Confucianism and Religion

      Four years ago, I had a small conversation about religion with my first American friend when we were exchange students in Switzerland. I said, “I don’t believe in God, but I believe in fate” —by “fate”, I meant the Confucian idea of “Tianming” 天命(Mandate of Heaven), or “Tianyi” 天意(the will of Heaven).Apparently he didn’t understand at all, he asked, “how could you say that you believe in Heaven but not God, is there any difference?” I didn’t know how to answer him at that time, and later I was having doubts about my belief or Chinese’s for a long time. 

      Now I am taking an ancient Chinese history course in America, I have officially learned the term “Tianming”. I also noticed that we haven’t really made reference to religion when talking about Confucianism. Then it occurs to me that--Is the concept of “Tianming” religious? Is Confucianism a religion? 

     In consideration of the language difference, first I have to make clear the Chinese translations for Confucianism --

• Rujia儒家: School of the Scholars
• Ruxue儒学: Studies of Scholars
• Rujiao儒教: Teaching of the Scholars
• Kongjiao孔教: Cult of Confucius, or Confucian religion

     In particular, Rujiao is often also called Kongjiao, but there are also difference between them— “Rujiao” technically emerged during the reign of Emperor Wu(r.141-87 BC) in the Western Han Dynasty when Confucianism became a state-supported orthodoxy, although the word wasn’t coined until the Eastern Han Dynasty; however, “Kongjiao” was brought up by Kang Youwei of late Qing Dynasty(1644–1911) when he tried to “launch a reform movement to transform the Confucian tradition into a state religion”(Xinzhong Yao, “An Introduction to Confucianism”). Both of the word contains “Jiao”, which could imply Jiaohua教化—enlightenment, or Zongjiao宗教—religion. Apparently, “Rujiao” was given some religious color, and its existence is quite controversial.

     What about Ruxue? The Ruxue, which directly connected with Confucius and Mencius, is the primitive source of Rujiao. So before we define Rujiao as a religion or not, we have to understand the nature of Ruxue. There is no doubt about its significance as a philosophy, but is Ruxue religious so that Confucianism is eventually or virtually a religion?

    There are basically three kinds of views: 

1.  Confucianism is a religion. 
2. Confucianism is not a religion, but it has religious characteristics.
3. Confucianism is not a typical religion but a special religion (“Moral Religion”[1]).

      In fact, this issue has been debated globally among scholars over centuries. Although there is no definite answer on this question, all of the three have been studied with in-depth investigations and satisfactory results. In this paper, I am going to combine the second and the third views to talk about my opinions on the relationship between Confucianism and religion. First, I will discuss Confucianism’s religious character in terms of the idea of “Heaven”. Then I will investigate the view of religion in Confucianism culturally and discuss its religious role in modern society.

I. The idea of “Heaven” in Confucian thought

     As we know, the traditional Chinese idea of Tianming has been presented on different bases through different periods of Chinese history, but using western philosophical terms, there are nothing more than these three theoretical principles: “Theological Determinism”, “Moral Determinism”, and “Natural Determinism” (Jie Wang, “On Confucius' view of Tianming, human nature and political value”). The kings of late Shang used spiritual force to rule people by deifying themselves—calling themselves the son of Di(the high god of the Shang).In this way, their power were justified by the god—this was typical “theological determinism” with religious thought. In the Zhou dynasty, people use the word “Tian” (Heaven) to take the place of “Di”. Although both are acting like god, Tian is different from Di because it has morality (Qingzhong Yang, “Why Zhou people call the high god Tian”). Tian helped Zhou succeed in overthrowing Shang because the Zhou rulers had morality and it is their Mandate of Heaven to rule the people. This “Tian” concept showed a transition to “Moral Determinism” in Tianming’s interpretation, it is “a ruling or presiding Tian”[2], or a heaven of arbitrator. Connecting morality and Heaven with religious faith made the Zhou people pay attention to virtues and rituals because they wanted to get blessings under Heaven’s watching. However, when it applied to governing, things went differently-- the ruler behaved badly but still didn’t get punished by Heaven, so what’s the point of looking up to Tianming? “Then the trend of doubtful thought emerged inevitably” (Yibo Yang, “Reading Confucian morality's religious role from Heaven”).

     Living in Spring and Autumn period, Confucius used to deeply believe in the Shang and Western Zhou’s traditional idea of Tianming. He thought Tian has will and force to arrange people’s life. He said, “Life and death are governed by fate, wealth and honor are determined by Heaven” (Ivanhoe, 34). He saw the limitation of manpower and believed in Heaven’s mysterious power, even with some awe—“The gentleman stands in awe if three things: the Mandate of Heaven, great men, and the teachings of the sages” (Ivanhoe, 47). However, Tianming didn’t respond to him as he expected, in his troubled times, he fell into contradiction between his beliefs and reality.—“If Heaven intended this culture to perish, it would not have given it to those of us who live after King Wen’s death. Since Heaven did not intend that this culture should perish, what can the people of Kuang do to me?” (Ivanhoe, 25)By this time, the “ruling Tian” has transformed into “a fatalistic Tian”, or a heaven of fate.

     It seemed Tianming’s “Moral Determinism” did not work for the society, what then? The fall-down of the “ruling Tian”, accompanied with “a fantastic Tian,” directly brought about the rise of ‘a naturalistic Tian’ (Yang), in other words, people began to use “Natural Determinism” to explain “Tianming”.

