THE SPIRIT of the CHINESE PEOPLE决赛
I appreciated a book called ‘THE SPIRIT of the CHINESE PEOPLE’ written by Ku Hongmin during this winter holiday. The author of this book, Ku Hongmin, was a Chinese scholar who received 13 doctorate during his lifetime. He was proficient in 9 languages, including English, French, German, Latin, Greek and Malaya. He was the first Chinese to translate Lunyu and Zhongyong into English and German.
In the book ‘THE SPIRIT of the CHINESE PEOPLE’, he interpreted the spirit and show the value of the Chinese civilisation. He held the opinion that the question we must ask, in order to estimate the value of a civilisation is what type of humanity, what kind of men and women it has been able to produce, rather than what great cities, what magnificent houses, what fine roads it has built and is able to build; what beautiful and comfortable furniture, what clever and useful implements, tools and instruments it has made and is able to make.
He compared the Chinese with the Americans, the English, the Germans and the French, concluding that Americans are broad, simple, but not deep; the English, who lack the philosophic insight and the broadness which that insight gives, are deep, simple, but not broad; the Germans are deep, broad, but not simple. Only if a person who is deep,broad and simple can understand Chinese culture, for the three characteristics of the Chinese character and the Chinese civilisation are: depth, broadness and simplicity. As a matter of fact, The French have not the depth of nature of the Germans nor the broadness of mind of the Americans nor the simplicity of mind of the English.However, the French have a quality of mind : delicacy. In this way, he got the conclusion that the study of the Chinese civilisation would be of benefit to all the people of Europe and America, since all of them can get delicacy through this procedure.
As to the topic, citizenship, he believed that the moral force in the Chinese civilisation which can make militarism unnecessary is the Religion of good citizenship. Though Chinese are liable to have wars, but we do not live in constant expectation of wars. Under the influence of Chinese citizenship, a man in China is protected by the sense of justice of his neighbour. Because of this, there is no need of physical force for protection.
Ku Hongmin’s illstration of the merits of Confucian culture seems very interesting, he suggested that the European countries which are in the war at that time should learn from the Chinese civilization. Apparently, this suggestion seems arbitrary and ridiculous nowadays and cannot get reception of most modern people. Actually, the suggestion does have its disadvantages and limitations, but 100 years ago, it takes some courage to put forward this suggestion. As a matter of fact, In Europe at that time, although the economic development was obvious to all, the polarization between rich and poor, moral deterioration, wars were admittedly ugly. But China, though poor and weak at that time, the moral level is not worse than it was a thousand years ago. Since this, his suggestion is not completely unreasonable.
In all, ‘THE SPIRIT of the CHINESE PEOPLE’ is a book which is worth reading for all Chinese people. This book shows the spitit of Chinese people and Chinese culture from a brand new dimension, providing a new platform for us to get a deeper understanding of Chinese culture. However, due to the limitations of the times, the analysis in the book is admittedly not all reasonable. For example, the explanation of Chinese men taking concubines is apparently a little absurd and has the feature of feudalism. Therefore, as far as I’m concerned, we are supposed to read this book critically and understand the analysis of the author in current perspective.
京公网安备 11010802032529号