Confucianism and filial piety in China today

What Confucianism is, in one minute

Confucianism (儒家, rújiā, ‘the school of the scholars’) is the body of ethics, ritual and political thought that grew from Confucius, born Kong Qiu in 551 BCE in Qufu, in the state of Lu, today’s Shandong province. He died there in 479 BCE, aged 73. He wrote no book of his own: his students recorded his sayings in the Analects after his death. Two later thinkers, Mencius (c. 371–289 BCE), who held that human nature is good, and Xunzi (c. 300–230 BCE), who disagreed, turned the teaching into a school.

Its central ideal is 仁 (rén), humaneness: treating others as you would wish to be treated. The way to practise it is 礼 (lǐ), ritual propriety, proper conduct in every relationship, starting at home. A person who masters both is a 君子 (jūnzǐ), a cultivated gentleman, fit to serve in government. Confucius was asked for one word to live by and answered 恕 (shù), reciprocity: ‘What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.’

Suppressed under the Legalist Qin, the school flourished under the Han from about 130 BCE, when the scholar Dong Zhongshu blended it with yin-yang and five-element ideas and it became the learning of the state. From the Song dynasty (960–1279) Zhu Xi and the Cheng brothers rebuilt it as Neo-Confucianism, a full philosophy of nature and self-cultivation answering Buddhism. Zhu Xi’s edition of the Four Books, published in 1190, was the set text of the imperial civil-service examinations from 1313 until they were abolished in 1905.[3][4][5][6]

Filial piety (孝): what Confucius actually said

孝 (xiào), filial piety, is the duty of children to their parents: support, obedience within reason, respect, and after death proper burial and remembrance. Confucius gave four different disciples four different answers to ‘what is filial piety?’ in Book 2 of the Analects. To one: ‘It is not being disobedient’, meaning serve your parents according to the rites when alive, and bury and sacrifice to them according to the rites when dead. To another: ‘Parents are anxious lest their children should be sick’, so look after yourself. To a third, the line Chinese people still quote: ‘The filial piety nowadays means the support of one’s parents. But dogs and horses are also supported. Without reverence, what is there to distinguish the one support from the other?’ And to the fourth, the hardest: ‘The difficulty is with the countenance’, keeping a kind face while you do it.

Filial piety is the model for the other four of the five relationships (五伦, wǔlún) set out by Mencius: between father and son, affection; between ruler and minister, righteousness; between husband and wife, distinct roles; between old and young, proper order; between friends, fidelity. Four of the five are hierarchical: respect flows up, care and responsibility flow down.[7][8][9]

The law that says: go home and see your parents

Filial piety is written into Chinese law. The amended Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, in force since 1 July 2013, says family members who live apart from elderly relatives ‘should visit or greet them often’ (经常看望或者问候老年人). In China the clause is known as the ‘come home often’ (常回家看看) rule; failing to visit is, in the law’s words, unlawful, though the law sets no penalty for it.

The reason the law exists is in the table above. With about 323 million people over 60, and nearly 60% of them living alone or with only a spouse, the Confucian household of three generations under one roof has become the exception. Care still happens overwhelmingly at home, which is what gives the visit, the phone call and the Qingming grave sweep so much weight.[10][11][14]

Is Confucianism a religion? Does it have a god, a symbol, a place of worship?

Not in the usual sense, and most Chinese people would not call it one. Pew’s 2023 study of religion in China found only ‘a tiny share’ of adults describe themselves as believing in Confucianism, too few to report a figure. There is no god, no creed, no clergy and no membership. What exists is reverence: for ancestors, for teachers, and for the sage himself.

That reverence has buildings. Government statistics count about 1,600 Confucius temples (文庙 or 孔庙) across China, apart from an estimated 102,000 ancestral halls where families honour their forebears. The most important temple is in Qufu, Confucius’ home town. Every 28 September, his traditional birthday, a formal ceremony is held there before the Dacheng Hall: in 2025, marking 2,576 years since his birth, it opened at 9 a.m. with nine strokes of a bell, flower baskets were laid before his statue, Shandong’s governor read the eulogy and everyone bowed together, with an online ceremony for audiences abroad.

There is no official Confucian symbol. Searches for one usually turn up the portrait or statue of Confucius, the character 儒 (rú, ‘scholar’), the character 仁 (rén, ‘humaneness’) or the roofs of a Confucius temple. All are fair shorthand, but the tradition itself never adopted an emblem the way Christianity has the cross or Taoism the yin-yang.[1][15][16]

Confucianism in 2026: schools, Korea and the Kong family

After a century of attacks, from the New Culture Movement of the 1910s to the Cultural Revolution, when Confucius was denounced as a representative of the slave-owning class, the tradition has been rehabilitated. Since the 2000s classical learning (国学, guóxué) has returned to public schools, and the state stages the Qufu ceremony as the centrepiece of an annual international Confucius culture festival. Yet almost nobody signs up as a Confucian: it is a heritage and an ethic, not a faith.

Confucianism travelled. In South Korea, Pew found in 2023 that 59% of adults feel connected to the Confucian way of life, more than to any other tradition it asked about. In Taiwan, 26% say they venerate Confucius, and 28 September is Teachers’ Day there. In mainland China Teachers’ Day is 10 September, though emperors honoured teachers on Confucius’ birthday as far back as the Han.

Then there is the family. The Kong family tree was updated for a fifth edition between 1998 and 2009. Xinhua reported two million registered members in 2008; the BBC reported more than three million descendants, about 2.5 million of them in China, and that the new edition would include women for the first time in more than 2,500 years. For China’s most common surnames, see our Chinese surnames tool.[2][4][15][16][17][18][19]