Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Era of Confucius for the yuppies in Shanghai

Check this out, returning back to the tradition is the solution to cope with the rapid changes in contemporary China. Dressing up in hanfu, writing poem, reviving the 'ancient tradition' to better know oneself. Yet, they were 'lost' and 'unsure which direction they were going', according Schmitz. That's a cute one.

Haven't seen this kind of reporting for quite a while, I guess it is something to be rediscovered every few months, depending on how frequent the US high ranking officials visiting China.

Looking back to the future on Shanghai's Street of Eternal Happiness




Members of the club walk in Confucian-era costumes down the Street of the Eternal Happiness
When you take a stroll among the steel and glass towers of downtown Shanghai, you could be anywhere. Sometimes in this city, it's easy to forget you're in China. And then suddenly, the sound of a bamboo flute floats by.
A beggar sits on a curb of the Street of Eternal Happiness playing the flute. The skyscraper behind him releases a stream of office workers in black suits; they pass by on their way to the subway. Today's rush hour soundtrack is brought to you by the Ming Dynasty, a tune from five hundred years ago. It's a reminder that China has thousands of years of history. And more and more of these office workers want to reconnect with it. 
In a converted apartment in a quiet lane just off the Street of Eternal Happiness, young urban professionals are packed in, drinking tea and taking notes from a professor who's teaching them how to write classical poetry.
Each week they come here to discuss the teachings from the era of Confucius, 2500 years ago. Liu Xun helps run this club.
"Now, society is going at a very fast pace," Liu says. "Some people like it. Some people cope with it, but they really don't like it."
China's breakneck economic growth is bewildering to outsiders. Even if you're an insider, it can make your head spin.   Liu says many young professionals are desperately seeking ways to cope with the pressures of 21st Century China. 
“It's always a good thing to go back and check what your ancestors have done,” Liu says. “Maybe they have thought all of these things over and over again, and they already have very good answers for you.”
On this day, ten members have dressed up in traditional bright colored silk robes that were hip more than two thousand years ago during the Qin dynasty. They walk as a group along the Street of Eternal Happiness…people just stare. Shen Zefeng and Zhu Jiaqing say they do this from time to time to remind other Chinese about their traditional culture.
Shen says, “The problem is many Chinese think we're wearing Japanese or Korean clothes!”
“They have no idea,” Zhu agrees. “Each time we go out, we always have to remind people that this is OUR traditional clothing.”
The club's co-founder, Xu Yuan, says many Chinese suffer from this type of cultural amnesia because of decades of revolution and economic transformation.
“Many Chinese have forgotten about what it means to be Chinese,” Xu says. “Yet their habits and behavior reflect an ancient tradition. Rediscovering who they are is really important.”
In just two years, this small club has attracted more than fifty thousand people to its events. It's part of a larger movement in China to revive Confucian thought-from thousands of cultural centers like this one to hundreds of Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes all over the world. Cultural critic Zhu Dake is skeptical about the Confucian revival.
“The government is rich, but the people are not,” says Zhu, a professor at Shanghai's Tongji University. “They're in a constant state of anxiety, so they seek out traditional philosophies from the time of Confucius that encourage you to not worry so much about material gains and instead focus on the bright side of life. I think it's a way to hypnotize yourself rather than to proactively change the circumstances that cause your anxiety in the first place.”
Zhu says China's Communist Party is promoting a Confucian revival because the party's original ideology is wearing thin. Zhu would rather see Chinese people embrace non-Confucian aspects of Chinese history such as Taoism, which place a greater emphasis on a harmonious relationship with nature. Zhu points out that with China’s terrible environmental record, it’s a tenant his country should follow.
Back on the Street of Eternal Happiness, Zheng Jianfei, dressed in a black silk robe from the Qin dynasty, says there's a big debate in China about which parts of its cultural tradition the country should embrace going forward.
“Some say we should develop Chinese society with unique Chinese characteristics, others say we should continue to embrace Western culture,” Zheng says. “Some even say we should step back to feudal society with an emperor. Who knows?”
But tonight, there's a more pressing matter to figure out. On their walk in their traditional Chinese costumes, the group gets lost on a winding road, unsure of where they are. No need to worry, Zheng tells the others. If we just keep walking, he says, we'll find our destination.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

An Op-ed article published in New York Times yesterday entitled 'A Confucian Constitute for China'  by Jiang Qing and Danile Bell -- both of them are leading figures of the contemporary political Confucianism. To see the full article, please visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/opinion/a-confucian-constitution-in-china.html?_r=2

I am impressed that New York Times published an article like this, which is good as it keeps my research relevant. But it's strange at the same time as I had been thinking a lot about what it means to me to observe the revival of Confucianism in China. Other than accumulating information and knowledge, what all these means to me? So I'm going to share a bit more on my personally feeling about this whole movement.


