Burial ground of the pioneers of Singapore
Yu Qianlou lived during the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, in the country of Qi (479-502 A.D.). He rose to office and was appointed the governor of Chan Ling. Ten days after he assumed the post, for no apparent reason, as he worked in the capital, he broke out in a cold sweat and his heart started beating rapidly and would not stop.
"Do you suppose there is a problem at home?" he wondered. Being a devoted son, the duties at home always sat foremost on his mind. Immediately he resigned his post and hurried home. When he returned home, he discovered that as he had feared, his father had suddenly been stricken with a strange illness that the doctors could not diagnose.
"If you want to know your father's prognosis and chances of recovering, you must test his stool. If it tastes sweet, then the malady is serious, and chronic. If it tastes bitter, then the problem is acute, and short-term," said the doctor. Lacking any sophisticated testing procedure, the physician advised Yu Qianlou that he would have to taste the old man's excrement to determine whether he could quickly recover from the disease. Qianlou promptly sampled the stool and to his dismay, found it tasted sweet.
That night, in desperation, he lit a stick of incense and knelt before the family shrine, and prayed to Polaris, the Pole Star. "If my father can recover his health, I will offer up my life in exchange for his. Take me and let him live," he vowed.
After news of Yu Qianlou filial oath got around, the family and neighbors all praised him as a truly extraordinary, filial child.
A verse in his honor says:
He served in office but a few brief days,
When father caught a strange and ill disease.
Qianlou looked North, and bowed to star Polaris,
"Take me instead!" he vowed from bended knees.
During the Han Dynasty (202 B.C.-220 A.D.), there lived a devoted son named Cai Shun. His father passed away when he was quite young. Wang Mang [1] had just usurped the throne at that time, and the entire country was in great commotion, suffering a famine, a drought, and a civil war all at once. The people suffered from these dire calamities and many families starved. The survivors were forced into the fields to forage for wild plants and roots for food. Often, decent men turned to banditry and robbery just to survive. The roads were infested with gangs of thieves; the forests were havens for the homeless and the desperate.
One day Cai Shun took two wicker baskets out into the woods to gather mulberries for his mother. Beneath the trees he ran into two wicked-looking robbers. They were carrying long sharp swords and their faces were cruel and dark.
"Hey kid, don't you want to live? How do you dare invade the big Boss's territory?" shouted the biggest of the bandits. Little Cai Shun was scared speechless.
The smaller bandit looked closely at the boy's baskets, planning to eat anything of value. "Child, why are you dividing the mulberries into two baskets?"
Cai Shun answered in a trembling voice: "I use one basket to contain black mulberries that are riper and sweeter. I give those to my mother. I use the other to contain the red ones are not ripe, but sour. Those I eat myself, sir. I hope you two gentlemen will not kill me or else my mother won't have anybody to look after her."
The boy's earnest simplicity and honest answer touched the two thugs' heart of compassion. Remembering their own parents' suffering, they decided not to harm Cai Shun. Instead they supplied him with food and drink, and released him back to his mother.
A verse in his praise says:
The black mulberries went to feed his mother,
Whose blouse was stained with tears from hunger's pain;
The red-browed thugs heard his filial thoughts:
Then gave him meat and rice and set him free.
Wu Meng Attracts Mosquitoes to Drink His Blood
In the Jin Dynasty (265-420 A.D.), a respectful eight-year-old boy named Wu Meng served his parents with devoted compliance. His family was extremely poor and could not afford mosquito netting. On hot summer nights the mosquitoes would come swarming in as thick as smoke. The little boy would remove his shirt and let the insects land on his bare skin. He would watch then drink their fill of his blood, and fly away without raising a hand to shoo them off, no matter how painfully they stung him. Wu Meng wasn't a fool, but why didn't he brush the bugs away?
He knew that his parents had no netting at their bedside. If he drove the mosquitoes away from his body, they would surely fly over and wake up his mother and father with their stinging. So the devoted son simply let the mosquitoes drink his blood instead.
So that his parents wouldn't know about his sacrifice and demand that he stop, the boy would wake up earlier than they, slip his shirt over his swollen torso, and return to his own bed. But one morning, being tired from loss of sleep, he forgot to wake up and pull on his shirt. His father arose and found his son asleep by his bed. He looked at the boy' s pathetic, mosquito-bitten skin that was covered with red welts, and understood immediately what Wu Meng had done for them. Mr. Wu woke up his wife and told her the story. The two parents, deeply moved by their son's unselfish concern for them, began to cry. They were so touched that the neighbors could hear their sounds of sobbing. From all sides the neighbors gathered to investigate the matter, and learned about Wu Meng's sacrifice on behalf of his parents.
