On May 4th (which in the PRC is called "Youth Day," but which might better be called "remembering how we broke with tradition" day) a middle school in Guangdong organized an event where students kneeled before their parents in an apparent sign of filial piety. 

The principle of the school is quoted as saying: “We feel that kneeling is the highest etiquette in China. By doing that, we can easily leave students the deepest impression.”  I suspect that kneeling does leave an impression on the students, but it is rather hard to say that kneeling is somehow central to "etiquette in China," at least the China of the past sixty years.  This is not a form of cultural continuity.  People in China do not bow and they do not kneel.  Doing so was discouraged by the socialist culture of the PRC.  Kneeling is a reinvention of tradition, a reinvention that runs counter to much more powerful, culturally individualizing transformations in China (I'm betting that participants at the recent Midi Music Festival in Shanghai are not the kneeling-before-parents type…)

This is another attempt to reconstruct Confucianism, of what some people want to interpret as Confucianism, in a contemporary context.  And this one strikes me as anachronistic and artificial.  It is one thing, and a good thing, to encourage children to respect their parents; but it is quite another to coerce children into ritualized symbolic enactments of subservience.  Going through the motions of subordination is not really what Confucius had in mind.  A child's respect for parents has to come from the inside, from true love and commitment and honor.  It is not at all clear that such innate connection is cultivated by such public displays as the kneeling ceremony.  We can all get down on our knees, but if we don't really mean it in our hearts, if we don't do it with genuine reverence, then it is a hollow gesture:

When Adept Yu asked about honoring parents, the Master said: "There days, being a worthy child just means keeping parents well fed.  That's what we do for dogs and horses.  Everyone can feed their parents – but without reverence, they may as well be feeding animals.  (2.7).

I think many parents in China are doing what Confucius really wanted them to do: they love and care for their children conscientiously, and this inspires  a reciprocal love and sense of obligation that binds families together.  Kneeling is really not necessary…