《中国人的精神》书评-决赛作品
A book review of《The Spirit of the Chinese People》
18E16 陈咏菲
I had many thoughts in my mind when I finished reading 《The Spirit of the Chinese People》 that wrote by Thomson (Gu Hongming).But I really have little talent and learning, so I do not know what to say first.
Mr. Gu was proficient in 9 languages, including English, French, German, Latin, Greek, malayan, and so on. He had obtained 13 doctoral degrees. He was really wealthy in knowledge.However, I am just a college student who is not good at English. Dare to publish my humble opinion on this book.
Mr. Gu undoubtedly had a deep understanding of traditional Chinese culture, and he was able to using some knowledge about the Confucianism, the Four Books and the Five Classics, the three cardinal principles and the five virtues in his article.
Therefore, he was able to objectively and rationally analyze the drawbacks of using religion and law to maintain civilized order in Europe, and then compare it with the "religion of good citizens" in China, so as to lead to the true Chinese spirit.
His analysis of real Chinese people is penetrating. For example, he thought Chinese people have an ineffable “gentleness”, and his analysis of Chinese people's filial piety, the moral code of marriage and Chinese language.
Though I disagree with Mr. Gu's preference for “The three obediences and four virtues” for women and his insistence on all things Confucian. But I still think that much of what Mr. Gu said in this book was excellent.
The Chinese do possess what he called an ineffable gentleness. Under the influence of Confucianism for many years, “kindheartedness and justice” has been deeply engraved in the hearts of Chinese people. As Mr. Gu says, the Chinese live in a spiritual life. Every Chinese has thousands of years of cultural heritage.
Chinese courtesy is from the heart. Chinese people are considerate of each other's feelings. Mr. Gu would never have imagined that just within a hundred years of his death, the Chinese would have become internationally notorious. But, in fact, that's a minority. Most Chinese are still polite, and they are ashamed of the few Chinese who have discredited China internationally.
As for the Chinese language, it is not as complicated as many Indo-European languages, with many rules and tense grammar. The difficulty of learning Chinese language lies in its profundity. It can express extremely abstruse feelings in very few words. For example, the ancient Chinese poetry, translated into any other language will lose its original spirituality. Of course, other languages will also lose their subtlety when translated into Chinese. But as a Chinese, let me lean a little toward China. After all, the original Chinese characters are pictographs, ideographic characters. Although after thousands of years of evolution, the Chinese characters’ image have been far from the original. But now when I see a Chinese character, I still can associate with a lot of things.
I hope that now all Chinese people can possess the "Chinese spirit" and become the real Chinese people. Then we will be learned by other countries, just as Mr. Gu hoped, instead of being ridiculed by other countries in the international community.
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