Father’s Day, China’s 10 Greatest Fathers: Father’s Love is Like a Mountain, Father’s Virtue is Like the Sea
Father’s Day, as the name implies, is a holiday of thanksgiving for fathers. It began around the beginning of the 20th century and originated abroad, and has now spread widely around the world, with the date of the holiday varying by region. We in China do not have an official Father’s Day. But it is customary to use the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day.
Father’s love is like a mountain, and father’s love is indispensable and cannot be easily replaced.
Children with abundant fatherly love have solid and stable personalities for boys and warm and cheerful personalities for girls.
Father’s virtue is like the sea. How noble the father’s virtue is, how big the child’s pattern is.
The old saying goes, “If you don’t raise a child, your father’s fault”. A father is the best teacher for his child, and his virtue and wisdom are the best assets to give to his child.
01. The faith of the family
The family is the true faith of the Chinese people, and the core of traditional family training is teaching children and governing the family.
The most important thing about fatherhood is to give children a faith in the family, to give them security and warmth.
In ancient times, although fatherhood was mainly “strict”, “strict” was not cold, uncaring, or unconcerned, but also “kind”. “
The father’s father is a father who is kind.
The role of a father is more than just a breadwinner for the family; for the children, the father is the bearer of life values and a role model to learn from.
There used to be a saying that “the sons of famous fathers often lose their virtue” because successful people are too busy with their careers to educate their children patiently.
Fathers should be more involved in their children’s growth. There are no obligatory dinners, only children who grow up instantly; money can be earned slowly, but children’s education cannot be exchanged for money alone.
The rich and powerful Li Ka-shing, from the very beginning, set a rule in his family: no matter how busy he is at work, every Monday night, the family eats together.
This is an example to children that home is faith, home is the most important, and it is essential to eat together as a family.
02. The first thing to do is to be a man
Fatherhood is, first of all, to teach children to be a man. If you can’t be a man, you can’t talk about anything; if you can be a man, you can naturally do something.
Zheng Banqiao of the Qing Dynasty, who had a son at the age of 52, of course loved him very much, but he believed that he should love correctly, not spoil him, that is, love with “Tao”.
What is this “way”?
The first thing is to be a good person.
Today’s fathers who are only concerned about whether their children can go to a good university and get a good job might want to listen to the words of Cai Yuanpei, “It is not academic performance that determines a child’s life, but the cultivation of a sound personality!”
03. Hard-working
Fu Zuoyi, a famous anti-Japanese general, grew up in a poor family. His father, in his early years, relied on carrying people across the river to earn money.
When Fu Zuoyi was a student at the Army High School, he had to borrow 20 taels of silver from his classmates one year because he didn’t pay attention to saving and ran out of living expenses.
Fu Zuoyi told his father about the borrowed money when he returned home from winter break. His father did not blame him, but took him to the Yellow River, where father and son took off their clothes and jumped into the cold water.
Fu Zuoyi was shivering with cold, and his father said carelessly, “Carrying a man from here to the other side earns two coins, and I give you tuition and living expenses, which are saved up in this way.”
Fu Zuoyi was suddenly ashamed. When he returned to school, his father gave him enough money for tuition and living expenses, and gave him another 20 taels of silver to pay off his debts.
Despite the fact that Fu Zuoyi later rose to the top of the world, he has always been a man of simplicity, known as the “General of Cloth”.
Speaking of his father in his later years, Fu Zuoyi said, “He was a peasant with no education, but he relied on honesty and hardship to support a large family, but also in many places to open a store, really not simple. I am not worth mentioning compared to my father, who is the person I respect most in my life.”
04.Self-reliance and self-improvement
“A spoiled child is like a murdered child”, children will eventually grow up and have to struggle and survive on their own without their parents. “
The first time I saw the film, I was able to see it.
Zheng Banqiao’s last words to his son were, “Sweat on your own, eat your own food, do your own thing, rely on the sky and people and your ancestors, you are not a good man.
