论中国人的精神

《The Spirit of the Chinese people》 is the work of Mr. Gu Hongming in the late Qing Dynasty. In the book, Mr.Gu focuses on the spiritual characteristics of the Chinese people, the comparison of Chinese and Western cultures, the status and situation of Chinese women, the Chinese language and the judgment of Western civilization. The criticism and introspection of western civilization and Mr.Gu's proposition of solving western social problems with Chinese traditional Confucianism are expounded. This book is an early representative work of cultural comparison between China and the West, which aims to convey Chinese culture and the spirit of the Chinese people to the West. The book shows a high degree of rigor and profundity and presents a comprehensive picture of the Chinese spirit for readers. I can't help but think of Gu's speech on "The Spirit of the Chinese people" in the TV series " Age of Awakening." What is a real Chinese? "A real Chinese is one who has a pure heart and an adult mind, and who lives a spiritual life." What is the Chinese spirit? Gu thinks: It is appropriate to use the word "gentle" to describe the overall impression of Chinese people. Gentleness is not meekness and cowardice, but a strength of compassion and human intelligence. As a state of etiquette, Westerners believe that Chinese courtesy is from the heart, the spirit of the Chinese people is the spirit of eternal youth, is the immortal national soul. Mr. Gu once said in the article that when you make friends with a Chinese person, you will gradually fall in love with him, and when you make friends with a Japanese person, the feeling is the opposite.When describing the national spirit, Gu used examples, metaphors and parallelism to make the expression of Chinese spirit more powerful. "Hard work and self-improvement" is a historical mark engraved in the bones of the Chinese people from thousands of years of historical and civilized development. In the book, Gu uses comparative arguments to compare the Chinese with Americans, British, Germans and French, pointing out that the Chinese have profound, Broadness, simplicity and spirituality are the four great virtues. He believes that it is such comprehensive spiritual qualities that highlight the uniqueness of Chinese traditional culture and enable readers to have a deeper understanding of the Chinese spirit. In the late Qing Dynasty, where Gu was, China was facing a very passive international situation, and the western countries had a huge prejudice against China. Gu used Chinese Spirit to justify the country's name and emphasized the value of Chinese unique traditional culture. Although Gu's idea of using Confucianism to solve the social issues in the West is impossible or even untimely, it is still worth learning from and insisting on Chinese traditional culture. Not only that, Mr. Gu also put forward a lot of unique insights and profound thinking in the book. For example, Mr.Gu believes that the spiritual characteristics of the Chinese people and the unique cultural genes that belong to the Chinese nation are complementary to each other. Therefore, from a global perspective, Mr. Gu listed the difficulties that the Chinese nation may encounter on the way forward, and put forward many forward-looking and profound thoughts. On the whole, The Spirit of the Chinese People has its unique advantages in writing, but also has some limitations. First of all, through this book, Gu Hongming analyzes the following spiritual characteristics of Chinese people, such as: deep, broad, simple, spiritual and gentle, etc.，which provides a unique perspective for the West to understand and understand the Chinese spirit. Secondly, Mr. Gu has conducted critical thinking on Western civilization and Sinologists, showing his independent thinking and firm faith in Chinese traditional culture. Gu's behavior uses many analogies and uses beautiful words to express the profound truth to the readers, so that he is deeply inspired in the reading process. The limitations of the book are reflected in: because the book is based on Mr. Gu's personal views, there is subjectivity, so the views in the book can not represent everyone. Under the influence of the Qing dynasty concept environment, many authors criticized the western civilization absolutely, and did not correctly recognize the positive factors in the western civilization. At the same time,Mr. Gu in the book for the status of women and the situation of this issue is not fully discussed, there is a one-sided stereotype. I have the following suggestions for recommended reading: Focus on understanding the Chinese spirits and thinking about its significance and value in modern society; Understand the contrast between Chinese and Western cultures, understand the differences and similarities of different cultures, and respect different cultures; In the process of reading to cultivate the ability of independent thinking, not blindly follow the author's point of view. Above all, I hope that after reading this book, we can truly understand the spiritual justice that Mr. Gu wants to express, and have a self-independent spiritual soul.