At home, no matter how much I contribute, my parents alwaystook it for granted as I am supposed to be filial … but here the elderly say thank you, theyrespect me, and they don’t try to control my life, to have a filial heart is much easier here.
Highlighting quote that reinforces a main point: Filial piety doesn't depend on familial relations.
One key distinction is that,with the elderly they assist, they don’t feel burdened by a sense of indebtedness,unlike the perceived obligation they experience with their own parents.
I wonder if this is an example of psychological reactance.
being stingy with the time spent visiting one’s parents shows a lack of ‘filialheart’.
Why is filial piety being judged by circumstantial conditions? Also, drawing back to the challenge of technology, I wonder if care workers see video chatting or messaging online as spending time.
Sucha seemingly double standard in defining the ‘filial heart’ highlights its fluid, context-dependent nature, shaped by varying economic and social circumstances
Highlighting the fact that expression of filial piety is incedibly nuanced.
Grandma Li’s son works inAmerica … She is so proud of him …
Makes me wonder why generational advancement via opportunities doesn't count as a filial action to her.
As such, the sense of‘limitless indebtedness’ towards parents has diminished, replaced by a focus on mutualgratitude and support, creating a two-way exchange of care
Example of power dynamics changing within a culture, more towards and egalitarian outlook of the "filial piety" value.
the disparities between rural and urban life that hadbecome ingrained in her during her years in the city.
Exemplifies cultures within cultures. Danlu seemingly assimilated into a "city" culture during her time there but after returning, she may be considered an outside group to the "rural" culture.
For them, the lack of physical caregiving for their own parents isoffset by their great efforts to provide financial support, often seen as a token of their‘filial heart’. Sending money home, in their eyes, is a way to ‘fulfil the filial heart’
I made this assumption on page 137! Physically being there may be difficult but filial piety is being fulfilled through monetary means.
They also reject the reduction of care recipients tomere data points under standardized practices.
I think this is a good way to set a tone of industrialization of filial piety. For larger companies, their affect is not emotional but rather seemingly transactional and reductive.
Their resistance stems from a refusalto be seen merely as functionaries; instead, they strived to be recognized as moralindividuals offering genuine care.
Wanted to highlight this quote.
amilies love our videosbecause they can see real progress. You care about the person, not just the “deaddata”.
This suggests that filial piety is not a detached cultural obligation but rather a emotionally driven action. It furthers the author(s) argument that filial piety's affect and action can be separated and nuanced.
Chinese equivalent to apps such as whatsapp.
However, the ‘warm’ knowledge that reflects the‘filial heart’ is not systematically recorded, as its qualitative nature defies standardquantification.
Wanted to highlight this line.
patience and communication, customizing approaches based onindividual personalities and hobbies
This person-centered approach is very common in the American health system when caring for patients with cognitive disabilities in older age.
a process that involves manuallydocumenting data on paper before uploading it to digital platforms.
I wonder why it's necessary for careworkers to document manually. In the United States, our healthcare systems are heavily reliant on online consolidated charts to promote continuity of care. The systems here offer features such as drop down menus, plan of care suggestions and instantaneous lab requests.
risks of exploitation and control that can arise from such pseudo-kinship bonds
Just wanted to highlight this point.
where Xia’s ‘filial heart’, usually an asset, was penalized for not aligning with establishedstandards.
Provides us with an example of how filial heart is a complex concept that is actively being tried to push into a set of actions by the care industry. They can boast filial heart but also weaponize it against their workers, who are expected to have filial heart in the first place.
it also obscures thestructural exploitation at play within the caregiving industry
It's common for industries to exploit their workers everywhere under the guise that the worker is overachieving or good at their job. It's really sad to see larger companies take advantage of their employees like this.
f not all explicitlyacknowledge the disparity between their personal and professional obligations.
In a way, they may still be participating in filial piety if they are sending money back to their families.
which implies work with ‘physical, social or moral taint’(Ashforth & Kreiner 1999: 414). In eldercare, ‘dirty work’ refers to work characterizedby the negativity associated with the engagement of caring for those who may havebodily dysfunctions and discharges
It is interesting to me that a filial job can be seen as "dirty work." I wonder if this is due to classism? Do the people who are hiring caregivers because of busy lives consider themselves to be better than these workers?
in-depth interviews with care workers, longer-term observation during my weekly visitsto one of the care institutions, as well as accompanying care workers on home servicevisits to households
Notes research methods.
fewer familyresources as a daughter
Example of the patriarchal culture?
Yanzi, a care worker in her late fifties, explains: ‘As they say, “one will neverfully appreciate the great kindness of their parents until they raise children themselves”
I think this is a really good quote to support the idea that older eldercare workers are objectively better.
aged 40 to 60. This preference isdriven not only by their presumed increased caregiving experience and resilience, butalso by the belief that, as both parents of adult children and children of elderly parents,they embody a stronger sense of ‘filial heart’.
I wonder if this is due to generational beliefs. Is it because Chinese culture believes that filial piety is more engrained/valued/practiced in older generations?
a key indicator of competence ineldercare
A western point of view of competence in eldercare would likely be related to productivity or effectiveness meanwhile the Chinese point of view of competence holds a more emotional value.
For many elder people, including elder migrant workers, who wouldpreviously have been the ‘information have-less’ (Qiu 2009), the smartphone is theirfirst-ever personal internet access to leapfrog into the digital age.
I used to work in a assisted living facility and I often had to help the residents with technology issues. I think the digitalization can also cause the elderly to be more vulnerable. I remember specifically I had to show a resident how to identify text based scams.
migrant workersfrequently face social discrimination, inequality, and exclusion in urban environments
Reminiscent of a caste system.
