Thousands of people attended an annual foot-washing ceremony Sunday in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei, a ritual meant to teach modern youth the ancient Confucian virtues of filial piety and showing gratitude to parents and seniors.

If a person is good to his parents and elders and shows gratitude for them, that person will be lucky in every endeavor, said Chang Chao-kuo, chairman of the Republic of China Sports Federation which co-organized the event.

"Filial piety is the foundation of all the good in the world," said Lee Wu-nan, citing a Chinese proverb. Lee, who was attending the event for the fifth straight year, had his feet washed by his eldest son Sunday.

When the event was first held in 2013, 4,363 pairs of feet were washed, setting a Guinness World Record for the most people washing their elders' feet at the same time. That record was broken in 2014 when 10,289 pairs of feet were washed at a ceremony in Jiangxi, China.

Organizers said 6,434 people registered to have their feet washed Sunday.

Ko Guan-yu said when he participated in a similar event at his school two years ago, he felt a little bit funny because washing the feet of his grandmother was not something he would normally do.

The fourth-grader said he did not feel that way anymore when he washed the feet of his mother on Sunday.