The evaluation of “The Spirit of the Chinese People”

       I’ve read the book written by Gu Hongming during my winter vacation.  I had heard of this book and its writer before my reading. And, to be honest, Gu didn’t make a good impression to me. According to what he did that I know, he’s a man who’s arrogant, decayed, and so is his book. 

        The book is named as ‘The Spirit of The Chinese People’, and everyone who only read this title all think it’s an educational book, and it should be read by all Chinese people. But after their reading, what did they learned? Feudatorial morality, arrogancy from nowhere, and discrimination toward other nations.  Is that really in favor of Chinese people?

      For example, he said in the second section, “Now the first thing, I think,  which will strike you in the old Chinese type of humanity is that there is nothing wild, savage or ferocious in him. ”Is that true? Of course NOT!! If you have read some books about Chinese history, you can see the hypocrisy in this sentence. For example, all kinds of cruel tortures invented by Chinese, like “车裂”“凌迟”“霹雳车”“炮烙”,  aren’t they wild?

        And we can also attack this book from other aspects. He thinks there’s no way to rescue the world but the Confucianism. Okay, this opinion is right, partly. However, do Chinese People really use the Confucianism to their life? The Confucianism sparkplug people to be kind, to be unassertive.  But how are the Chinese people? They are arrogant,  they call other nations “戎”“夷”“蛮”“狄”after they become powerful.  And what are these salutations?  These are contemptuous terms of the nations around!! And Chinese people assert their country is “天朝上国”（the greatest,  the most exalted country in the world）,  and even now,  they look down upon the nations that punier than them.  Aren’t they arrogant?

        And there are other wrong opinions in this book. He partly agrees with the foreigner’s word that “the longer a foreigner lives in China the more he likes the Chinese”. Of course this word is real. But he thinks the politeness of Japanese is like a flower without fragrance, and he think their politeness should be called as “rehearsal politeness”. According to my comprehension of Japan, it’s actually wrong.  Japanese are modest from their soul, and they tend to think they didn’t do perfect enough almost after doing everything----even actually they have done an ultimately perfect job. And that makes them polite. As for the word of the foreigners, that’s because they don’t get their status in the Japanese society. That’s a society that implements the hierarchy. If you don’t have a higher status in this society, you have to obey the word that your superiors said. And because of this rule, their society can become in order.

      In general, the book is full of the thought that modern Chinese people should not have. I don’t think it’s a wonderful book.