Chengqing’s novel is unique in that she depicts and meditates on the latent state of human existence, if compared with other contemporary female novelists. To be more exact, she penetrates into the mental world of human beings with her outstanding depiction of the present existential reality. She dramatizes their dreams and desires yet meanwhile exposes the absurd and fantastic nature of them. She, on the one hand, grants her characters the right to dream to their heart’s content, and smashes their dreams silently but resolutely on the other. Furthermore, her various writing techniques, including the clever and diverse narrative perspectives, the echoing of characters, and the reverse but open endings, not only strengthen and highlight the themes, but also reinforce the charm of the novels.
The distinctive characteristic of Confucian culture is the maximum offilial piety: requite the favor of parents with filial piety, requite the favor of Emperor with loyaty. All these, to a certain degree, have deeply influenced Chinese social and economic structures. This paper, which discusses the filial piety of Confucian culture, and analyzes its formation and function, points out that this is the first step of modern transformation of Confucian culture.