     Confucius also had his answer to this question, he said, “…at fifty I understood Heaven’s Mandate” (Ivanhoe, 5). What did he mean by saying that?

      According to Sima Qian’s Record of the Grand Historian, Confucius was studying The Book of Changes later in his life, which also accorded with his remark in the Analects[3]. So Confucius first studied the I Ching, the divination manual which connotes Daoism idea like “the way” or “Yin Yang”, then get the essence of Tianming (Junhua Ren, “Awe Tianming and Ecological Ethics--on Confucius' idea of ecological ethics”),which meant this Tianming is not the previous Tianming anymore. It actually means natual law[4] (Ren).Confucius, the great thinker, didn’t stay stuck in this contradiction of the previous Tianming’s theory, instead, he stopped to talk about the Mandate of Heaven, but “achieved two big shifts on his view of values”:1from “Tianming” to “Tiandao” (the Way of Heaven) 2from divinity to humanity (Wang). There is one thing we need to notice, Confucius actually did not concern himself much on Tiandao, he even didn’t talk about it--In the Analects, the only place “Tiandao” appeared is Zigong’s remark, where he said, “…one does not get to hear the Master expounding upon the subjects of human nature or the Way of Heaven ” (Ivanhoe, 15).Confucius would rather focus on his second shift to humanity--“the Goodness”, “the Wisdom”, “the Sage” and so on .As a result, these series of cultural refinements had a tremendous influence on Chinese political views and civilization. 

       In addition, Confucius’ view of Tianming was also represented on his attitude towards ghost and spirits. In his time, it’s impossible to deny their existence, because most of people were superstitious about the unexplainable natural world. According to Confucius cautious personality, when he realized it was difficult to clarify a question, he wouldn’t answer it arbitrarily. Then he gave an equivocal statement-- “respecting the ghosts and spirits while keeping them at a distance—this might be called wisdom” (Ivanhoe, 18). He thought devoting efforts and doing good to people (务民Wumin) was the priority, it was what the Wisdom would do. Again, like I said before, he shifted his attentions to moral practices. “‘This is why Confucius didn’t make his teaching become a religion like Jesus’, said by Mou Zongsan[5] in his book The Particularities of Chinese Philosophy (page 21, 47)” (Wang).

      Although Confucius’s view of Tianming didn’t solve the ethical dilemma, and his view of Tiandao was deficient, he still had profound impact on later Confucian schools. After Confucius, Mencius had a different idea about Tianming. He didn’t think Heaven had will, but he pointed out that Heaven was the origin of human nature—therefore, “If one understands one’s nature, then one understands Heaven” (Ivanhoe, 152). In this way, Heaven was connected to people, it was still powerful, but it was not incomprehensible, as long as one “preserve one’s mind and nourish one’s nature” (Ivanhoe, 152). Mencius used Heaven to explain everything, but didn’t take it as some kind of god, from this, we can see a rational philosophy thought. Mencius’s Ruxue did not lose touch with reality; its religiousness was quite limited.

II. Rujia’s unique religious character

      After discussing the two greatest Rujia philosophers Confucius and Mencius’ views on Heaven, now let’s go back to the question I asked at the beginning about the relationship between Confucianism and religion. Apparently, we need to define “religion” first. Look at what basic factors Buddhism and Christianity have in common: God and scripture. But Confucianism had neither—Tian was not a personified God, and the Analects didn’t play a role as religious scripture. So Confucianism was definitely not a traditional religion. However, religions in different culture always imply different definition. Besides the idea of Heaven as I discussed earlier, Confucianism also showed other important religious characters, for example-- “Ritual”, which was also the core concept of Confucian thought. Does that mean Confucianism had religious basis? Some people agreed, some did not. Here I will use “sacrifice” as an example to show Confucianism’s unique religious character compare to other religions and explore the diversity of religious meaning in Chinese culture.

       Xunzi said, “Ritual has three roots”—“heaven and earth”, “forefathers and ancestor”, “rulers and teachers” (Ivanhoe, 275), correspondingly, there are also “three sacrifices” to these “three roots” in Confucian traditions. Most modern people think the “three sacrifices” only had a sense of gratitude but not praying, and the ceremony was given to visible objects but not to some transcendent, which showed its non-religious character(Renfu He, “The Religious Value of Tang Junyi's Ideas on the Confucian ‘Three Sacrificial Offerings’”). Tang Junyi, who was a representative figure in the second New Confucianist, expressed his insights and contradicted toward the “non-religious” comment in his book the Development of Chinese Humanities. “He pointed out that, the ‘three sacrifices’ not only had a deep religious spirit, but also had a high religious value beyond any other religions (He).

     His two main reasons are:

• It’s true that ancient Chinese regarded their gratitude to the cult objects, which include ancestors or some specific people who was related to the worshipper, usually won’t be worshipped by others and won’t be replaced by others, which gave them a unique meaning. And this uniqueness made this “sacrifice” religious.
• It’s also true that the cult object was real and it can be imagined during the ceremony, but the thing is, all the ceremony needs images—figure of Buddha, the Jesus statue, and so on—these are inevitable. However, because the object was real, the worshipper would see them objectively, they wouldn’t get too lost in it. Moreover, when Chinese worshipped the ancestor, there were only Ancestral Tablet without portrait (portrait usually was put aside), this made the worshipper more concentrated (He).

