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 ~~~

Confucius Lottery Tickets!

Here's the China Daily report on the 'ire' created by the lottery ticket with Confucius' images on it in Qufu. I just like this kind of story because it really challenges the academics who did our research but only able to capture the social condition at a certain moment but unable to catch up as fast as how the symbol transform its meaning (or the fact that there are multiple and even contradicting meanings that are circulating around).

I also like to read those logic-confusing statement that made by the 'authority' of lottery ticket, saying that "The Confucius-themed lotteries are the country's most real culture-centered tickets'. So can Confucius' image help the sales of lottery ticket? seems not, according to the China Daily report. Bummer.

A salesman at a welfare lottery outlet in Liaocheng, Shandong province, holds lottery tickets that use the image and sermons of Confucius. [China Daily]

An interesting point to me is : who really has the claim to capitalize the cultural capital of Confucius (and his image) -- and the Shandong province sees itself as the 'legitimate' player in this discourse because it was the birthplace of Confucius, and his image represents the 'region characteristics'. Sebastien Billioud and Joel Thoraval's recent article published in China Perspective discusses in details the whole 'enterprise' of the ceremonies for worshiping Confucius and the 'cultural festival' associate with it that take place in Qufu, Shandong annually. They suggests that it reflects 'two characteristics of Chinese socieity: its ideological background and the increasing merchandising of culture. The ideological agenda intertwines here with the economic needs of local authorities, for which cultural heritage and tourism revenue constitute important trup cards for local development' (Billioud & Thoraval 2009).

The Shandong government can capitalize the image of Confucius through their annual 'festivals' from tourism and 'trade show' surrounding the theme of Confucianism (No wonder Confucius need the copyright law to protect his image), but what and where the line should be anyway? While Confucius' name and image can be associated with stationaries, books, coins, or even wine, somehow his face appears on lottery ticket 'cross the line'.The dilemma, as I see it, is that while reconstructing the sacred image of Confucius is crucial in the process of 'opportunity maximization' (or, capitalization), the process in itself undermines the moral authenticity of the sacredness.

As the talk about the revival of Confucianism is becoming a 'hot topic' these days and the analysis about how the Chinese state is 'using' Confucianism to fulfill whatever 'vacuum' that they are facing, one question that we should have in mind is that how can the state capitalize on the cultural capital of Confucianism when its moral authenticity is in question?

Billioud, S. and Thoraval, J.. 2009. 'Lijiao: The Return of Ceremonies Honouring Confucius in Mainland China'. China Perspectives , 2009/4:82-100.

Confucius protrayed in Chinese Movies

In 2009, one of the most 'eye-catching' events that highlight the revival of Confucianism could be the release of the movie 'Confucius'. The Hong Kong actor Chow Yunfat plays the role of Confucius. I am still looking forward to the releasing of this film in the US, so that I'll have the chance to see it. ( <The Confucius>, directed by Hu Mei)

In September, I went back to Hong Kong to see a showing of another movie about Confucius directed by Fei Mu, one of the leading film directors of China before 1949. The film was lost for decades and had recently been restored by the Hong Kong Film Archive.

I am not a film aesthetic person nor a film critic. However, what interested me are the socio-historical context and how it related to the cultural and social symbolic meanings of these two films. I am all ready for serious work for comparison, but I can only do that when I have the chance to see the 2009 version of 'Confucius'.

To look at the historical context, 1938-40 when Fei Mu's version was being made and released, China was still in the middle of WWII with Japan. The message of yearning ( for peace; for a 'savior' for the nation; for 'restoration' of the 'values') and condemning (war; traitors; the fall of morality) were not subtle at all in the movie. And it made so much sense once you look at it together with the historical context.

2009 -- China is 'rising' to be one of the largest economic powers in the world. There is no war (at least, not for the Chinese). Yet, Do they still need a 'savior' to salvage their declining morality? if so, is Confucius the person to do so? I doubt it. Not that I disagree that the Confucius is lack of the cultural capital to do so (and his possibility being transformed into the ultimate moral symbols for the nation by those who are able to). I just don't see that the current regime (who also control the film industry, btw), will allow Confucius to be transformed as such role in a movie. And by 'such role', I mean, a sacred sage for the nation.

The sacredness of Confucius in Fei Mu's version can be found at the very beginning of the film -- in which the birth of Confucius was being narrated together with the birth of Jesus and Buddha. Throughout the film, Confucius always dominated in the 'sacred' places among his students (on top of the hill; on top of teaching altar etc) and the kind of suffering they experienced together after Confucius decided to travel around and preach his teachings is (to me, at least) highly resembled the kind of master-disciple sufferings that we read in the bible story. A normal citizen was being tortured and killed, and he cried out 'Oh Heaven*! Please send a sage to save us the people!'. And this sacred role of the Confucius is further reinforced towards the end of the film, with a song dedicated to Confucius that says 'Confucius, Confucius, the Great Confucius! your teachings will be passed on for thousands of generations, and it will be around in this world'.

Portraying the sacred does not make Confucius 'other-worldly', after all, he is still human. In fact, in Fei Mu's version, the story of Confucius continue -- he failed his preaching work, returned home, and suffered the loneliness of aging (when most of is disciples left and only his grandson had stayed with him). He did not got raised up to the Heaven by the supernatural power and left this world, he stayed here and suffered just like all of us. And that probably added the sacredness to the morality that he preached, as he had stood firm to it with his life.

I wonder how the same story will be told in the 2009 version. Or, would it be a 'same' story at all. Can these sacredness still exist? I seriously doubt it. The meaning of 'being religious' had been transformed drastically since 1949 in China. The inferiority of being religious is not just condemned by the elitist intellectuals of the Chinese Enlightenment era that highly influenced by secularism, but it is administratively challenged under the atheistic regime. Marxist scholars, including the recently deceased and former chairperson of the Institute of World Religions in the Chinese Social Science Academy Ren Jiyu, had identified that Confucianism is a religion. Therefore it is as problematic as the other religions and required strong administrative order (if not complete destruction, like what happened during the cultural revolution) to control it. As Julia Ching states, 'Marxist scholars have shown sensitivity for discerning religious directions and sentiments in tradtional philsophical teachings. Presumably, this effort is motivated by the insistence on atheistic humanism, accompanied as this is by the need t osearch out religious trends if only to manipulate or oppose them' (Ching 1990: 126).

Since sacredness easily give people (especial social scientists like US!) the impression of 'religious' (and does constitute the quality of being religious, sociologically speaking), it is alarming to have too much of it. So what kind of 'Confucius' they will portray in the movie? or to put it in a profane way, will Confucius have an affair with Nanzi in the movie? I can't wait to see!!

More reviews of the 2009 Confucius:

http://twitchfilm.net/news/2009/12/new-trailer-for-confucius-hits-all-the-right-notes.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgiM1ubNCYc -- Trailer

Reference:

Ching, Julia. 1990. Probing China's Soul: Religion, Politics, and Protest in the People's Republic. San Francisco: Harper & Row.