Chinese virtue

Chapter 16
The Chinese nation believes that ancient times are the most glorious era in China.The Chinese refer to the ancients as "sages", and "sages" respect people who are older than them very much. When talking about these people, "sages" show great reverence.Confucius once said: "I am not a pioneer, but a successor. I just summarize what people know but are ignored and forgotten."

Confucius accomplished this great task with outstanding talent and perseverance, made extraordinary achievements, and became a "sage" admired by the entire Chinese nation.

Confucianism is very respectful of ancient ideas.Confucian scholars believe that the monarch is the example of the people, and what the monarch does, the people will be like; the monarch and the people are like a plate and the water in the plate, the shape of the plate changes, and the water in the plate changes shape accordingly.This sentence means that only when the monarch is humble and wise, the social atmosphere will be good.In China, even a rough person who can't read can say that during the Yao and Shun period, people could not close their doors at night and never pick up lost things on the road.For them, the Yao and Shun period was a perfect time because there were no thieves and people could sleep with the door open.Don't worry about losing things, because the people who find the lost items will take turns waiting until the owner returns.

Modern people always say that "the world is declining, people's hearts are not the same, and today is not as good as it used to be".Not only the Chinese, people all over the world admire the ancients very much.But only the Chinese admire the practices of the ancients most.Modern people generally learn about ancient virtues through ancient literature, and will imitate the practices of ancient people.These documents recording the ancient virtues are regarded as classics.For example, China's Four Books and Five Classics, and the Christian Bible.These ancient classics are the crystallization of wisdom and virtue of the ancients.

Even today, hundreds of years later, their status in people's hearts has not changed a bit.

Confucian scholars and Christians believe that there is no need to add new content to the classics they worship, because these classics are already the most perfect existence.

Due to the limitations of the times, the Bible had many things that the authors at that time did not think of.

And Christians will find passages in the Bible to explain why those things are there.Chinese Confucian scholars also believe that the thoughts of the rulers, ancient mathematics and even modern science all come from the famous works of ancient "sages".

The culture of the Chinese nation is the inheritance and development of ancient classics, and the theoretical basis of China's political system also comes from the crystallization of ancient sages.Whatever the nature of the regime, it is unbreakable.The first principle of nations and individuals is self-protection.If a way of ruling remains unchanged and can adapt to the development of the times, then this kind of rule will be revered as a classic by later generations.

So far no one has been able to explain how China's political system came into being, not even scholars who have studied Chinese history thoroughly.The Chinese nation has experienced thousands of years, and has almost never implemented political reforms.

There is such a story: A craftsman built a stone wall six feet thick and four feet high. He was asked why he built it like this.He replied that if the wind blows the wall down, it will grow taller.The Chinese government is such a wall that cannot be blown down, because it is a cube, no matter how it is overturned, it only changes one side, and its connotation remains the same.Like a cat that falls from a height and can still walk, changes in government are superficial and predictable.For future generations, the wisdom of the ancestors will never be able to match, and any changes to the crystallization of the wisdom of the ancestors will be fallacies, and future generations will never be able to catch up with the ancients.

After understanding these, we can understand the root cause of Chinese people's conservativeness.Both the Chinese and the Romans believe that behavior and morality are connected and have the same essence.For the Chinese, customs and habits are the most sacred domain, which cannot be violated by others.We don't need to break the casserole about these customs. The Chinese guard their customs like a mother bear guards her cubs.This is an instinct, an instinct that all human beings have.So this phenomenon gradually appeared: many people are always ready to dedicate their lives to a certain belief, perhaps a large part of them do not understand this belief, and no one has ever lived in accordance with the norms of this belief .

Chinese customs, like the Chinese language, are a mystery, and no one knows how they came into being.Once customs and habits are formed, it is difficult to change, which is the same as human language.But the conditions for the formation of Chinese and Chinese customs are not the same.There is a saying that precisely illustrates the development of Chinese customs, which is called "different customs within ten miles".Theoretically speaking, once customs and dialects are formed, they are like plaster, which will not change even if they are broken.But in fact, no custom is static, and under certain conditions, it will change.

There is such an example: after the Qing army entered the customs, a new hairstyle was promoted throughout the country.At first, many Chinese would rather die than obey, but the Qing government still insisted on this hair-shaving policy.

Later, this "braid" hairstyle gradually became the pride of the Chinese people.Only Guangdong and Fujian used headscarves to cover their foreheads, intending to cover up the national humiliation brought by the Qing government.

When Buddhism was introduced to China, it was strongly opposed by the Chinese nation, but it still succeeded in taking root in China, and like Taoism, it penetrated into the hearts of the Chinese people and developed.

Chinese customs and habits have not changed since they were formed, because the Chinese people have always believed that the "experience left by the ancestors" is absolutely correct.No one ever asks when and why these customs began.Most people just follow blindly.For them, it is enough to follow the customs left by their ancestors, and there is no need to know so much.In China, many ethnic groups have different religious beliefs.Many people participate in the ceremonies of the three major religions, but in fact they do not understand what religious belief is.Just like they don't know what Egyptian hieroglyphs are.If you ask them why they maintain this religious custom, they will answer that this method of communicating with the gods was passed down by the ancients, and of course they must follow it.

Either answer, everyone else does it so I should too.Everyone follows these customs, and there is nothing wrong with following everyone.Customs are like a machine, and the people who follow them are the cogs in the machine.In China, the gears are always driven by the machine, not the gears that drive the machine.