In 2019,China had approximately 290.77 million migrant workers
Highlights the overall population of the study.
hukou
Hukou: a strict Chinese household registration record that determines access to public services like education, healthcare, and housing based on birthplace
Since 2001, the Chinese government has encouraged the development of commercialnursing homes for the elderly nationwide
Exemplifies the adaptation of a country driven by culture. The encouragement of this development was driven by the filial piety culture all through out the country. The country feels an obligation to take care of their elderly population.
The monthly fee at theelderly centre where the fieldwork took place (approximately £700-£1,200) exceededthe average monthly pension of retirees. However, most residents received additionalfinancial support from their adult children.
Demonstrates filial piety through monetary means.
rapidly ageing society; the decline of extended family; massive domesticmigration; and the boom of the digital in almost all the fields of urban China.
Author(s) note four different outside influences on caregiving in China to set their study into context.
two elderly care institutions: one in the citycentre and the other in a suburban area with an affiliated hospital.
Notes the sample of the study.
Based on sixteen-month (2018-2019) fieldwork in Shanghai
Notes where and when research was conducted.
the intertwined relationship between care andcontrol in commodified care provokes ethical reflections among migrant care workers,
The situation sets up a question for migrant workers. Though they are being paid, there's still complex motivations and feelings towards the action of caregiving itself.
While the concept of filial piety emphasizes care labour alongside respectand obedience to elders (Lee & Mjelde-Mossey 2004), in practice, there is considerableroom for negotiation between action and affect – an aspect this article’s ethnographyseeks to illuminate.
The main point of this article. Filial piety based caregiving vs other perspectives motivating caregiving.
affect and action in caregiving can be distinctly separated.
In this context, affect means the feelings that produce behavior and action means the behavior itself.
ethnography
Textbook chapter 3 defines ethnography as "the in-depth study of everyday practices and lives of a people."
habituated
Habituated: a person or animal that has become accustomed to a situation, person, or stimulus through frequent exposure, often making it a regular habit or a routine response
Western concept of ‘care’, which indicates ‘an internal conviction’.
The internal conviction kind of contradicts the filial piety aspect to caregiving. The text is saying in a western point of view, caregiving is done because the individual wants to. In a filial piety point of view, caregiving is done because the caregiver "owes" it.
that modernization, urbanization, consumeraspirations, and individualistic values may erode traditional filial obligations
I can absolutely see why this is a concern in modern times. I think this concern would also be projected on the Chinese diaspora, I wonder if they would "disprove" this concern as well.
rather than being eroded, collective familial interests and filial obligation have beenrenegotiated and reinterpreted in a pragmatic response to the development strategiesand social policies supported by the state
Relates to chapter 1 of the textbook's "As powerful as culture is, humans are not necessarily bound by culture; they have the capacity to conform to it or not and even transform it." The author references observed changes in the familial care culture due to outside forces.
‘caredebt’, owed by adult children to their parents for the care they received throughouttheir upbringings
Emphasizes the reasoning behind the "need" for caregivers: adult children feel the need to take care of their parents as an act of reciprocity for their parents taking care of them as children. I grew up with this ideology & it's been heavily practiced in my family between the members in Vietnam and in America.
commodification of intimacy
Interesting to frame it this way. To me, I think emotions and personal connections can definitely be exploited. I never thought about it this way but other examples of the commodification of intimacy are companies advertising "personal AI robots" to prey on loneliness. I think caregiving can definitely reflect the idea of "commodification of intimacy" as people tend to seek caregivers for their family members that fit into their family. A level of trust and connection typically are sought out when hiring staff for these purposes.
theorize care as ‘simultaneously moral, relational, historically specific, and embeddedwithin forms of governance and global political-economic transformations’
One of the purposes of this piece is to further "prove" that caregiving can contribute to and shape culture in an anthropological lense.
patrilineal norms
Patrilineal norms: social systems tracing kinship, inheritance, and succession exclusively through the male line
patriarchal patriliny
Patriarchal patriliny: a social system combining male authority (patriarchy) with descent and inheritance traced through the male line (patrilineality)
kinship practices
Kinship practices: the social, cultural, and behavioral systems that define relationships, responsibilities, and care
kinship
Kinship: the state of being related, typically through blood, marriage, or adoption
salience
Salience: the quality by which an item, stimulus, or idea stands out from its surroundings, catches attention, and appears prominent or important
one element of which has been her focus onpossibilities of detachability and the duality of relations
Notes writing on the complexity and fluidity of relationships.
shifted studies from kinship practice as the expression of a relation, to are-thinking of the way kinship practice can create relations.
Basically caring for the elderly or family members doesn't necessarily require a blood relation, the care can create familial-like bonds between caregiver and care reciever.
allowing ‘filial heart’ to be detachable and applied to non-kin
I think this is also in part to the collectivist culture in Asia, we see all elders as "ours." Korea uses the word "uri" as a possessive meaning "we" or "ours" instead of "i" or "my" which reflects this deeply engrained collectivist culture that's shared in many Asian cultures.
filial heart’
Filial heart: a deep, loving, and obedient heart towards one’s parents. Or, in this case, towards the elders that caregivers are taking care of.
filial piety
Filial piety: a Confucian virtue emphasizing deep respect, obedience, honor, and care for one’s parents, elders, and ancestors.
onceived as rootednot only in a family-centred social order
The reason for these migrant caregivers is because Chinese (and many other Asian cultures) emphasize taking care of your family. You can often find multigenerational households across the Asian diaspora. However, the need for the caregivers is because adult children are often too busy with work to fully take care of their parents as they become elderly.
migrant care workers attending to theelderly in Shanghai.
The studied population is various migrant care workers in Shanghai
emic perspective
"Emic perspectives refer to descriptions of behaviors and beliefs in terms that are meaningful to people who belong to a specific culture," (Chapter 3 of the textbook)