The word 'humane authority' seems bizarre, and you can only HOPE that the people in power will uphold this 'humane value'. The assumption is that there are 'Confucian scholars' who will uphold the value and they should be in charge of the government, but how and where you can find legitimate 'Confucian scholars' these days? (in my understand it is different from 'scholar who study Confucian classics')

When I read this article, I can't stop thinking about the passionate activists of the Confucian classic-reading education movement, the dedicated loving parents, and the hard-working lovely children whom I had met during my fieldwork research.  From the grass-root level, I can see why it make sense for them to go back to Confucian classics as the guideline to deal with all the changes, uncertainty and disappointment that they are encountering in a rapidly changing society. And the reason why they want their children to study the classics so that they can have the chance to gain the wisdom to deal with the same challenges that their parents' generation had faced, to be prepared and hopefully suffer less and have a chance to be happy (not in material sense).  After all, all societies need some kind of moral and ethical guidance, whether it's religious schooling, or secular one that the communist party had done 'so-well' in indoctrininating the school children with models of self-less communist spirit. 


What I can't see, however, is that how the current situation in China can help nurture the ideal kind of 'Confucian scholars' who can uphold the ultimate value in Confucianism to be righteous, and in Qing & Bell's word, 'humane'. More and more, people who have the conscience to speak up for social injustice, for freedom, for basic rights as a human being, had been brutally shut down, tortured, and suppressed. Sometimes I can't help but worry about the future of these children who study Confucian classics -- if it is as the activists claim that they learned the 'right way' to be a human being through intensive study of the classics -- what kind of disappointment they will face? and how much suffering that they have to go through in order to 'do the right thing'? 


But even if political transformation have miraculous became possible (with or without bloody revolution), who gets to decide that the 'new new' China is going to have a 'Confucian Constitution'? If it is not by the people (as Qing & Bell both against the model of Western democracy), will it be the people who already possessed some kind of political and cultural capital that get the power to decide? If so, isn't it just a change of outfit from a communist ideology to a Confucian ideology to cover and portect the interests of the dominant class? What could have been changed then? 


When Confucius was preaching his teaching in his time, he had the freedom of speech, to talk about what he believed in as true and right. He had the freedom to travel from state to state to preach his teaching to large group of audience. The audience have the freedom to attend , and not attend, and that they also have the freedom to choose to listen to the other 'Hundreds School of Thoughts'. Maybe Confucianism can only manifest in its best in this kind of condition, in which freedom and space are possible, that allow it shines together with the other school of thoughts.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Not Your Father's Confucius

Check out this article by Chris Livaccari on the new artistic interpretation on Confucius' image in contemporary China. Source: http://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/not-your-fathers-confucius

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Australian news network report on the 'Come Back' of Confucius

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZueSWGnYmZE



an over simplified report, but it does has some interesting footage from the sishu.
I categorize the type of 'Confucius school' shown in this footage as part-time program, because it most like are one of those places that offer summer camp in high-price range.

Friday, April 22, 2011

BIG NEWS -- Confucius Statue removed!

(picture from the Maoflag.net)


I just read the stories from the New York Times.
To be honest, I'm not surprise by the flip-flopping at all. We see that kind of ambiguous attitude towards Confucianism already in the classic-reading education movement.

Honestly, I want to thank Chinese government for providing me so many exciting data to work with. =)

What make it even more interesting is that the Xinhua News -- one of the official media of Chinese government that address mainly to the English audiences -- has NOTHING about it. It is pretty unusual because that site has one of the highest concentration of news related to the term 'Confucius' (well, most of them has to do with the soft-power expansion of the Confucius Institute...)

My favorite quote from the NYT article is the voice of the leftist:

'Unrepentant Maoists celebrated the move on Friday. “The witch doctor who has been poisoning people for thousands of years with his slave-master spiritual narcotic has finally been kicked out of Tiananmen Square!” one writer, using the name Jiangxi Li Jianjun, wrote on the Web site Maoflag.net. '

The discussion about Confucius statue on Maoflag.net is a secret gem to reveal one of the underlying dilemma that this so-called 'revival of Confucianism' is facing, on top of the modernist. Just like secularization is commonly shared favorite by the communist and the 'rightist' liberals, so as anti-Confucianism ~~~

Monday, April 11, 2011

Debate about Confucian Education continues...across the Straits


Thanks to another big Confucius statue raised in Beijing, the issue of Confucian education is being brought under the spot light again by the media.

It is interesting to see how the proposal of bring back Confucian classics to the existing education system had been sort of portrayed negatively by media on both side --mainland China and Taiwan.

In the recent gathering of National People's Congress in March 2011, a representative from Hubei Peng Fuchun proposed government control over the 'over-heated' popularity of the classic-reading education movement. He argues that having children to receive classics such as Dizigui, Sanzijing, and other Confucian classics are 'anti-democracy, anti-science' and is the obstacles for modernization of education in China. Although he recognize the the values in Confucian classics, he sees the importance of government intervention in standardizing the text and make sure that only the 'appropriate' materials (pro-science, pro-democracy) are included.

