Chinese virtue

Chapter 34 Lack of Integrity (1)
"Xin" in Chinese is a knowing word, which is composed of "human" and "word". Literally, the language of human is "Xin".Among the "Three Cardinal Guidelines and Five Constant Principles", "faith" ranks at the end of the "Five Constant Principles".Some scholars who think they have a lot of research on China believe that "faith" ranks last among the many virtues in China.Many scholars who are familiar with Chinese people believe that Professor Kidd’s point of view is correct. When talking about the Chinese “faith”, Professor Kidd said: “It is very unrealistic to regard this character as a Chinese temperament. In my opinion, the Chinese not only do not have this character, but also very lack of 'integrity'. The performance of the Chinese people is completely unrelated to 'integrity', so people often ridicule them for being duplicity. The biggest characteristic of this nation is He is a follower of power, not honest, likes to deceive, and is hypocritical!" Regarding these remarks, we need to observe carefully to see if these phenomena exist in Chinese people's lives before we can make an accurate conclusion.

After careful observation, we found that there is not much difference between contemporary Chinese and ancient Chinese. I believe that many people who have studied China will agree with this statement.Chinese and Westerners have different views on "letter".When some scholars study ancient Chinese classics, they will find that there are many ambiguities and unclear meanings in them.The attitude of the Chinese towards Westerners is "straight and rude is twisted".This translates into the vernacular that if you are too blunt, it is a form of rudeness.For Westerners, the story of Confucius and Ru Bei in "The Analects of Confucius" is very connotative, but Confucian scholars do not understand the meaning of the story at all. The following is an excerpt from James's translation: "Ru Bei wants to see Confucius, Confucius Say goodbye to illness. The man who will be ordered to go out, take the harp and sing it, and let him hear it.” Confucius wanted to avoid unpleasantness, he didn’t want to see people like Ru Bei, so Confucius adopted a very typical Chinese method to solve it. problem.

Mencius later did the same thing as Confucius.Once, Mencius was invited to court as a distinguished guest in a certain country, but Mencius hoped that the king would summon him in person, so he could not excuse his illness.In order to let the emperor understand that this was his excuse, Mencius went out to visit others the next day.At that time, the officials who accompanied Mencius talked about the story about Confucius and Ru Bei at night, but it was limited to etiquette and did not involve moral issues.There is no evidence that the conversations at that time took into account the moral issue of "lie", and modern Confucian scholars do not explain it too much in their lectures.

There is no doubt that the ancient Chinese knew how to protect classics. Compared with them, the contemporary Westerners were much worse.Although Chinese history books are long and long-winded, they are very detailed.There are many Western writers who like to read Chinese history books very much, and believe in what they say very much.The following passage is excerpted from an article by Dr. Singer, a lecturer at the University of Vienna. In July 1888, the "China Review" published a translation of this text: "After scientific research, the authenticity of Chinese historical classics has been confirmed." Richthofen When talking about those contradictory elements in the Chinese character, Mr. Wang believes that the Chinese record the history very accurately, especially when it comes to numbers, they are very strict and serious.But what they reveal in their daily life is always lies and deceit.There are two ways to record history accurately. One is to write historical events in a certain order and priority; the other is to explain and analyze historical events from a spiritual level and motivation.Some people who have studied Chinese history in depth found that if historical events happened before writing, Chinese historians would use the first method to record, but the history books written by the second method are not as Dr. Singer said rigorous.We don't comment on things that we don't understand thoroughly.We just want to say that when a country is full of lies, historians can still get out of the mud and respect the truth of history, which is absolutely unprecedented.In other countries, strong emotions will somewhat cover up or distort some historical truths, but why is this not the case in China?Hasn't China's history been distorted by historians?This point is worth pondering.

We need to be clear about a very important fact, that is, not only does Confucianism lack respect for history, but Confucius himself does not respect the truth of history very much.Dr. James Legge admired the way Confucius used materials for "Spring and Autumn" very much, but he did not agree with the statement that "the great virtue should not be concealed by a single blemish". "Spring and Autumn" records the history of Lu State in 14 years from the first year of Lu Yin to the 240th year of Lu Aigong.Dr. James Legge once delivered a speech on "Confucianism", and a passage was recorded in the book "Religion in China": "Mencius thought that "Spring and Autumn" was the greatest achievement in Confucius' life, and said that rebellious officials and thieves were very afraid of it. After reading this book, Confucius himself said that some people will understand his thoughts because of this book, and some people will blame him because of this book. Will Confucius feel uneasy when he is blamed? ?In fact, the book "Spring and Autumn" is not only very brief, but also some words are quite ambiguous, causing people to misunderstand. After "Spring and Autumn" has been circulated for more than 100 years, Confucius once commented on "Spring and Autumn": "For the respected ones taboo, for the Taboo for relatives, taboo for sages.' These three 'taboos' have three meanings, namely skipping, concealing, and tampering. I don't know what to say about this. I once thought about denying the authenticity and reliability of "Spring and Autumn" In this way, we can quickly solve our doubts, but the evidence in "Spring and Autumn" is closely related to Confucius' life. If foreign scholars rashly misinterpret the meaning, they will not be able to see clearly that Confucius does not respect history If the shortcomings of authenticity, Chinese rulers and scholars will never pity him, let alone sympathize with him. Confucius and his disciples have always advocated authenticity, but "Spring and Autumn" has made posterity cover up at the risk of damaging the reputation of sages. The truth of the matter."

