Plural Traditions of Chinese Culture

Ge Zhaoguang

Ⅰ

Today I want to talk about tradition in the plural form instead of singular form so that there are traditions or heritages, not just tradition or heritage. We know that China’s gaining economic strength over the years, rather rapidly, and in recent years there are some new cultural phenomena, among them is the advocation of national studies（国学）. It is actually such a fervor on national studies or Chinese studies that there are advocacy of studying classical works, in particular Confucian works, and many Confucian institutes have also been established overseas.

In recent years, what’s been more interesting is the commemoration of various Asian emperors, such as Yellow Emperor（黄帝）. Even on campus, there’s advocacy that people should wear Chinese costumes, the Han costume （汉服）in particular. Well, if people come to recognize or identify with the cultural roots, that’s encouraging, but unnaturally in this movement, what people are advocating or trying to promote is Confucianism or something based on Confucianism. But the fact is, in ancient China the traditions were in a Complex form.

Indeed, for a long time Confucianism had been the mainstream thought, but it could not simply represent all traditions of China. Even within Confucianism there is Mencius（孟子），and there is Xunzi（荀子），which had totally different thoughts. Some focused on mind（心）while others concentrated on laws（法）. And Confucianism changes with time. For instance, the Confucianism in the Sung Dynasty was different from that in the Han Dynasty. Buddhism is another important religion of China, yet within Buddhism there is emphasis on discipline（戒律）, and there is also emphasis on nature（自然）and so on. So the traditions are quite different.

When we talk about ancient tradition of China, I would say they are multi-faceted, very complex and intertwined. Perhaps from the western point of view, these are all Chinese traditions, but in fact within ancient China, there were a whole lot of traditions. Even one of the emperors of China, Xiaozong in Sung Dynasty（宋孝宗）, said that Confucianism governs the society, Buddhism purifies the mind and Taoism maintains the body（儒家治世，佛教治心，道教治身）.

That’s why Confucianism was not the only school of thought behind the various traditions of China. Perhaps Confucianism carried more weight, given its mainstream status, but on other aspects, like eternity, Buddhism would be more important, and if we talk about body health, then Taoism may give more insight.

When it comes to issues about daily life or lifestyle, which Confucianism could not deal with, we turn to ancient traditions of China, traditions in various forms, not in singularity. We can’t say that because Confucianism—on the upside—is the symbol, we should pay attention to it. We should not do that, otherwise there will be discrepancies. When we look back to the May Fourth era（五四时代）when people criticized and resented traditions, I wouldn’t say it was a movement entirely against traditions. Instead, they were just picking on one aspect of the traditions, the extremist Confucianism.

I’m always wondering, people who criticised traditions in the May Fourth era might have set Confucianism as an imaginary opponent. The extreme traditions in China such as theocracy, monarchy had happened but it was only in the early Ming Dynasty that they came to a full realization.

When looking back at traditions and trying to understand them, we have the feeling that at least in Mainland China we did have some misunderstanding and harmful thoughts. Therefore, the second issue we have to explore is what Chinese traditions are.

Ⅱ

In my opinion, in the history of thoughts, there are lots of discussions about Chinese traditions. However, very seldom did we try to differentiate between Chinese traditions or traditions that are not found in foreign countries. And they manifested the characteristics that are particularly obvious in China. It comes down to five aspects that are common in China but very rarely found in foreign countries.

The first aspect is that ever since ancient times the Chinese Han nationality had formed their own world vision（天下观） (I think the modern leaders of United States also emphasized this concept). That is to say other nations should contribute items to the emperor, the most superior person reigning the whole world.

This concept is still alive at present. We can meditate on this, for the Mainland Chinese in particular. Actually, we do have a mentality that China is in the centre of the world, but at the same time such a nation also have an inferior complex. For example, taxi drivers will talk to you about almost everything under the sun. It seems they know everything and are particularly concerned about news of Clinton. Another example, when I was still a student, Mao Zedong said we should keep an eye on national issues. In fact, we should also pay attention to global reforms.

Recently we had very well known TV series covering the major big country in the world and they highlight the mentality of such a nation. Of course, an advantage of such a mentality is that it could be concerned about very broad issues.

However, when smaller countries in the surroundings make advances, the big nation will envy them and feel insecure. Unfortunately, the ancient Chinese Han nationality adopted this world outlook which is very special and unique to China.

So that is the first issue we should explore.

Secondly, family is the core of our philosophy as well as our views about the country and society. For Chinese people, the country is an enlarged family, therefore national issues are often viewed from the perspective of a family. Chinese understanding about country and family has laid a foundation for Confucianism. So entrenched is the notion that the Chinese generally have very deep commitment towards the country and the family. In fact, those of us who are present here should have very deep studies about this concept.

Thirdly, we have a religious world combined of three religions and that has affected our politics and economy. Religious powers will never be able to be on a par with political powers. For religions, nothing is absolute.

