Relatives...can't live with them, can't live without them. Some are fun to be with, some can be a real nightmare. Having a good bond with relatives is a requirement within the Eastern culture. Unlike Westerners who focus on individualism, we Easterners emphasize on getting accepted and acknowledged by the group we live in and most importantly by our relatives.
One of the ways to achieve this is through respect. This is of course again different from the Western culture where one must work to earn respect. In the Eastern culture, respect is a right. You are granted respect automatically if you are older than another person. Thus, we Easterners are required to be respectful to our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, elder cousins, our elder neighbours, the old man across the street and a tiresome list of just about anyone else who are elder than us. When we were in school, we were taught to never question their moves what more to correct their mistakes. If we have to correct them, we have to put our words wisely so that they would not feel offended.
I am not against this norm. Being an Asian myself, I am fully accustomed with this. I believe we have better values than the West when it comes to respecting elders but at the same time, I'm not criticizing the Western way. They have their plus points too.
However, what bothers me is that some people take this right for granted. Just because they are older, does that give them the right to speak and act bluntly without any care to the feelings of the younger ones? Is it right for our older relatives to expect to be respected simply because of their position in the family? Simply because they are our aunts, or uncles or elder cousins? This got me thinking, in addition to this cultural norm, shouldn't respect be a mutual process? After all, religion simply teaches us to have respect for others. Period.
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