Originally Posted by
whiteskwirl
A better example of this situation is Guo Jing. His life and the life of his mother was literally saved by the Mongols, who then raised him as their own, only to have Guo Jing betray them and fight for the Song. I've never liked this part of Guo Jing. He has no reason to be loyal to Song except that it's his blood, but he never knew the place. Everything that he knows and remembers is from the Mongols. His mother told him to side with the Song, so you can say he was filial in that respect, but at the same time, according to Chinese custom, Guo Jing would have been the head of the family, and his mother would have to listen to him. Legally that's how it would be, but of course their relationship was not like that.
But his mother was wrong to ask him to betray the people who saved his and her life and raised him as a son. The message the book sends with Guo Jing's decisions is that acts of kindness and benevolence are inconsequential in the face of blood. No matter how good someone else has been to you, blood relations always come first. Given this is a Chinese story I am not surprised, but I don't agree with it at all. The Mongols are his benefactor (恩人) and he betrayed them flat out. So I would say Guo Jing is 忘恩負義 (ungrateful, lit. forget favors/kindness and turn your back on justice).
I'm sure it stirs nationalistic pride to have Guo Jing come back and fight for the Song, but he has no real reason to do so except for his mother's order, which was a cruel thing to do to him, to make him choose like that. He could have just stayed out of the fight altogether. I certainly don't see anything heroic about betraying the people who treated you like family all for the sake of nationalism.
EDIT: Actually I shouldn't say this is a better example as Guo Jing's and Qiao Feng's situtation were different, but with both you can see how nationalism and the blind faith in blood leads to bad acts. Qiao Feng was treated badly just because of his blood, forget about all he has done. How could he not be justified if he wanted revenge?
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