It’s said that the relationship that one shares with their parents is the purest one. It’s the most important relationship we have in the world. And yet it’s not an uncommon sight to see ageing parents being ill-treated or neglected by the same children who they’ve raised with so much love and care. Such people exist everywhere in the world, and to deal with them, China has devised a unique and clever solution!
A small Chinese village, Huangfeng, puts up the names and pictures of the people who don’t care for their ageing parents, as a way of shaming them right up on a public billboard!
The village came up with this idea after a few older citizens raised the issue that they were not being looked after by their children. The Confucian philosophy of ‘Filial Piety’, a virtue of respect for one’s parents and elders, is strongly valued in the Chinese community. So initially the village chiefs tried to talk with the adults who were found to be mistreating their parents.
But since they continued with their bad-behaviour, their photographs, names, personal details, along with their wrongdoings were put up on a billboard for everyone to see.
Chinese law empowers ageing citizens to force their children to look after them. And according to the reports, more than 1000 old people took the matter to court to force their kids to do their duties. Taking the initiative a step further, in 2013, the law also made it compulsory for adults to give emotional support and pay regular visits to their elderly parents.