Ideology in China - Confucius makes a comeback!

A story about the revival published in the Economist in 2007.

Daniel Bell's Lecture on Confucianism

Daniel Bell is one of the most famous scholars on Confucianism. A political scientists and the first Westerner who acquired professorship in Tsing Hua University, he gave lecture on the TVO about the revival of Confucianism in contemporary China. His book is going to release the end of April, can't wait to see it.

Click here for the MP3 link to the lecture.

I'm in the process of transcribing the lecture, will post here when it's ready.

Today I found another link to an interview by Jesse Hirsh, basically he said the same thing

Exporting Confucian culture

The National Public Raido had a series on China, featuring the rise of Confucius Institute in the United States

Taoism is also experiencing the same kind of treatment?

I just came across these news articles today. The interesting thing is that it strike me how similar the pattern of this re-emergence of Taoism is similar to the revival of Confucianism. Well, after all, it's the 3-in-1 power that dominated the religious sphere of China in the past 1000 years (at least)...

Daodejing is now 'the Taoist bible' - interesting translation. This again raise again the question of the issue of how we can translate religious concept from one cultural context to another...like the Jesuit missionaries try to comprehend what Confucianism is and call it religion....

This is getting even more interesting now...
First Taoist Research Association Inaugurated
China to Build Harmonious Society with Wisdom of Taoism

A State project? or a local project? The Controversy of buidling the Chinese Cultural Symbolic City

Asia Times reports the debate of constructing a Chinese Cultural Symbolic City in Confucius' hometown in Shangdong during the two-week section of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Here's a full story reported in the Asia Times.

This is an good example to illustrate that why this who revival of Confucianism movement is a political project. As the editor indicates, local tourism is an important sources of income for many local governments. Obviously, the Qufu Temple of Confucius is not 'big' enough for the Shangdong government, they want it even bigger.

Wu's question about the representation of Confucianism as the 'Chinese culture' is valid. I see that part of this revival is about reclaiming traditions, but at the same time, these traditions are reinvented in order to gain legitimacy. This sounds very much like the nation-building project in Southeast Asia during the postcolonial period, when Islamic culture/identity were constructed as the core component of the new national identity and everything other than that became marginalized.

However, the context in China is different and that even the government have the same intention, it might not be successful. After all, it is not a post-colonial construction in China. Other intense social forces such as class and rural-urban inequality, internal migration, ethnic segregationist etc. which make this kind of 'cultural/national identity construction project' almost impossible to succeed.

Of course, this is just telling the story from one perspective. We don't know much about the Han Chinese, how they see these kind of 'Chinese culture' and whether they really see that a sources of unification. We only hear the politicians and scholars talk, but not the people who are in those movement, who are sending their kids to learn the Confucians classics etc. Thus, it is still early to have any conclusion.

Confucius Birthday Ceremony 2007

Since the fall of 1984, the Shangdong (northern part of China) government organizes the annual ceremony for Confucius’ birthday and a series of performing arts program under the name of ‘Journey of Confucius Birthplace’. In 1990, the program changed its name to ‘China Qufu International Confucius Cultural Festival’ and it was described as ‘an international tourism program that integrated the commemoration of the late philosopher, cultural exchanges, tourism, academic exchange, promotion of trade and economic development’. Over the years, the program expanded from one day to ten days. Ceremony for Confucius’ birthday, performing arts/cultural programs, trade shows (especially for ‘cultural’ products such as office stationeries, publications on the Classics and calligraphy) and academic conferences on Confucianism were included in the program. The politically meaning of this event had significantly shifted in 2004, when the Central government of PRC officially sponsored the event – commemoration of Confucius once again became the ‘state event’. In 2007, for the first time in history, the ceremony was co-organized by the Central government and the local government.

At the first glance, the involvement of the Central government it seems to be an attempt to establish some kind of political legitimacy by presenting itself as one chapter in a historical narrative of descent and authenticity. The party-state replaced the role of the emperor in this ancient ritual. However, the historical relations of the Communist Party with the imperial state and feudal system have been too antagonistic to make that argument plausible. While Confucianism was seen as the obstacle of China’s development in the earlier 20^th century and the rotten ideology that meant to be destroyed, how can we understand this dramatic change of state attitude towards Confucius in contemporary era?

CCTV Broadcast Part I
CCTV Broadcast Part II

Rap the Analects?

This might not seems totally relevant to the movement in China now, but an interesting song. I saw the Shangdong Television used that as background music when they were showing a segment about the revival of Confucianism during their broadcast of the 2007 Confucius Birthday ceremony.

This is a Taiwanese singer, who wrote this rap song and put part of the Analects into the lyrics (begining and the end of the song), the song's name = Confucius Says

Maybe the scripture readings classes should have the kids to learn this song......