Meet the parents, or pay the price
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A newly amended law touching on the issue of filial devotion has sparked debate in China's heavily Confucian society over the credibility of a system that enables parents to sue their offsprings for not paying them enough attention.
According to the recently revised Law on Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, children should not ignore their parents, and those who are responsible for financially supporting elderly relatives should visit them frequently, or at least keep in regular contact.
Failure to do so could lead to them being sued by their elders, as officials at the Ministry of Civil Affairs have ordered courts to start accepting such lawsuits, instead of quashing them as before.
This has given rise to a tirade of mocking responses from Chinese "netizens", who question how the courts can reasonably enforce such potentially risible legislation.
How does one define "frequent", they ask, and what would be a suitable punishment for those cold-blooded kids who selfishly focus on their own lives?
One key problem is that China's breakneck development in the past few decades has made it more difficult for certain strata of society to observe the traditional Confucian values that place home and family above all.
A good example of this is the rise - over the last two decades - of the Chinese migrant workers. These poor, and often poorly educated, people at the bottom of the breadbasket typically leave their provincial villages to hunt down factory jobs in big cities like Shenzhen or Guangzhou, but are only able to return home once a year for the Chinese New Year.
Don't they already have enough on their plate trying to secure a job, save enough money to buy an apartment, marry, have a child and support their child's education? The last thing they need to be burdened with is the threat of civil litigation by their aging parents.
