Xiao (孝) or being good to parents is a fundamental tenet of traditional Chinese society and therefore fundamental to the Chinese heritage. Being good to parents, xiao, has been designated by the original Confucian classics, especially Xiao Jing, to be the very foundation of civil society and the guarantee of moral conduct. In fact, the posthumous honorific titles of almost all Chinese emperors, except a few early ones, include the word xiao. This shows that xiao is considered a necessary component of their legitimacy as rulers. In the authoritative classic Xiao Jing, xiao is not considered just some pious state of mind as the prevalent Western translation "filial piety" would have us believe, but is considered a way of life that, if adhered by to most everyone, would result in an excellent society. It is not possible to fully understand traditional Chinese society, Chinese history, or the Chinese heritage in general without some understanding of xiao.

Over the past century, however, xiao has been so denigrated by various intellectual forces that it is now identified in many Chinese people's minds with yu xiao (愚孝), i.e. foolish or blind xiao. It is laughed at and considered since the 1920's along with yu zhong (愚忠), i.e. foolish or blind loyalty, to be the reasons for China being backward and poor despite all the thousands of years of civilization.

To make matters worse, there is some truth in the charge of foolish blind xiao: since the the 1000's during the Song Dynasty, there has been an intellectual movement lasting several centuries to convert xiao and Confucian teaching in general from a set of practical and reasonable tenets into a metaphysical cult of absolutes and excesses. For example, the version of the book The Twenty-Four Xiao (二十四孝) published in 1604 during the Ming Dynasty under the emperor's patronage, has a story supposedly about exemplary xiao where the protagonist, in order to spare food for his parents, goes to kill his own son. That kind of "exemplary xiao" is completely foreign to Confucius' original teachings, which teach valuing the next generation and one's own life and health as being first commandments of xiao, and which teaches that the flip side of xiao by the offspring is kindness by the parents: qin ci zi xiao (亲慈子孝), i.e. "parents be kind; sons be xiao." While during the two hundred years of early and mid-Qing dynasty (1640's to the1840's) reasonableness is somewhat restored by the popularization of such tracts as Di Zi Gui (弟子規) and a general intellectual trend away from the cultish excesses of the previous five centuries or so, some cult-like thinking has still revolved around xiao, and is partly responsible for the vulnerability of the entire concept to wholesale attack and denigration during the twentieth century.

To revive xiao, which we think is indeed a most important foundation of civil society and a strong guarantee of moral behavior, and which we think everyone needs, not just Chinese, we have started this webpage on xiao. Please peruse and feel free to send us your comments.

• XIAO JING 《孝经》, the Classic of XIAO (Being Good to Parents)--a must-read to understand the old Chinese worldview:
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• XIAO Should Be Translated As "Being Good to Parents" And Not "Filial Piety" "孝" 应该翻译为 "对父母好" 而不是 "子女的虔诚" (bilingual)
  
  
• 24 Ways To Carry Out XIAO (24 Ways to Be Good To Parents)  

• Di Zi Gui 《弟子规》 (Students' Rules), with English Translation:
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• Di Zi Gui (Students' Rules), with also Mandarin Pinyin & Cantonese pronunciation:
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• The Di Zi Gui Page 《弟子规》页

• XIAO JING - Wikipedia