Spirit of Loyalty and Filial Piety The ethics of the state come from loyalty while the ethics of the family come from filial piety. The spirit of loyalty and filial piety calls for people to lay down their life for the sake of their country and to do their utmost efforts to serve their parents, and represents the upright spirit of public officials to turn down private gain and honor the public interest instead. Loyalty and filial piety mean loyalty to the king and parents, respectively. The first of the two characters making up the word "loyalty" is the character expressing the heart, the center of the human body, meaning dedication to the state with a true heart. The first of the two characters making up the word "filial piety" depicts a son carrying his aged father or mother on his back and calls for us to be grateful to our parents who gave birth to us and serve them with utmost care. Our ancestors regarded filial piety as the prime propriety that human beings should observe and should practice in silence, rain or shine. How about now? Some children go so far as to use violence to get money or argue with their brother and sister over who has to take care of their parents as they get older. Such poor behavior was unthinkable in the past. It is often said that the deepest sorrow anybody can experience in the world is to lose his child and thus the parents do not hesitate to cut off a part of their body if necessary to save their dying child. Nevertheless, some children do not hesitate to harass their parents, much less respect their parents with feelings of filial piety. Believing that only those who tended their parents with filial piety could be loyal to their state and only those who respected their seniors could serve their neighbors, our ancestors valued these moral laws very much. We should all try together to inherit such a spirit of loyalty and filial piety, and revive and hand down to our descendents these proud and beautiful traditions.