Ancestor Worship in Confucianism - Reciprocity between Older and Younger People

          All of my family members from father or mother side, we have regularly met for ancestor worship at least twice a year. We called that 'Che-sa.' At this family gathering, the older people in family such as grandfather and grandmother instruct their children (my dad and uncles or my mom and aunts) to serve their ancestor. During this ceremony, we remember our ancestors but also respect older people's wisdom in family members. I have been told that old people have a lot of lessons from their longer life-experience and we have to respect that not for them but for me to learn the life lessons. 


        Respecting older people in Korean society is well present in the tradition of Korean ancestor worship. The reason why Korean people think of respecting older people is the concept of 'reciprocity' in the Confucianism. 


        In traditional society of Korea, Koreans believe that current life of offspring is strongly connected with dead ancestors. Descendant needs to feed their ancestor through ancestor worship.  They believe that not only rituals are unavoidable obligations from reciprocity of Confucianism to ancestors, but the worships also bring benefits for current family members by giving ritual property to ancestors. Regarding ancestor worship, Janelli interprets that “forebears are the roots of a tree and descendants are its leaves and branches. Each automatically nourishes the other. Even the food offered at ancestor rites is later eaten by participants. … Ancestor worship idealized ancestors and their mutual dependency with their closest living kin.”  (Janelli 1982, 166) 

         In the socio-religous concept, this 'Reciprocity' concept is very unique compare to other religions. Some religions do not take care much of the older populations because of the image of weak and fragile. For example, Mormons attitude toward elderly is not positive as the Korean tradition. Olson states in his book that "the focus of the church has been to produce strong families that ties children and adolescents to the church and its practices, which may divert time and energy from the issues of the elderly." (Olson 2001, 123) 

        I think this special concept of Confucianism - Reciprocity- can be very helpful to solve the so-called 'agist society' by looking back their family history and find the harmony between intergenerational works. It also meets the notion of Confucianism. According to the journal 'Revisiting Confucianism as a Conceptual Framework for Asian Family Study by Park and Chesla, "Confucius’s analysis of his time was that ritual and conventional forms of social behavior had failed to keep the peace. He believed that the purposes of ritual and conventional social habits were to orient people so that social institutions and everyday relationships could flourish in harmony." (Park, Chesla, 2007)

* Reference

 Janelli, Roger L. 1982. Ancestor Worship and Korean Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press 

Laura Katz Olson (2001), Age Through Ethnic Lenses: Caring for Elderly in a Multicultural Society. MA, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC. 



Minjung Park and Catherine Chesla (2007), Revisiting Confucianism as a Conceptual Framework for Asian Family Study, Journal of Family Nursing 2007 13:293