We choose our friends but we don¡¯t choose our parents. Nor do they choose us. It¡¯s a pretty fraught relationship, sometimes, that between parent and child. Perhaps ¡°love-hate¡± best describes it ¡ª hopefully with love dominant.
Confucius said ¡ª and what Confucius said is not irrelevant in Japan 2,500 years later ¡ª ¡°Nowadays for a man to be filial means no more than that he is able to provide his parents with food. Even hounds and horses are, in some way, provided with food. If a man shows no reverence, where is the difference?¡±
Reverence. Parents were to be served not only dutifully but reverently. ¡°I remember,¡± a 46-year-old office worker tells Aera magazine, ¡°my mother when her mother died. It was the first time I ever saw my mother cry. She said, ¡®I¡¯d been meaning to show her filial respect ¡ª now it¡¯s too late!¡¯ That was 25 years ago. I made a vow to myself: Never would I be burdened with the same regret.¡±
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