     Generally speaking, the Confucian “three sacrifices” gathered both realistic and transcendental religious spirit which was incomparable to other religions. 

III. Rujiao as a “Moral Religion”

Image via Wikipedia

     As I mentioned earlier, the word “Rujiao” came out in the Eastern Han dynasty. By that time, Confucianism had been used as a tool of enlightenment for governing for a while. As a matter of fact, ever since after Confucius died, he had been apotheosized in a way, which started as building Confucian temples in Western Han, then offering sacrifices to him (Jihui Zhao, “on Confucianism as both philosophy and moral religion”). Gradually, later generations embraced Confucius; even until today, a lot of these temples are still full of people burning incense and praying. It is hard to say if Chinese had worshipped Confucius as an oracle or just a sage ancestor. But according to the statistics, from the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, there were around 1560 Confucius temples (Zhao).Common people worshipped Confucius just like Buddha, this must meant something. They might think of Confucius as a symbolization of morality, ethics and civilization rather than a supernatural being, for example, a scholar would worship Confucius before they went for the imperial examination[6]. But indeed, he became a sort of spiritual sustenance where one can rest hope on. On this point, calling Confucianism as a “Moral Religion” makes sense.

      Before I started to work on this paper, I never thought of Confucianism as a religion. But now, I will have to be surprised at my conclusion--I think before the Han Dynasty, Confucianism acted as a philosophy with religious characters, but later on, it was developed into a “Moral Religion”. This is not the ultimate answer to the topic of this paper, only my own idea, and I’m not sure how long I will hold onto it. But no matter what Confucianism is, it was already part of the essence in Chinese culture; it was where I lived in, where I believed in.

---

[1] “Moral Religion” was put forward by Mou Zongsan, but later in my paper I didn’t elaborate Mou’s opinion. I only borrowed this term to express my idea of Confucius’ apotheosis.

[2] The Chinese philosopher Feng Youlan differentiates five different meanings of tian in early Chinese writings:

(1) A material or physical Tian or sky, that is, the Tian often spoke of in opposition to earth, as in the common phrase which refers to the physical universe as 'Heaven and Earth'
(2) A ruling or presiding Dian, that is, one such as is meant in the phrase, 'Imperial Heaven Supreme Emperor'
(3) A fatalisDic Dian, equivalent to the concept of Fate (ming 命), a term applied to all those events in human life over which man himself has no control.

(4) A naturalisDic Dian, that is, one equivalent to the English word Nature.
(5) An ethical Dian, that is, one having a moral principle and which is the highest primordial principle of the universe. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tian#Meanings

[3] “If were granted many more years, and could devote fifty of them to learn( I-king), surely I would be able to be free of major fault”

[4] My understanding-- the Tianming here means Tiandao, because Tiandao has a sense of nature.

[5] Mou Zongsan, a Chinese New Confucian philosopher

[6] In modern life, people still do things like this. Personally, I remembered my parents asked me to worship Confucius once or twice when I was a kid for a better grade even we didn’t really count on it.

Works Cited

He, Renfu. "The Religious Value of Tang Junyi's Ideas on the Confucian "Three Sacrificial Offerings唐君毅论儒家“三祭”的宗教价值" Journal of Sichuan University(Social Science Edition) 3 (2009). Confuchina.com. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://www.confuchina.com/05%20zongjiao/tangjunyi%20lun%20sanji.htm.

Ivanhoe, Philip, and Bryan Norden. Readings in classical Chinese philosophy. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 2005. Print.

Ren, Junhua. "Awe Tianming and Ecological Ethics--on Confucius' idea of ecological ethics敬畏天命与生态伦理--孔丘的生态伦理思想新探" Confucius Studies 2 (2000). Confuchina.com. 29 June 2003. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://www.confuchina.com/03%20lunlizhengzhi/kongzi%20shengtai%20lunli.htm.

Wang, Jie. "On Confucius' Tianming,human nature and political value论孔子的天命、人性及政治价值依据." Confucius Studies 6 (2005). Confuchina.com. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://www.confuchina.com/02%20xinxue%20yu%20renxinglun/kongzi%20tianming%20renxing.htm.

Yang, Qingzhong. "Why Zhou people call the high god Tian论周人何以称至上神为天." Journal of South-Central University for Nationalities 1 (1997). Confucius2000.com. 26 June 2004. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://www.confucius2000.com/confucian/lzrhyczsswt.htm.

Yang, Yibo. "Reading Confucian morality's religious role from Heaven从以天论德看儒家道德的宗教作用." Social Sciences in China 3 (2006): 39. Confucius2000.com. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://www.confucius2000.com/admin/list.asp?id=2604.

Yao, Xinzhong. An introduction to Confucianism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Books.google.com. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://books.google.com/books?id=tAE2OJ9bPG0C&dq=Xinzhong+Yao,+An+Introduction+to+Confucianism+pdf&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=ahYiS47JKMXBngf4l430CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false.

