parental-welfare-focused filial anxiety B (FAB) but a significant negative association with their caregiver-role-focused filial anxiety A (FAA). The results from the second analysis indicated that secure attachment relationships with parents, for both father–child and mother–child datasets, had a significant positive association with adults’ endorsement of reciprocal filial piety beliefs, which significantly related to higher levels of FAB but lower levels of FAA. For both the father–child and mother–child datasets, secure attachment relationships with parents also had a significant positive association with their endorsement of authoritarian filial piety beliefs. Subsequently, their endorsement of authoritarian filial piety belief significantly related to a higher level of FAB in only the mother–child dataset. In conclusion, these findings broaden the understanding of adult children’s experience of filial anxiety that could be related to their attachment relationship with parents and their endorsement of reciprocal and authoritarian filial piety.

“It’s More Us Helping Them Instead of Them Helping Us”: How Class Disadvantage Motivates Asian American College Students to Help Their Parents

While considerable attention has been given to the ways that parents contribute to undergraduates’ success, far less attention has been given to what these students do for their families, variation in students’ provision of help, or the consequences of giving. Drawing on 61 interviews with Asian American college students from diverse ethnic and class backgrounds, this paper extends conventional understanding of families and college by analyzing the financial assistance and translation support Asian American undergraduates give their parents. Using a trichotomous model of class—comparing disadvantaged, advantaged, and ambiguous students—I show that class disadvantage motivated students’ helping, advantage deterred it, while the ambiguous fell in between. Culture (i.e., filial piety) and a broad view of family (i.e., siblings’ contributions) also influenced students’ help. Finally, based on interview data combined with partial support from analysis of participants' grade point averages data, I demonstrate that helping had positive and negative implications for students’ college experience.

Some aspects of the authorship of the treatise “Xiao Jing”

The article deals with the authorship of the Confucian treatise Xiao Jing (“The Classic of Filial Piety”). Xiao Jing is one of the classical treatises that constitutes a part of the Confucian corpus Shisan Jing (“The Thirteen Classics”). This confirms the importance and high significance of this text for the traditional philosophical thought of China. The earliest mention of the title “Xiao Jing” was recorded in the work from the 3rd century BC, Lu shi chun qiu (“Spring and Autumn of Mr Liu”), which indicates the terminus ante quem non for the treatise Xiao Jing. According to some Russian scholars, the treatise Xiao Jing was compiled in the IV-II centuries BC. The Chinese scholarship acknowledges eight main versions of authorship, and therefore dating of Xiao Jing. The author stresses the importance to establish the authorship of the Xiao Jing treatise since this can be a piece of additional information for a comprehensive understanding of the philosophical heritage of the Confucian tradition of this text. After presenting an outline of the main versions of authorship of the Xiao Jing treatise, the author states that this issue can hardly be solved unambiguously. Therefore, this article can be considered as a preliminary essay for further research. The appendix offers a complete Russian translation of the Xiao Jing made by the author of the present article.

再議儒家對超人類主義的態度

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English. Superhumanism or posthumanism has become our reality. To deal with the resulting humanitarian dilemma, we can consult the abundant theoretical resources provided by Confucianism. Confucius's “The Gentleman is No Vessel”, Zengzi's important concept of filial piety, and Mencius' understanding of human nature contribute valuable theoretical perspectives for reflection on the real-world consequences of transhumanism.

“I thought that I had to be alive to repay my parents”: Filial piety as a risk and protective factor for suicidal behavior in a qualitative study of Chinese women

Filial piety involves the Confucian view that children always have a duty to be obedient and to provide care for their parents. Filial piety has been described as both a risk and a protective factor in depression and suicide. This qualitative study aimed to explore the role of filial piety in the suicidal behavior of Chinese women. Qualitative interviews were conducted with Chinese women with a history of suicidal behavior living in the Beijing area ( n = 29). Filial piety data were extracted and analyzed in accordance with constructivist grounded theory. The women described five specific family and filial piety factors and how they influenced their ability to fulfill family role obligations, which was described as a nexus connecting these factors to depression, suicidal behavior, and recovery. The five factors were: 1) rigidity of parental filial expectations, 2) perception of family relationships as positive/supportive or negative/harsh, 3) whether filial piety is of high or low personal value in the woman's life, 4) any experiences of rebellion leading to punitive consequences, and 5) how much filial piety she receives from her children. These factors could inform suicide risk assessments in this population. They can be harnessed as part of recovery and protect against future suicidal behavior.

“Yo I am Superman, You Kiddo Go Home”: ritual impoliteness in Chinese freestyle rap battles

Introduced by African American communities, Chinese rap battle features an intensive ritual exchange of impoliteness, aggression, and vulgarity, but its linguistic realizations have not been systematically examined. Taking Iron Mic as a case study, this paper explores how advanced and novice rappers perform ritual impoliteness in Chinese underground rap battle competitions. Using mixed methods of discourse analysis and content analysis, we analyze the ritual impoliteness strategies in 51 rounds of Chinese freestyle rap battles. The findings show that advanced and novice rappers employed comparable instances of taboo language, threatening, and insults on their opponents’ superficial qualities and rap skills. Moreover, advanced rappers performed significantly more boasting and ritual insults on the others’ moral qualities. Their use of ritual impoliteness is warranted by hip-hop community norms of authenticity and creativity as well as Chinese social values of reciprocity, filial piety, and moral educators. This paper contributes to the research on Chinese ritual impoliteness and rap battle competitions.

The Role of Family in Modern China

Following the Maoist period (1949–1976), which stressed workplace relations over family ties and the post-Mao era, which restored the family as an important social unit, the family in contemporary China suggests a blended picture of both pre-modern, modern and post-modern characteristics. For instance, the increasing intergenerational relationship accompanied by strong filial piety shows a quasi-return to pre-modern conditions, whereas the freedom of mateselection rather reveals a modern characteristic of Chinese families today. In contrast, China’s current low total fertility rate shows a post-modern feature of the family, albeit as a result of direct state intervention in the private sphere. This blended and compressed characteristic can also be seen in the ambiguous transformation of the private (family) and ‘public’ (defined here as ‘non-private’, such as political, economic and civil society) spheres. However, it can be argued that contemporary China, which offers new perspectives to social sciences for a better understanding of the different paths of modernisation in general, is being characterised by a sort of new modern familism where the family continues to play an essential role in social responsibility and sustainability.