Fu Baoshi, a master of Chinese painting, said to his daughter, who was in college, “If you are hungry, just bear it and never borrow money to eat. If you can’t afford to take a car, walk, don’t borrow money to take a car. Because, the legs are always on your body, and money is not always borrowed. If you get used to borrowing money, these legs and people are going to be ruined.”
05.Prudence and self-discipline
The ancients said, “Be vigilant in times of peace, and abstain from extravagance and frugality.”
Never forget to warn yourself in the days of comfort with the mind of being in danger, and never forget to abstain from excessive desires with the mind of frugality in times of plenty, which is the main content of fatherly teaching from ancient times to the present: prudence and self-discipline.
Zeng Guofan once said that the richer the family’s children, the more official the children, the more self-discipline they should have, and take the initiative to be like the poor people in their material life, so that their children may become great in the future.
Liang Qichao, who created the miracle of “three academicians in one family and nine talented sons,” always taught his children to be willing to suffer and take risks, not to be greedy for pleasure.
When his son Liang Sicheng and his daughter-in-law Lin Huiyin returned to China after their studies, they could go to work at Tsinghua University or Northeastern University.
The result was that Liang Sicheng, who went to Northeastern University, soon made a big impact and founded the first architecture department in the history of modern Chinese education there.
06. Dukes of Hazzard
It is said that Qian Zhongshu is a master of Chinese studies, but in fact, his father, Qian Kibo, is the real master of Chinese studies and has a good character.
In 1929, when Qian Zhongshu entered the Department of Foreign Languages at Tsinghua University, Qian Jibo wrote to his son that it was more valuable to be a benevolent man than a famous scholar.
Later, Qian wrote to his son, saying, “I am of course very happy when someone says that your writing and your learning are better than mine, but I will be even happier if someone says that your “solidity” exceeds mine and your “strength” exceeds mine.
Qian Jiabo also said that he hoped his son would be “aloof and clear, quiet and far-reaching”, and that he would become a Zhuge Liang or Tao Yuanming, but not a Hu Shi or Xu Zhimo.
07. The persistence of action
Zeng Guofan said to his son in his family letter, “There is no distinction between the old and the young, and there is no distinction between the difficult and the easy, but the persistence of action is like planting and nurturing a tree, and seeing it grow bigger every day without realizing it.”
Zeng Guofan’s father’s teachings simply meant that he persisted in everything to the end, and he did so throughout his life, rising early, meditating, reading, and cultivating his body for decades.
08. leisurely travel to the world
Dongfang Shuo of the Western Han Dynasty taught his son, “The wise man deals with things, and there is nothing better than to be in the middle, to be superior, and to be from the way”, meaning that the wise man in this world, advocates the middle way, does not go to extremes, leisurely travels to the world, and is dashing in the red dust.
Dongfang Shuo was a master of humor and comedy, leaving some passages for posterity. He was a great hermit, but not in the mountains but in the court, and he wanted his son to do the same, to live a carefree life and to be free of the world.
09.Freedom to let go
The painter Feng Zikai, who had seven children, believed that childhood was the golden age of life and strongly opposed raising children as “little adults”.
Daughter Feng Yiyin said, “My father was particularly opposed to parents interfering with their children according to adult ideas.
Feng Yiyin finished her junior year and didn’t want to study anymore, so Feng Zikai sent her to study art, but Feng Yiyin had little interest and skipped class to learn how to sing Peking Opera, and Feng Zikai didn’t blame her and went to see her Peking Opera performance.
Liang Shuming, a master of Chinese studies, was also “trusting and permissive” toward his two sons. Once, the eldest son, Liang Peikuan, scored 59 points in an exam, and was apprehensive to show his father the notice from the school asking for a make-up exam.
Liang only took one look at it and gave it back to his son. Liang Pei-kuan later understood his father’s intention, “to take responsibility for his own affairs”.
10. Accepting mediocrity
It is common for people to expect their sons to become dragons, but it is not necessary to force them to do so; being an ordinary person has the joy of being ordinary.
Such a poem was written by Su Dongpo three days after the birth of his youngest son, when he gave him a bath according to custom: “Everyone raises a son to be smart, but I have been misled by wisdom all my life, but I hope that my child is foolish and foolish, and has no difficulties to reach the public.”