Monday 29 August 2011

THE 24 FILIAL EXEMPLARS (二十四孝)



When I visited the Tua Pek Kung Temple in Pasir Panjang about a month ago, I was awed by the giant sized statues of the Taoist deities. At the site of the larger than life statues, there were also 24 life sized ones depicting the stories from the Chinese text "The Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars" (Èrshí Sì Xiào 二十四孝). The story of each exemplar is inscribed on a plaque at the bottom of the statue. I am familiar with some of the stories on filial piety from the text as my late Aunt May told them to me and some I had read on my own. I read that the collection of stories by Guo Jujing (1260 1368) of the Yuan dynasty met with scorn by the Chinese intellectuals. I actually agree with the intellectuals as I find them some of the stories on filial piety are a bit preposterous and might be over exaggerated.

I took pictures of every single one of the exemplars and since I am holiday now, I will take time to blog about as many of the 24 exemplars as I could. Read for yourself and judge if the stories are outdated in these modern times of ours.

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