In Taiwan, students are protesting online against the government decisions to make studying Confucian classics mandatory in school. Teachers and students question the usefulness of the text in changing students' behavior (namely, bullying). Liberal media, however, sees the problem more along the link with Peng in mainland China -- that is, Confucianism contradict with the value of democracy and modernization. And of course, we know that what Peng meant by democracy may well be very different from the Taiwanese' understanding of democracy.

The logic of modernization is still prevailing in the discourse of Confucianism. Its compatibility with the 'modern' had been an issue for scholars and intellectuals since the May-fourth movement in the early 20th century. The question is till remain unresolved.


What make it even more complicated, as suggested by Joseph Tamney and Linda Chiang (2002), is that China is simultaneously influenced by the modern and late-modern development in which self-actualization ethos, globalization and the lost of the naive faith in persons are shaping Chinese social life. That is, in my understanding, while the work of 'de-secularizing' the role of Confucianism from political and other social institutions is yet to be completed, the challenge of late-modern society and the yearning for solution to crisis of meanings is already kicking in. Therefore, we see that while on the one hand, people are crying for the 'threats' (regardless of validated empirically or not) of Confucianism to modernity. At the same time, one cannot completely reject the re-emerging public roles of Confucianism.

As Peng correctly put it: ' There are needs to raise awarness in studying Guoxue (or, 'National Studies') in our time. The Chinese economy is rising, so as our pride to our national identity. We now see the values in the ancients traditions that we had abandoned before. There are lot of good things in our traditional culture, which is even better than those in Western society. There are things in Chinese traditional culture that we need to continue and transmit. Furthermore, there are too much competition in economic sphere and too little seeking of satisfaction in spiritual life in our society. We need the traditional culture to fill the gap, providing value and emotional support to our spiritual needs'. [ 国学热确实有其时代需求。中国经济崛起,中国人民的民族自豪感提高了,过去曾经抛弃了很多老祖宗的东西,现在看来,很多传统文化、传统思想是很好的,甚至比西方社会的东西还要好。这让很多人开始重视中国传统文化的传承和发扬。

  另外,在当前的社会上,经济层面的追求太多,精神层面的追求确实很少,我们需要国学来弥补,寻找传统文化所传承的价值观念和情感的支持,是一种精神寻根的需求。]

Confucianism filling the spiritual vacuum -- the next question is: how and why?

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

It's another year, what they have to say about the Confucius Birthday?

It had been four years since I first follow on the reports about the worship of Confucius' Birthday on 28 September. The high point, I have to say, was still 2007. The vibe was extremely strong back then -- not only because of the fact that it was my 'fresh' and 'new' discovery of this bizarre return of Confucianism in post-reform China. The context was different back then -- it was the year before the Olympics, and the state is working so hard to recreate Confucius as the cultural symbols for the nationalistic 'sports' event (they announced the five-selected-verses from the Analects as one of the slogans for the Olympics). The UNESCO was established in 2005 but actually presented the award for the first time in 2007, also added the excitement for this 'international' event. But above all, the direct funding from the Central Government sponsoring the rituals and 'upgraded' that as 'state event' , I believe, explains the significance of the event.

Journalists and scholars had a lot to say about the ritual in 2007. From the 'vacuum of Marxism' to the 'return of Confucianism', everyone has their opinion to raise even though no one can tell us (back then, at least) how the revival of Confucianism is ACTUALLY HAPPENING among the people. What happened outside of the ritual hall that only invited special guests were allowed to participate? (since I've tried to find a way to get 'inside' but failed to do so, with my foreign-graduate-student-with-no-connection status -- why the pity-the-student card doesn't work for me?).

2008, the vibe was still high. It's just few weeks after the Olympics, tourists are still lingering around China and it's one of the must-go 'cultural event'.

2009, mmm, I don't remember I see much report on that anymore, especially in the out-of-China media. That was the year when I tried to get access to the ritual in Qufu but failed to do so.

2010, what they have to say about the ritual? Up to now I still haven't found anything report on the Qufu rituals yet. I saw news about the Taiwanese rituals, performed by the President Ma Yingjiu (and then, people outside fighting for the 'wisdom brushes' for calligraphy, not quite sure where the transcendent power is coming from that granted the 'wisdom', since it's just a 2 minutes-segment in the evening news). And the Guardian has this report -- and it focuses on the resume of rituals in the Beijing Confucius temple and not the large cultural event in Qufu. But other than that, it seems that the 'Confucian teacher' and the scholar of Confucianism has nothing new and exciting to tell us. The narrative remains the same for the past few years -- state need new symbols for legitimacy; rapid social change created yearning for new ethical and moral guidance/anchor; it's something 'rooted' in Chinese people's mind and it's about time for it's return...

The kind of reporting is still remaining at the superficial level -- scratching the surface, highlighting the visual and the meta-narratives (which almost became too convenient to make as it had been the same for the past few years) without actually telling us the complexity of the revival of Confucianism in China more than 'the musician' who found it not that personally appealing. I know it's 'just' a newspaper report, but isn't it about time to develop some more insight into the phenomenon?

Picture of Children reading the Analects of Confucius at the Confucius worship in Tianjin from the Xinhua News. (source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-09/28/c_13534300_4.htm)