Something to add on to Mencius's story

[Joy Chao]

This is one of the stories that I share with my students when teaching about Confucianism and related stories. Mencius, a famous scholar and philosopher and often refereed to as the “second sage” of Confucianism. Long story short, he was only 3 when his dad died so he was raised by his mom. When Mencius was little he takes a like to imitate others’ behaviors around him. Next to his house there was a

cemetery where there’re people perform funeral ceremonies, so Mencius starts to perform the same ritual at home, his mom stops him by moving to another town. This time there’s a market nearby, so Mencius starts to act like merchants that peddling on the street. This angers his mom again so she decides to move next to a school and finally she sees what she wants to see - Mencius goes to school and study and of course, eventually became a scholar just like what the mom wished him to be. This story touches up a few aspects we can point out; a woman’s role in the society, a mother’s devotion to her child’s education, and the child being filial by fulfilling his mother’s wish. Some of my students wonder what the mom would do if the school shuts down, how many more time she would be willing to move throughout her life time, and if the mom eventually died of neurasthenia – just some funny questions that students raised for a laugh 🙂