Zhao, Jihui. "On Confucianism as both philosophy and moral religion论儒学既是哲学又是道德宗教." Confuchina.com. 04 Mar. 2003. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. <http://www.confuchina.com/01%20zong%20lun/ruxue%20zhexue%20zongjiao.htm>. published on Huangshan International Ruxue seminar in July,2001

Feedback from professor:  A-

This paper addresses a very important but complicated problem,and show very sophisticated understanding of names while still being able to arrive at a clear conclusion.There are a few points I’ve indicated where the writing is not so clear ad left me puzzles as to your exact meaning. In addition, Xunzi’s ideasabout Heaven deserve to be mentioned along with those of Confucius and Mencius,since they seem to be a further development of this trend you identify（see page 269-274 in Ivanhoe)

Zhuangzi on Confucius

      Although both Confucius and Zhuangzi lived in a historical time of chaos, these two philosophers had quite a different view of the world and life. The fundamental difference and also the reason for their arguing is, in short, that Confucius rushi(入世), Zhuangzi chushi(出世).

      What is rushi and chushi? They are actually Buddhist terms in Chinese, literally meaning entering and renouncing the world, or “entering worldly affairs” and “withdrawing from worldly affairs” (Brook,p.70).In details, the former word signifies “an action to participate in social change”, and the latter one signifies “a retreat to a spontaneous, natural, and personal life” (Liu).

      Confucius was an ideologist who tried to reform the social reality. He advocated to “restrain oneself and returning to the rites”(Ivanhoe,p.33); when it applied to governing, it shows the performance of the rules of virtue, including honoring one's parents, loyalty to government, and keeping one's place in society —“Let the lord be the true lord…the fathers true fathers…”(Ivanhoe,p.36),and so on. In another classic book about Confucianism called The Great Learning, there are eight characters written by later scholars to describe Confucius’s idealism—“Things being investigated”, “knowledge being complete”, “thoughts being sincere”, “hearts being rectified”, “persons being cultivated”, “families being regulated”, “States being rightly governed”, then “the entire world was at peace”. These are the standard Confucius set for himself, which lead to his Utopia—Datong大同(this term comes from The Classic of Rites),or the Great Harmony which means a perfect society towards uniformity. In a word, Confucius has a heart for the society.

       However, Zhuangzi emphasizes the value of personal life. He thinks the big questions of individual’s life are more important than society’s issues. His attitude to governing is quite cold, we can see it from the sacred turtle story that shows his rejection of administering Chu’s kingdom (Ivanhoe, p.246). He claims “Wuwei 无为”or “non-action” which means following the nature, and act without efforts, because he thinks any “Youwei 有为” (the opposite to “non-action” )is against Tian天 or nature—they are “mechanical contraptions”, “mechanical business”, “mechanical mind”, which can stop us preserving our simplicity and having a settled spiritual life (Ivanhoe,p.243)——and that is harmful; one of the examples is the emperor of the center who when holes were drilled in body ended up dead——“Everyone has seven holes to see, hear, eat, and breathe, but he alone he alone has none. Let’s try drilling him some! Each day they drilled a hole. And in seven days, All-full died” (Ivanhoe, p.243). Apparently, “Follow the middle line and you can protect yourself, complete your life, raise your family, and finish your years” (Ivanhoe,p.224) .This is Zhuangzi’s ideal of life that we should withdraw from the society, not worry for desires; in this way people can return to nature and to have a free spirit, and that’s what it matters.

Below is a comparison chart between Confucius and Zhuangzi’s ideas with key words.

	Confucius “rushi”	Zhuangzi “chushi”
Value 基本价值观	social ideal 社会理想	life ideal 生命理想
Governing 治国	ritual 礼乐之治	wuwei "non-action" 无为之治
Pursuing 追求	want to become an official 出仕	hermit life-style 隐士
View of secular affairs 世俗观	Negate greediness, approve proper desire 否定贪欲，肯定以道得之的私有满足 “If wealth were something worth pursuing, then I would pursue it, even if that meant serving as an officer holding a whip at the entrance to the marketplace.” (Ivanhoe,p.21)	Negate all secular desire with a neutral attitude 以不肯定不否定的态度否定 “…the sage does not make it his business to attend to affairs. He does not seek gain or avoid loss. He does not enjoy being sought out and does not follow any way. Saying nothing he says something, saying something he says nothing, and he wanders outside the floating dust ”(Ivanhoe,p.222)
View of life and death 生死观	respect life   尊重生命   “lavish funeral”;  Cry for Yanhui’s death (Ivanhoe,p.31)	“It’s just like the round of the four seasons”   达生主义  Sing for his wife’s death  (Ivanhoe,p.247)

      Moreover, from the description of Confucius’s image in the book of Zhuangzi, we have to admit, Zhuangzi doesn’t approve of him very much, especially in the story of Robber Zhi, Confucius was even accused of being a hypocrite by an infamous robber. But does that mean Confucius and Zhuangzi have nothing in common? Actually they do. They both pay attention to enhance personal cultivation, or the inner power of human, and both of them think that is the prerequisite to achieve their ideal. Either Confucius’s Way on humanity, or Zhuangzi’s Way on nature, is the idealism of civilization, and both of them play a role on criticizing and maintaining the reality.

       Maybe personally I prefer Zhuangzi's refined spiritual world, but —Confucius teaches us to take responsibility, Zhuangzi teaches us to handle complicated matters with great ease—indeed, we should take both of them in.

Works Cited

Brook, Timothy. Praying for power Buddhism and the formation of gentry society in late-Ming   China. Cambridge, Mass: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University and Harvard-Yenching Institute, Distributed by Harvard UP, 1993. Print.


