watervole: (Default)
Judith Proctor ([personal profile] watervole) wrote2012-06-17 04:13 pm

Ancient China

 I'm interested in knowing some of the cultural values of Ancient China, particularly from the Confucian/Buddhist/Taoist angle.

This is partly general interest and partly because a little bit of this should work its way into a fanfic novel I'm working on.

I'm particularly interested in relationships between father and son.  (and wives of sons) What would be expected and how would it manifest itself.

eg.  I'd expect sons to be respectful to their parents, but how would that manifest itself?  Every culture has its own way of showing respect and this can vary enormously.

What other things are expected?  I'm pretty sure funeral rites come into it somewhere.

Food?  Greetings?

How much difference would there be in a really high-status family?

I'm not to fussed about the exact historical period.  This is Stargate fiction - Lord Yu can be linked to two totally separate periods of Chinese history (due to poor continuity, which I've rather enjoyed making a consistent story out of).

(Hi, chinalover1, I'm hoping you can help here.  I'm guessing amalgant invited you to drop by.)
kerravonsen: rainbow sparkles: "Squee!" (squee!)

[personal profile] kerravonsen 2012-06-17 11:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Yay, you're working on the story!

[identity profile] amgalant.livejournal.com 2012-06-24 05:23 am (UTC)(link)
You can do it the easy way with a bit of hist fic. I just read Tim Murgatroyd 'Taming Poison Dragons' which happens to have father-son conflict and therefore tells you about expected behaviours. It's not fantastic as a novel but okay. Family interaction is so formal that the sons are only ever known in the novel as 'Eldest Son' and 'Youngest Son' - there's an indication for you, and that's not to start on the etiquette of wives. There's 'Daughter-in-Law' too. Piety towards your parents, obedience, self-effacement for the family. Parents can do no wrong, children cannot argue.

No, I don't know the dropper-by.
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[identity profile] watervole.livejournal.com 2012-06-25 07:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Hm. I may pick up a second-hand copy. Thanks for the recommendation.

I'd assumed you knew the China person as s/he had friended you too. May be bot in that case.