Book review on The spirt of th
I was planning to read a stack of novels this winter holiday,but after being fed up with complex storylines,The Spirt of the Chinese People just came up in my mind.To be frank,the book is on my homework list,which makes me feel kind of unwilling to read it.I expected a normal modern story,but this book was about defending our national spirit.And it was such an inspiration.
I want to start of by saying that everyone should read the Spirt of the Chinese People at least once in his lifetime.This book contents 7 parts,the spirt of Chinese people,the Chinese woman,the Chinese language,Joah Smith in China,a great sinologue,Chinese scholarship,appendix:the religion of mob-workship or the war and the way out.In the book,Mr.Gu points out that one should be deep,broad and simple to truly undestand Chinese cuture and Chinese spirit.At that special perior, Gu Hongming has his own perspective:American broad,simple,but not deep;the British deep,simple,but not broad,the Germans broad,deep,but no simple. the French are not as deep as the Germans, but not as deep as the Americans. The broad-minded and the simple-minded British have the sensitivities that the three nationalities lack; only the Chinese have all these four excellent spiritual characteristics:broad,simple,deep,sensitive. Mr.Gu makes a comparison among Chinese，American，French and Germans to highlight the characteristic of Chinese people.With tons of examples,his point of view is actually pretty persuasive.
Although I find some perspective is quite old-fashion.Take the concubinage for example， in the chapter of the Chinese woman，Mr.Gu stand for the idea that men should be allowed to have concubinage.He was totally having the excuse that a true Chinese woman has no self.Moreover,Mr.Gu argues that the Chinese mandarin who keeps concubines is less selfish.This kind of statements is what I can not aggre with. Mr.Gu is often criticized because these kinds of biased viewpoints.But as far as I’m concerned,he praised Chinese old-school culture，sometimes even without reservations，is because of the special circumstance that Chinese is not respected by others.
Gu Hongming,with his literati-kind arrogance，comes up with plenty profund and thoughtful insights.In the last chapeter,Mr.Gu puts forward a new theory that instead of politician，army，it is the fear of mob-workship that triggers warfare.Nowadays，the theory is quite profound and persuasive.I respect him for the ability and courage to stand up for his statement.So quote from an article：Always possess stubbornness and parochialism,thus you may attain fulfilled confidence and the power of speaking.This chapter teaches me a lesson:Don’t be one of the mob,always have your own thought. Gu Hongming is a man of his own belief,he is not simply a confucian.He is sometimes biased but he knows all about China’s traditional Confucian philosophy and feels proud of it.At that very period,Chinese image was serious damaged,probably most of the foreigners look down on Chinese civilization，including some Chinese people.But Mr.Gu spares no efferts to praise our traditional civilization，and he succeeded in telling the world that we Chinese civilization is of great importance.A new era has begun,and the statement of Mr.Gu may be out-of-date,but we maintain the dignity of a Chinese citizen.
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