Ivanhoe, Philip, and Bryan Norden. Readings in classical Chinese philosophy. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 2005. Print.


"The Great Learning, a Confucian classic - The Gold Scales." THE GOLD SCALES of Art, Wisdom, Extracts, Folktales, and Lore. Ed. Tormod Kinnes. Web. 16 Oct. 2009.
http://oaks.nvg.org/sa3ra7.html.


Xu, Feng. "Review of Kongzi and Zhuangzi' Cultural idealism动摇与依违--孔子及庄子之文化理想主义述评" JOURNAL OF LINYI TEACHERS' COLLEGE (2000). Print.



"Yan Lianke, Shouhuo, Liu Jianmei." Modern Chinese Literature and Culture Resource Center. Web. 16 Oct. 2009. <http://mclc.osu.edu/jou/abstracts/liujianmei2.htm>.

Confucianism -- Concept Speech

Outline

I. Introduction
· Reason of the topic
·Definition of Confucianism
·Transition


II. Body
1. Confucius and analects
2. Key words about Confucius’s teaching
Ø Core idea: 仁(ren)—Goodness·德(de)—Virtue
·礼(li)-Ritual: propriety, good manners, ceremony.
·忠(zhong)—Dutifulness: loyalty, doing one's best.
·义(yi)—Rightness: right conduct, morality.
·孝(xiao)—Filial piety: honor one's parents
·恕(shu)—Sympathetic understanding: reciprocity, consideration for others.
·君子(junzi)—the Gentleman
·小人(xiaoren)—the Petty Man


III. Conclusion
    Confucianism is social and ethical philosophy rather than a religion, it’s important to keep the good part of our ancient culture and tradition.

Speech Draft

1. Introduction
    The reason I brought this up because I am taking a history class about ancient Chinese philosophy. So we have learnt quite a lot Information about it and I find it very interesting. So I decide to share this significant historical event with you.


  The definition of Confucianism from “Encyclopedia Britannica” is “Scholarly tradition and way of life propagated by Confucius in the 6th–5th century BC and followed by the Chinese for more than two millennia.”


     It is often characterized as a system of social and ethical philosophy rather than a religion. In fact, Confucianism built on an ancient religious foundation to establish the social values, institutions, political ideology and so on in ancient China society; which means it plays much the same role as religion does in other cultural contexts


    Though there’re quite a few different schools under the Confucian legacy, when we talk about Confucianism, we are pretty much talk about Confucius, the founder of Confucianism’s thought.


    Here I’m going to give a brief introduction of Confucius, and the most famous book which was called Analects, and some basic key concepts in his teaching.




2. Body

Confucius

-- He was born about 551 BC and lived until 479 BC.
-- He is the single most famous, important and influential thinker in all Chinese history. For much of the history of imperial China, from about 100 BC down to 1906, his ideas were the state-supported orthodoxy.
-- He was a political figure but his lasting impact was as a teacher. He acquired a reputation for knowledge of ancient traditions and texts and rituals, and young men gathered around him seeking instruction.

The Analects

     Most of what we know about Confucius’ ideas comes from the Analects.
    It is a collection of moral and ethical principles presented in the form of conversation between Confucius and his disciples. It does not consist of organized essays but more like a scrapbook of valuable ideas that someone thought worthy of recordings.


Key words about Confucius’s teaching
     In the Analects, the core idea was仁(ren) or Goodness; Sometime also translated as "Benevolence, humanity, kindness, or compassion”


What is Goodness exactly?
      Confucius said: “restraining yourself and returning to the rites constitutes Goodness” 
What does that mean, and what are the rites then?


     Actually Goodness is not one virtue, but the source of all virtues, signifying excellent character in accord with礼(li)—Ritual, 忠(zhong)—Dutifulness, 义(yi)—Rightness, 孝(xiao)—Filial piety, 恕(shu)Sympathetic understanding, and so on…Together these constitute德(de)—Virtue.

The Gentleman

      When we talk about the Goodness, then we have to mention another keyword 君子junzi or the Gentlemen. Junzi is a very important idea in Chinese culture and one of the most prominent terms classical Confucianism .


“The Gentleman takes rightness as his substance, puts it into practice by means of ritual, give it expression through modesty, and perfects it by being trustworthy.”


     The opposite of Junzi was 小人(xiaoren) or the Petty man literally means small person. The character small in this context means petty in mind and heart, narrowly self-interested, greedy, or superficial.


“The gentleman understands rightness, whereas the petty person understands profit”


“The gentleman seeks it in himself; the petty person seeks it in others”


     In one word, the gentleman was described as "perfect man" who combines the qualities of a saint, scholar and the virtue of the Goodness. And becoming a junzi (gentleman) is one's ideal in Chinese culture.




3. Conclusion
     A Christian might find himself in agreement with many of Confucius' ethical principles and virtues. A Christian might also agree with many of the character qualities of the true gentleman and seek to develop those qualities. But after all, Confucianism is social and ethical philosophy rather than a religion as I mentioned at the beginning of this speech.


     In modern China, religion apparently is not that much valued as western country; I think one of the reasons might be that—deep down, people are still unconsciously influenced our culture tradition; And if we can keep all the Goodness from Confucius, what’s the point of a religion?