The Mongolians have an interesting custom: when a snuffer meets a friend, he will take out his snuff bottle and give him a snuff.Even if there is no shredded tobacco in the snuff bottle box, the empty snuff bottle must be passed around, and the guest will give the snuff bottle a symbolic pinch before handing it back.In many things, in order not to lose "decency" and save the other party's face, the Chinese often follow some established habits.Just like the boatman, even if he knows that the coral polyps are dead and only the coral reef is left, he will stick to the original route in order to prevent the boat from capsizing.

It is not only the Chinese who do things rigidly and do not know how to adapt.Indians used to put their heads on their heads when moving things. When repairing the railway, the boss provided them with a trolley to transport the earth in order to save effort. As a result, the group of Indians also put the trolley on their heads.Brazilians and Indians have the same customs of moving things.There is such a Brazilian servant, the boss asked him to go to the post office to post a letter, but the boss was surprised to see that the servant put the letter on his head, pressed another stone and walked out.Chinese people are always inflexible in their thinking, so they are very rigid in doing things.There are many examples of rigid thinking and rigid actions: a cook always cracks an egg and throws it away when making a pudding, because the first time he saw someone else make a pudding, the first egg was bad; A patch was added because the dress that was being modeled had a patch.Although these examples are somewhat exaggerated, they illustrate the Chinese people's conservative style of doing things.

Anyone who understands Chinese habits can almost give some examples of Chinese people sticking to the rules.

Outsiders can't understand the traditional Chinese character, they don't understand the reason.China is a large country spanning 35 degrees of latitude. The temperature difference between the south and the north is huge, but people in the north and the south take off their fur coats and put on straw hats at the same time. In some places, kangs are only used for heating in winter. Some travelers catching up with the cold current asked the innkeeper to heat the kang, but the answer they got was that it was not yet the season for heating the kang.Such rigid examples are not uncommon in China.

It is common knowledge that Chinese craftsmen always follow traditional crafts, and the most conservative among them is a foreman who helps foreigners burn brick kilns.Once the boss asked him to make a larger mold and fire some larger than usual square bricks.As a result, several days passed, and the bricks still hadn't burned out.When the foreman was asked why, the foreman said confidently that he would never burn this kind of brick, because there is no such mold in the world!

Even people who have no interest in China's future will one day see that this conservativeness of the Chinese will severely restrict their development and ultimately affect the relationship between the Chinese and others, whether they are foreigners or Chinese. people.The last quarter of the nineteenth century was critical for China.Due to the old ways of the Chinese, they still use very old wine bags to hold wine, while foreign countries have invented new wine containers, but the Chinese do not accept it.Even if they accept the new wine from foreigners, the old-fashioned Chinese still have to use their own containers.

The Chinese attitude toward new foreign cultures is one of procrastination.They do not want to let go of old customs and are not very willing to accept new cultures.Just like those ancient earthen houses, although there are pillars supporting them, they will collapse sooner or later.Those old customs and ancient beliefs are outdated, as the saying goes, "If the old does not go, the new does not come".

Only by throwing away those outdated things can we achieve new development. Although the process of change will be greatly hindered, after breaking through the obstacles, there will be a brand new situation.

When the telegraph was first introduced to China, the admiral of a certain provincial navy said to Emperor Ming that the locals were so hostile to this kind of Western stuff that they couldn't even set up wires.But after the war with France, China not only successfully erected the wires, but also set up several telegraph stations. People who were once hostile to telegraphs also began to gradually change their attitudes.

A few years ago, many people were very superstitious about the theory of "Feng Shui", which made it very difficult to build railways in China.The earliest railway was built at the exit of Kaiping Coal Mine, with only a short section.

In order to build the railway, many Chinese have moved their tombs to other places. This kind of thing is very common in Britain and France.Every time one sees a divided cemetery, people feel that Feng Shui is simply weak compared with the train.Although the extension of the railway was slow in the end, it had nothing to do with feng shui and was entirely financial.

Although the Chinese are very conservative, they will break the conventions and innovate when dealing with major affairs.In China, keeping filial piety is the most important custom, and it is almost an unchanging rule.Even if the minister's parents die, he must go home to observe his filial piety.But the prime minister couldn't do it. The emperor asked the prime minister to do things for the country wholeheartedly even if his parents died. Even if the prime minister pleaded tearfully, it was useless.There is an old saying in China, which is called "the father guides the son, and the emperor guides the ministers." This is the strictest principle that the Chinese follow.In China, there are two situations for the change of the throne: one is that the old emperor dies, and the other is that the old emperor no longer participates in the government.However, in recent years, there was a change of the throne, but such a situation occurred: the throne was inherited by collateral relatives, and the little emperor's father was still alive.In other words, the little emperor's father either committed suicide or resigned.After Emperor Guangxu succeeded to the throne, his father, Prince Chun, resigned from office.During Prince Chun's serious illness, Emperor Guangxu went to visit his father in the name of "visiting his subjects".Because Prince Chun was a minister of Emperor Guangxu until his death.

As mentioned in this chapter, the conservative Chinese always stubbornly adhere to the habits and rules left by their ancestors.If we can correctly understand and make use of this feature, it will not be difficult to deal with these old-fashioned Chinas.These rules will become a protective umbrella for foreigners. As long as you learn the conservative character of the Chinese and imitate the attitude of the Chinese to stick to the rules like those foreigners living in Beijing, everything will go very smoothly.For the ship, the hidden reef is a very terrifying existence, but once it passes through the reef, it will be calm and there will be no more strong winds and huge waves.

(End of this chapter)