Dutiful kids prove filial piety still exists

If 16-year-old Pham Thi Ngoc Anh’s dedication to family is any indication, new ways of living haven’t yet driven out the old. Binh Son gets to know her.

Respect for your elders is no empty phrase in Viet Nam, as children are encouraged from a young age to revere family as the bastion of society. But as the country strives for global integration, many are wondering how individualistic ideals from abroad will affect Vietnamese family values and whether big sacrifices to show filial gratitude are going to become just another episode in history.

No one could express their love and devotion to family more than 16-year-old Pham Thi Ngoc Anh. Every morning when the sun has barely risen, the teenager plies the streets of Phuoc Binh Commune in the southern province of Dong Nai with a pail full of banh canh, meat and noodle soup similar to pho in the north.

She sells the soup to help support her large and extremely poor family, her great grandmother, grandparents, mother and young sister. Her father is often away working in a nearby province.

"My mother and I have to wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning to cook the soup and then carry it along the road from our home to my school. We try to sell it all before I start my class," she says.

"We earn about VND30,000-35,000 per day for our daily meals and the rest we use to buy medicine for our great grandmother who is a Heroic Mother of Viet Nam."

It was because of her great grandmother’s contribution to the war effort that the province granted Ngoc Anh’s family the house.

This self-sacrificing attitude has clearly been passed down to Ngoc Anh, whose list of good deeds is inexhaustive. Not only does she do the cooking and housework alongside her mother, give a hand to clean and feed her older family members and help her sister with her homework – Ngoc Anh is also an extremely diligent school pupil, her mother Nguyen Thi Canh says proudly.

"I try to tell Ngoc Anh to rest more but she says she wants to be an excellent pupil at school and insists she is happy to help her family members," Canh said.

Ngoc Anh’s dedication is a role model even for her own father, Pham Van Toi. "One day my wife was ill and couldn’t sell the soup. Ngoc Anh knew that if there was no soup to sell, the family would go hungry so she decided to cook the soup and sell it by herself. She didn’t stop until she fainted from exhaustion.

"Seeing my daughter take on so much work, I decided to seek work in a neighbouring province to earn more money to assist my family, even though it’s only a little."

The teenager’s labourious dedication has earned her a scholarship from the Dong Nai Fund for good students from poor families for many consecutive years. But Ngoc Anh’s virtues do not come unchallenged and she often has to endure the taunts of other students who look down on her social position.

"Boys sometimes play tricks on me, they can make me feel very sorry for myself but I never cry."

"These boys are from rich families, but instead of making the most of their opportunities they make fun of people worse off than them, race their motorbikes and stress everyone out," she complains.

"If I had their money, I’d never act like them. Although my family is poor, our respect and concern for each other makes us happy. Being able to contribute a little bit to the welfare of my family makes me smile."

Ngoc Anh is not just a role model for her family, but also her schoolmates and the community as a whole, chairman of Binh Phuc Commune Pham Van Nam says.

"We are so proud of Ngoc Anh, she’s a well-behaved child, treats her neighbours and elders with respect and always has a smile on her face," Nam says, adding, "Ngoc Anh’s example should be held up as a role model for the younger generation, to reinstall centuries-old Vietnamese social values currently threatened by the market economy."

A family affair: Dutiful daughter and diligent student Pham Thi Ngoc Anh, 16, (second from right) sits with her parents and younger sister.

Just deserts

In honour of the virtues she represents, Ngoc Anh, along with two others, has have been assigned to attend the 4th National Congress of Dutiful Sons, Daughters and Grandchildren at the end of this year, according to Chairman of the Binh Phuoc Fatherland Committee Ngo Nhu Giang.

"She is the most prominent example of a dutiful daughter in the district," he says.

By honouring these people, the event hopes to set benchmarks for society to sustain Vietnamese cultural values.

"As the country develops, younger people are turning away from family duty so I believe Ngoc Anh’s example can play a great part in keeping our traditions alive," Giang says.

Ngoc Anh herself has more humble aspirations.

"I always wish for health for my family members and a good daily meal for everyone to sit down and enjoy," she says.

Ngoc Anh is not the only dutiful daughter in the community. Elderly couple Ngo The Thai in HCM City have four grown-up children, all of whom are now thriving with work of their own. But despite their success, they often take time out of their busy schedules to return to the nest to visit their parents and sometimes even hold parties for them and their friends.

There’s a folk song that almost every Vietnamese school pupil knows, drilled so often people can still recite it by heart it in their twilight years. Thai says the song played an important part in his children’s upbringing.

Cong cha nhu nui Thai Son;

Nghia me nhu nuoc trong nguon chay ra;

Mot long tho me kinh cha

Cho tron dao hieu moi la dao con.

(A father’s efforts to raise his children are as big as a mountain;

A mother’s tenderness is inexhaustion like a stream;

In turn, it is a child’s reverence for parents

That fulfils their filial piety.)

These are values that underpinned his children’s upbringing, Thai stresses.

"We made sure to teach our four children how to obey their parents, teachers and adults; how to help a needy person, particularly the elderly; and how to respect neighbours and friends."

"We also teach our children how to take care of each other and help their parents with the housework," Thai’s wife adds.

Happy families make happy communities and ultimately a happy nation, according to Thai. But he worries what the nation’s development will have on this.

Charlie in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate factory, Hans Christian Anderson’s little match seller girl – western literature is full of children who sacrifice everything for the sake of their families but all too often reality fails to uphold these values. The world has yet to see if it will be the same story for filial piety in Viet Nam.

(Source: VNS)