Everyone thought that the boy's attitude of filial respect was most remarkable, especially for one only eight years old. Someone reported the incident to the local magistrate, who wrote a memorandum to the Dragon Throne, to inform the imperial court. The matter thus came to the attention of the Emperor, who rewarded Wu Meng with a scholarship to the imperial academy. Further, he gave the family a set of mosquito nets and a stipend, so that they never again lacked the necessities of life.
A verse in his honor says,
Summer nights and no mosquito netting!
Insects by the thousands, yet he wouldn't raise a hand.
"Let them drink my blood and fill their bellies,
Just don't disturb my parents while they sleep!"
His Heart Was Pained When His Mother Bit Her Finger: Zeng Shen
During the Spring and Autumn Period of Chinese history, there lived a student of Confucius, Zeng Shen, who become well-known for his filial attitude of respect. His father passed away while Shen was still young. He was extremely respectful and obedient to his mother. Every day the young man would go into the mountains to cut firewood; his mother would stay home and weave cloth to sell. Mother and son had to work hard to earn enough to get by.
One day Zeng Shen set out early for the mountains. A guest who had traveled a long distance arrived at the Zeng household that very morning. The family being poor, there was nothing with which to entertain the guest, and no way to properly welcome him. As Zeng Shen was not at home, his mother did not know what to do, and she could only hope that her son would return soon from the mountains.
The boy did not show up, and Mrs. Zeng grew agitated. Without realizing what she was doing, she put her finger into her mouth and bit it. In her nervousness, she bit her finger so hard that it bled. Zeng Shen, in the mountains, suddenly felt a stinging pain in his heart, and knew there must be something amiss with his mother. He quickly bundled up the brush and kindling and ran back down the mountain.
Arriving before his mother, he knelt in the doorway and asked her what was the matter. Relieved and happy, she said, "A guest has come and I was so upset that I bit my finger. You must be a truly respectful child that you can know your mother's thoughts from a distance!"
A verse in his praise says,
His mother bit her finger, her son's heart felt the pain.
He bundled up the firewood And ran home just in time.
What age has ever witnessed deeper ties of filial love
Than the depth of shared between this mother and her son?
Resigning Office to Search For His Mother: Zhu Shouchang
A man of the Song Dynasty named Zhu Shouchang lost his mother at age seven in this way: His mother was a concubine, and his father's first wife, consumed by jealousy over the concubine's favor with her husband, drove the woman out of the house, thereby cutting off contact between Shouchang and his mother. The boy went to live with his father and step-mother from age seven on.
Zhu Shouchang grew up and served the Song Dynasty's "Celestial Ruler" (Shenzong) as an official. Suddenly one day he felt an overwhelming impulse to find his real mother and take care of her in proper style. This impulse continued to grow, until he had to quit his post in the civil service and set off in search of her. His filial quest lead him through torrential rains and gale winds, as he traveled on, asking everybody he met for news of his mother. Although he found no trace of her, meeting nothing but mis information or ignorance, the young man never gave up hope, but only deepened the sincerity of his single-minded quest.
One day a man told him that his mother lived nearby, in Tongzhou, on the banks of the Unity River in modern-day Shanxi province. Delighted with the news, Shouchang hurried on to Unity River, and arrived after enduring great toil and suffering. Having traveled so fast, he fainted by the roadside near the outskirts of town. A crowd soon gathered, and someone handed the man a cup of ginger tea, to revive him. The townspeople asked, Where are you from?" "What is your business that you overexerted this way?"
He told the whole story to the crowd, and related all that he had experienced in search of his mother. From the midst of the throng stepped an old woman. "You are my son! I haven't seen you for fifty years!" cried the lady, her voice choked with tears of joy. The weary traveler, having realized his heart's desire, happily embraced his mother and shortly thereafter, took her home to care for her properly.
A verse in his honor says,
He said good-bye to Mama at age seven,
He served the land with skill for fifty years.
One day he wished to see his long-lost mother,
His journey done, they both wept joyful tears.
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