It has been one of the biggest myths in Chinese culture, a deep misunderstanding of the real priority among Chinese families over generations of time, and the exact opposite of the truth: Believing the Chinese all worship their ancestry, when in reality it has always been the case that they worship their own offspring!
But how can we be so sure which story is true and which false? Cultures are known to be highly elusive in general, and for the so called “high context” cultures in particular, which include China and many Asian countries according to anthropologist Edward T. Hall in his book Beyond culture published in 1976. Many western scholars interested in China often resort to something deemed reliable and accurate: writings by indigenous thinkers and authors thousands of years ago, with Confius being the top-of-mind figure. They have presumed the safety and validity of going after the “roots” of culture. But what is a culture? It lives constantly among its people, updates and renews itself from time to time, and yet remains true to its core. Each culture is both stock and flow, much like a river holding its amount of water in its course. Relying on historic thinkers is safe only when a river of culture can be reduced to a fixed, frozen stock of water. We all know that is not true. You run the risk of falling into the staticity trap, which blinds you from seeing the dynamic flow.
Instead of listening to what Confius had taught the Chinese thousands of years ago, there is a simpler way relying on something that is ongoing and quantifiable: Watch how families divide or allocate their budget. If ancestry worship is indeed the family priority, we expect to see families reserving a fixed and considerable amount of money for memorial services year after year. You are likely disappointed here because few families would spend big money honoring their ancestry. What is easily observable on the other hand is for parents to put away a big chunk of money for off-school, extra-curriculum tutoring of the juniors. To be sure, most families do hold memorial ceremonies every year on a certain date: the time for cleaning up family tombs, lighting incense, spreading flowers and getting down to knees to beg for ancestry’s blessing. But these activities are easy, quick and cheap. Budget wise they are no match to the monthly repeated payments for schooling and tutoring.