Works Cited
Berling, Judith A. "Confucianism." Focus on Asian Studies 1st ser. ? (1982): 5-7. Web. http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln270/Berling-Confucianism.htm

"Confucianism." Encyclopedia Britannia. Web. 
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/132104/Confucianism. 



"Confucius." Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy. 3 June 2002. Web. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confucius/. 

Ivanhoe, Philip J., and Bryan W. Van Norden. 2nd ed. Hackett, 2006. Print. 

Notes from HIST 504 class

“High education record is not everything!” ——High Education & Success

Informative and Surprising Essay

English 100

 05/05/09

Before I came to the United States, a lot of my friends had already been abroad, and many of them are preparing to do it now. I asked a few of them why they wanted to study abroad—one thought Gaokao(Chinese SAT) was too hard, she didn’t think she could get into the best university even if she tried her best; another one said his current college was too average, he felt himself a loser if he stayed. And they asked me, “and you?” I smiled and replied to them by something conventionally vague and much more the same. Though it’s not the answer I want, it’s true that we all agree on the unspoken theory—high education record is the top priority in life! But why is that?

There’s an old saying in China, “To be a scholar is to be the top of society”. Apparently, high education record, as a symbol of success in Chinese culture, means a decent and high-paid job which leads to a perfect mate and a comfortable life, which is everything we are going after. Professor Xin remarked in his essay that in Chinese traditional thought, it was supposed to be the start of “a bright future” when someone gets a foot in the door of a prestigious academic institution and is dignified with a Master or Doctor’s degree; especially to some poor farmer’s kids, this kind of achievement even glorified their family name --the parents must entertain lavishly for celebration like a big feast, only feel more honored (Xin).

However, in the money-oriented society, not judging the value of “success=money”, the convinced belief that “high educational qualification=good job=high pay=success” doesn’t necessarily apply anymore. This doesn’t happen by chance. In theory which is already proved in statistic, the more education people receive, the more relative income they will get (Xin); everybody knows that. But we don’t know the differences between incomes among these people are not as big as we expect. What’s more, this theory is just “an overall trend”, which doesn’t adapt to everyone; also, a so-called “high income” is measured in individuals’ life (Xin). In practice, people also start to be aware of the new equation—high academic qualification=high unemployment or underemployment. 

The DGBAS (Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics) of Taiwan showed, “from January to November in 2008, the average unemployment rate of young people between 15 to 29 years old has reached 8.25%”, and the rate of people who “have university education or above” is 9.33% (Zhong). How could this phenomenon happen? The basic cause is—“Oversupply of labor market” (Zheng), in other words, there’re too many well-educated people to get limited jobs. Imagine one day, everybody gets a university diploma, most people are graduates, what do you think will happen?—The society will apparently be out of order, no one wants to do the cheap labor work because they think they deserve better. It will only result in waste and worthlessness of the education qualification. This imagination is growing nowadays; high education is losing its upper hand.

China mainland is more or less the same employment environment as Taiwan. The hype of “A Beijing University[1] graduate selling candied haws stick”[2] event in 2006 may have passed, but similar news keeps popping up, and the complaints from students and parents won’t stop (Xin).At the same time people start to think about a concerned question—Is prestigious university out of date?

It has become a common and terrible belief that if you want to go to college, you have to go to the elite college. As I remember in my high school in China, every year during the graduation season we can see a lot of posters and banners hung between buildings and walls say “Cheer for X’s admission to Beijing University ”or “Congratulations on X’s being the top in Gaokao in our Province”. What we hear are all praises about how many students have gotten into the best colleges, and the teachers always ask us to learn from those very few top students. Besides, students from different schools often compete which school has more students enrolled in prestigious university even if it has nothing to do with them. It seems like, in people’s subconscious, only going to those elite universities means being useful and getting “a golden passport to success” (Easterbrook). In Alan Krueger and Stacy Berg’s research in 1999, they found that students who were able to get into an Ivy but chose a “less sexy” one, had “the same income twenty years later as graduates of the elite colleges” (Easterbrook).Apparently, success is not so relevant to a school’s brand or fame, it’s up to you, your ability and talent. And it’s not the top college make the students capable; they’re already elites even they don’t go to the elite schools.

During Loren Pope’s writing of Who’s Who[3] in 1990, he found out the fact that “the glamour schools were losing their status as the gatekeepers of accomplishment”. And today, as the “non-elite school” have greatly improved their quality of academic input, more and more employers don’t value applicants’ above their famous school background, “some may even avoid candidates from the top school, on the theory that such aspirants have unrealistic expectations of quick promotion”(Easter). The people who have that “expectation” are over-reachers, they think themselves above the business and aren’t easily satisfied with what they have; this often happens in China, that’s why even elite students from top colleges ending up with “underemployment”. Chinese’s “elite college complex” is not realistic, and it could be even harmful for students--they could repeat year and year in school with extreme pressures and hard work just to make their “top school dream” come true, and after that, there’s even no guarantee for them to get a good job!

Not only the “elite college complex”, but also advanced degrees gave Chinese students a mistaken idea that it’s never hard for graduate students to get a well-paid job. In old days, a Master or Doctor’s Degree means knowledge and respect. However, there’s an ironic phenomenon called “high degree discrimination” in employment today. To employers, high degree means “high cost” (pay), “high age”— aiming at women Doctors, who have possibilities of giving birth to a child, and “zero experience”—aiming at students who attach more on theory but lack of practical skills (EOL). Now a lot of graduates have descended to an inferior position, choosing the job they thought too cheap that a Bachelor or even a college student can do; the advanced theory they have learned were completely left behind. It’s just how the society works despite the cruelty.

