This, however, is not the only case that has drawn Chinese people's attention to the topic of filial piety recently. Earlier this month, a 91-year-old mother was beaten by her son and daughter-in-law and kicked out of her family's home simply because she wanted to have a bowl of porridge instead of noodles, her staple food for the past 22 years.
Another case of parent abuse was exposed via Weibo, in which a centenarian, surnamed Jiang, was living in a pigsty in Guanyun County, Lianyungang City, in Jiangsu Province.
Jiang, whose five sons and three daughters were supposed to take turns caring for her, has been living with pigs for the past three years. One of her sons insists that Jiang wanted to live with the pigs.
These cases reflect the disappearance of the traditional value of filial piety in a country with a fast-growing economy, said Xia Xueluan, a professor with the Department of Sociology of Peking University.
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