When one elderly man was interviewed about his opinion on China’s new filial piety law, he suggested a new law to sentence 30-year-old people who are still single.
“My kids aren’t breaking any law when they don’t visit me often. But, to be 30 years old and still single, now that should be a violation of the law!” an unidentified elderly man told Youku, China’s Youtube-like platform, “They should be sentenced.”
His remarks were watched over 65,000 times eleven hours after the video was posted,
Older Chinese still place great pressure on young people to get married and have children, which is seen as an expression of filial piety, a set of values and behaviors reinforced in the Chinese psyche since Confucian times.
The drift of social mores over the last 60 years has led to the breakdown of such habits in modern times. Recently the Chinese regime passed a new law attempting to force adult children to visit their elderly parents.
The passing of the filial piety law however, has been controversial for regulating a personal aspect of people’s lives and for its vague language—“family members living apart from the elderly should frequently visit or send greetings to the elderly persons”—that doesn’t specify punishments or define what should be considered as “frequently.”