Therefore, the three religions were able to co-exist harmoniously. They had experienced  exchanges, coordination and then there was a period when some other religions tried to destroy Buddhism. But in China, there's never been any religion which claimed to be the only and superior religion. Therefore, an integration of three religions is unique to China. They are often in Taishan, Mao Shan and Xian. When we carried out investigation, we discovered that  believers generally cannot fully understand what they are actually believing in, so they adore and worship whatever they know.

There's no strong differentiation among the three religions and the three groups of believers, so I think this is the third important aspect.

Fourthly, we have the concept of yin-yang and the five behaviors. They are the foundation of our thought, technology and beliefs like Chinese medicine, feng shui （风水）and so on. Even when we think about nature and politics, we bear this in mind. And then when we do our analysis, we try to consider what we lack and what we have. For example, we may say among the five basic elements we lack fire or we lack water. These are traditional knowledge that we haven’t actually understood thoroughly. Otherwise, we would have advanced much more in terms of Chinese medicine which has been playing an important role in our daily life and has solved a number of problems that remain unresolved in Western medicine.

The fifth aspect may be very familiar to you. That is, we're living in Chinese characters. Chinese characters are the fifth important aspect in our culture. In fact, at present, apart from the language of the Nazi race, Chinese is the other race that is still using characters based on symbols, which is also a way of approaching things. Let me give you some examples. In ancient times, Confucius said that name is not just a title, it is linked to facts. If you give something a name, then it is tantamount to giving it certain fact. As for “the emperor”, it’s not just a title, there’s a lot attaching to this status. Modern linguists are telling us that reading Chinese characters or reading English and French, which are written horizontally, are very different.

I had carried out a study on the poems of Li Shang Yin （李商隐）and tried to find out the relatively rarely used words that are unrelated. I picked 28 of them and arranged them in four rows, seven characters in a row and asked students to describe his impression in just a second. Over 90 per cent of them were able to do so and their impression did comply with the content of the poems of Li Shang Yin in a certain way or to some extent.

Therefore, Mr. He Zhe wrote an article on the philosophy of names. He pointed out that Chinese people have a certain kind of adoration for characters. This is actually similar to the Han character circle that we often mention.

Ⅲ

Chinese people always live within Han characters and they think through them. Han characters have had great impact on us and our discussions on them have not been sufficient. In fact, Chinese culture belongs to China. It is the culture of China and has a degree of continuation and sustainability. Today we're still living in the sustained cultural China or Chinese culture. Why?

I think there are three reasons.

First of all, the ancient sages and classics of China appear rather early in history and had great influence on us. Also, the examination system of ancient China had strongly encouraged the

intellectuals to sustain knowledge. Thirdly, in ancient China, primary schools, village schools, private schools and royal schools had all protected the sustainability of education.

So I believe these five aspects should be examined and discussed. We'll see how to make innovative transformation so we could develop and at the same time retain the unique characteristics of Chinese culture.

Now I would like to talk about reconstruction of traditions and how it could be done. As I said at the beginning that there were many interesting cultural phenomena, but I think they are rather superficial. We have rituals to commemorate Confucius every year and to pay respect to the Yellow Emperor. We have children recite Chinese literature and make people wear Chinese costumes. Yes, they are all positive developments, but when we talk about reinvention of traditions, shall we just rely on such external or superficial behaviors? Because all heritage or traditions are, in fact, resources.

It's like a huge warehouse with many different weapons, but which weapons do you use, which resources do you draw on? I think we need to discuss. In the current situation, what do we need to bring out from that warehouse?

So apart from resources, we need to look at the reality, the stimulation from reality.

And then there's still another task. After we've identified reality, we need to reinterpret. We cannot just live mechanically in the traditions, we have to process the resources, the information, so that it suit the appetite and needs of the day. Otherwise are we going to talk like ancient Chinese? No, that's not possible.

For any tradition to be sustained, there are three aspects. First, there must be official and government support. That's the first channel for us to promote and sustain traditions. So that's what I mean by incorporating traditions into the institution. If traditions are not institutionalized, they are just fragmented resources and could not be compiled into any useful form. In Sung Dynasty they did a lot. In Ming Dynasty there had also been strict system on this. Without institutionalization, there would not have been much binding authority and it would remain just a concept.

The second channel is that we need the intellectuals to help here. We need to make the elitist thought and the Chinese classical thoughts be transformed into a part of our knowledge through education by intellectuals, so the intellectuals play an important role of promoting these thoughts.

I think some are already doing that on television or other mass media, and it really works. Some have translated very difficult classical literature into modern day language, or in the form of essays. I think that's a good idea, but I hope they will do it in a better way, not something too demotic.

The third channel is turning the traditions into social customs. Without that, it’s not possible to promote traditions. I had stayed in Japan for a long time. I think Japan is very good in one thing: they have various festivals to keep reminding people, "You are a part of this culture, you have this culture, this is your heritage, this is your root." So that people could identify with their own culture. So I think intellectuals must pay attention to festivities, social customs and local customs.

To sum up, Chinese traditions are in in plural form. We must not be one-sided, but to look at the overall picture.

Thank you.

A speech on the Asia Cultural Co-operation Forum
 2007 Hong Kong