From theory to practical situations, and from “elite university effects” to “advanced degree discrimination”, indications showed one fact that a high education record doesn’t necessarily bring money and success. In addition to money, what about the well-educates’ inner life, does the high academic qualification bring them a successful emotional life?

Here are two news titles--“More and More highly educated people use drugs in Beijing” (Beijing Daily Online). “Highly educated women become obsessive-compulsive disorder of the ‘susceptible’” (Oriental Today). We don’t even need to talk about serious drug problems or psychiatric disorders; we just need to see some pop words in the media to know how the true life of well-educated people and how they are considered and biased in this society. For example, “The Left” or “3S” (single, seventies, stuck) is used to describe those elder unmarried girls who were born during 1970s and highly educated. A lot of them from elementary school to graduate school, basically never had a deep relationship with anyone of the opposite sex. That long-term isolation makes them have a “love phobia” (Bl.gov.cn)—being afraid of falling love or not knowing how to love. With “3 high” (another pop word, indicates high education, high position, and high pay) but with no love or confidence, are they successful? I don’t think so.

The headmaster of Qinghua University [4] gave his graduates five advices on their life road:

“Direction is more important than efforts,

Ability is more important than knowledge,

Healthy is more important than achievement,

Life is more important than qualification,

EQ is more important than IQ” (Gu).

I think these golden sayings are the most important meanings of this research paper.

At last, on the whole, my conclusions are--Education record is a study experience, and high education record is just a reflection of one’s academic attainments. It’s nothing but a proof of the past. There’s nothing wrong about going after high education record, but it shouldn’t be everything we’re going after-- If you do, it’s not only success you lose, but also yourself.     

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[1] the top university in China

[2] “candy fruit on sticks”, a very cheap traditional snack on street in Northern China

[3] “a direction of American distinction”

[4] one of the best university in China

Works Cited

Easterbrook, Gregg. "Who Needs Harvard?" College Admissions 2004 October 2004 Atlantic Oct. 2004. The Atlantic. 3 May 2009 .

"Graduate students facing employment problem--'high degree discrimination'" Graduate studies news. 4 Nov. 2008. Eol.cn(China Education Online). 03 May 2009 .

Gu, Binglin. "The headmaster of Qinghua University gave advises to his graduates." Education Campus. 5 Sept. 2005. Aweb.com.cn(China Agriculture Web). 03 May 2009 .

"Highly educated people have 'love phobia'" Psychology science. 11 Sept. 2008. Bl.gov.cn. 03 May 2009 .

"Highly educated women become obsessive-compulsive disorder of the 'susceptible'" Obsession. Ed. Huaiqi Wang. 4 Aug. 2005. Linzi Counselling. 03 May 2009 .

Xin, Lijian. "High Academic Record? High Income." Lijian Xin's blog. 16 May 2006. Usors.cn. 03 May 2009 .

Zhang, Weina. "More and more highly educated people use drugs in Beijing." Legal news 29 Oct. 2004. Hbfz.gov.cn. 3 May 2009 .

Zheng, Juanfeng. "High level of education = high unemployment?" Work 26 Aug. 2008. The Liberty Times, Taiwan. 3 May 2009 .

Zhong, Lihua. "Dim future of pay/ highly educated youth unemployment rate 9.33%." Life 21 Jan. 2009. The Liberty Times, Taiwan. 3 May 2009 .

Cliques in My Schooldays

English 100

Educational Narrative

Feb. 1^st, 2009

       If not because of this paper, I may never think about the question “do I ever have a clique before?” which occurs to me—“what is a clique?” Clique is a word from old French. Wikipedia defines it as “an exclusive group of people who share interests, views, purposes, patterns of behavior, or ethnicity”. If we translate it into Chinese, it could be “Xiao Tuan Ti(小团体)” which means small group , but lacking of group cohesion in a sense; or “Bang Pai(帮派)” which means small faction, but it sounds too serious to get the factional fighting involved. Then Professors Fengbin Wang and Wenpin Tsai, two Chinese scholars—call cliques “Xiao Ji Ti(小集体)” in their book[1] , which means small collectives. As you may have noticed, there is “small” in all of these three translations, which implies a kind of negative meaning “exclusive” in Chinese; at least when the adults hear it they may frown slightly and judge it by the first impression. From this point, I suddenly understand why most of us Chinese students don’t realize that we were in cliques but call them all friends or buddies instead. Under the influence of the CCP(Chinese Communist Party) culture, what we have always been advocating, is collectivism; as it said “Unity is strength”, that’s also what we learned from books and in school. We started to cultivate our team spirit since we went to kindergarten, we must act collectively and stick together through thick and thin, and we would be blamed for engaging in “some cliques”.
 
      However, who doesn’t have a clique anyway? As humans, we do have our very own social circles; it changes as time goes by, from kids to teenager to adults, especially when we were students. And those circles were exactly cliques in some ways. Looking back to my interpersonal experience in schooldays, cliques did play an important role through my lifetime. 

      I lived in a small city in the east of China which was relatively conservative compared to big cities. I had always been to key (top) schools in my city, where they offered better teaching quality, study environment, and more hardworking and excellent students. In my memory, there were not too many different types of cliques in my school; in contrast to western countries, I can say the amount was very little. As I mentioned, this is about culture, about some stereotyped thoughts-- Chinese are used to following the mass, so being cool or unique is not always good. Chinese have the traditional virtues of “working hard and living plain”, so students spending time on clothes is meaningless. Chinese students are just kids in ivory tower, so they should just devote themselves to studying, blah, blah, blah... For example, my school had the rules of wearing school uniforms everyday or as much as possible, if a girl didn’t follow that rule, but dress up very pretty instead even wearing make-up, she would probably have a tough school life—being judged by other classmates esp. girls, lecturing by the teachers, and changing back to the uniform eventually—who would be so brave to do that? Apparently, cliques on clothes were out of the question in my school. So what do Chinese students care about and make us a clique? It really depends. In my experience, from primary school to middle school to high school, my cliques changed a lot, from several to less, explicit to tacit, along with the development and changes in this great country. 

     If there’s really such a clique culture existing in China, I believe it pops up mostly in the primary school. Because kids are frank and straightforward, they won’t hide their feeling whatever good or bad ones, and they don’t use tricks. That’s why it’s easy for them to hook up or split up. I had quite a few cliques back to that time. The main two groups were “playmates” and “leaders”.

     It is quite easy to get what the two cliques are. The “playmates” group was primarily my playmates. As a kid, I was fond of playing with my girlfriends. I was very good at rubber band skipping, rope skipping and shuttlecock kicking, kind of queen among the girls on these. And these entertainments were also extremely popular among girls; we were obsessed with them, and also enjoyed them so much. We would play together as long as we had a chance, during the class break, or in the PE, or after school, maybe at weekends. Most of these group members were just classmates, but a couple of them are more than that. We lived near each other, so we spent more time together--walking to school and back home, hanging out at weekends, many visits to each other’s apartment on holidays, and we became very good friends. We almost did everything together except studying.

     The “leader” group was much simpler ; the members were just my work partners. I was the class monitress and Chinese course representative throughout the six years in primary school and there were quite a few subordinates below me, which made us a class leader system. We might have different assignments, but we often get together to discuss all kinds of class affairs. We might not know each other very well, but we understood each other for taking the same responsibility as leaders. During the 5^th grade, I became one leader of the Young Pioneers group committees in the school, which means I had another “leaders” group then. I also had meetings with them to deal with some school events. 

      It was an honor to be a leader, but at that time, I was just a kid too, not all of the classmates would obey an equal peer. I worked a lot and still offended many classmates because of this position, which made me sick of being subordinate and having powers. Then things went quite different in the coming years--middle school. I always kept myself a low key dealing with everything. During this early period of adolescence, I once had one or two close friends; we almost told each other everything. However teenager girls were just insecure and fickle, we thought we knew and believed each other, but it was not true. The friendship was gone very soon. So precisely speaking, I was not in any cliques during the middle school. I had classmates to talk to, but no intimate friend. With increasing pressures on study, I was automatically keeping distance from the others, focusing on study. If “lonely nerd” can be a clique on one’s own, I think I belonged to that minority. This situation lasted for a while; I maintained an unconcerned attitude to surroundings. It was not until the second year in senior high school that I started to have a clique again. After coming back from one exchanging-year in Switzerland, I felt myself more mature after experiencing a lot in another country, especially on relationships. Maybe we didn’t have to have a close friend in a short term. Maybe we just need to know more interesting people making us feel better in the life stream. That’s what I thought, then the clique came up; I call it “bus fellows”.

       Apparently, high school was far more different from primary school. In my school, you could barely see or feel cliques. Everyone was so independent even we still went to the same classroom and meet the same class everyday. People were kind of cold and incommunicative. We didn’t really care about anything else except for studies, since studying took up most of our time. We might always have someone around, but that person could just be a companion; we might know everyone in our class, but it’s possible we had never spoken to some of them. In circumstance like this, “bus fellows” and “basketball boy” became two typical cliques. And I was in the former one.

      “Bus fellows”, were always my classmates or schoolmates. We took the same bus to school and back home, we were chatting all the time, about everything, the homework or test, a movie or a star, news or gossips, and so on. We didn’t have to have similar interests or personalities, we didn’t even have to care about the topics we were talking; we just need to have free talks, to get rid of the study stress, to get to know other people’s mental world, to promote ourselves. It was also a chance to find a bosom friend by accident among these familiar faces, which could be quite a nicety of life …

        So now, looking back to that question again--“what is a clique?” I get some different answers .Throughout my schooldays, I think, not only did cliques work as small social circles, but also they tell the choices we made as we become mature, choices to what kind of people we want to be and what kind of life we want to have. There are no regrets but learning from the past and looking to the future. Second, cliques are more part of culture, they see from generation to generation growing up. Time flies, culture changes. People are becoming more and more open-minded, even non-mainstream could become popular and that’s what is happening, isn’t it? So cliques, as an important part of teenager or popular culture, what will happen to them in the future? Will they still exist at that time? I just hope they will not confuse us, because we will be already very old and out of time then.

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[1] Fengbin Wang is the translator of the book Social Networks and organization written by Martin Kilduff (U.S.) and Wenpin Tsai(China)