We can see that those who claim to believe in the truth of Chinese history just want to say that in China, the truth can only be seen in the historical records.Of course, we have no proof that all Chinese are liars.Even if we had evidence, we wouldn't do that.When the Chinese gradually have a conscience and start to notice their own "belief", they will find evidence for themselves.

Chinese people often say when talking about their own nation: "As long as we open our mouths, lies will appear."

This is very similar to what a certain leader of Hainan Island said when describing his tribe.But in our eyes, the purpose of Chinese lying is only to obtain certain benefits.Mr. Bedreau said that the Chinese do not tell the truth, but they also do not believe the truth.There is a Chinese guy who knows English and wants to ask my friend how to say "you lie" in English.My friend told him that if you don't want to get beaten, you should never use this sentence to refer to foreigners.But the Chinese guy was very surprised by this reminder, because he felt that this sentence was the same as "you coax me" and there was nothing special about it.Mr. Cook (China correspondent of The Times of London in 1857)
Commenting on Westerners' distaste for being accused of lying, he commented: "If you say something like that about a Chinese, he won't be angry at all, and he won't feel degraded. He won't even deny it at all. He will at most Answer: 'I dare not lie to you.' Saying to these Chinese: 'You liar, you are lying now!' is equivalent to saying to the British: 'You are so funny, I believe you have something in your head now. Thinking of some crazy idea.'”

Although the Chinese cannot be said to be completely hypocritical, they do lack integrity in their usual speech, and most of the things they say are false.It is very difficult to get the truth from the Chinese population. No one dares to say that they have fully figured out the truth from the Chinese.Even if the Chinese ask you to help with the lawsuit, you will find that there are some important details that they did not tell you.

They don't do it on purpose, it's their nature, which only hurts them.

No matter what method you take, the truth of the matter will only emerge at the last moment.For a person who understands China, listening to a part of the statement does not mean that he has mastered all the facts. He will combine all the things he heard, and then find some trustworthy people to study and reason together to judge the authenticity of the matter.

We said before that the Chinese people have the characteristics of mutual suspicion, coupled with their lack of integrity, this is enough to explain why every time I talk to the Chinese for a long time but there is no progress.

Because, as this chapter has said, the Chinese are not sincere, there are many things that we cannot understand.We don't know what the purpose of these Chinese people is, we feel they are hiding a lot.So if a Chinese person comes to you and mysteriously tells you something about a Chinese person that interests you, you will definitely feel confused, because you don’t know whether he is telling the truth or playing tricks behind his back.When a Chinese draws a conclusion on a matter, we cannot tell whether this conclusion is the final conclusion.This is very important for merchants and diplomats as it can pull up a lot of troublesome stuff.

People can't clearly know the real cause of things at all, and even if they know, they can't believe it.Because every Chinese is like a slippery squid, when being tracked, it will spit out a lot of ink to hinder your realization, in order to hide in a safe place.Even uneducated Chinese are like this, it's their instinct.If someone wants you to donate some money to those poor adventurers, your Chinese servant will not say: "Your money has nothing to do with me, you can take care of it yourself." Instead, there will be an innocent smile on his face Say to you: "Your money is only enough for yourself." Then you can't donate money.The gatekeeper in China does not warn others that there are dogs in the yard, but watches quietly from the sidelines and releases the dogs if anyone enters.

Most Chinese people cannot consciously abide by the agreement, which is related to their natural misunderstanding and disregard for time.No matter what the reason for breaking an appointment, they can always find an excuse.The average Chinese will be like this: someone blames him for missing an appointment, he will say it's okay, and make it up next time.If some of his shortcomings are criticized by people, he will swear that he will correct them.He will admit his mistakes frankly, but because he is too thorough, people expect him to be honest.

A Chinese gentleman was hired by us to compose and annotate some proverbs. After he wrote down a very incisive opinion of the ancients, he made another annotation. It roughly means that one can never refuse other people’s requests abruptly, even if If you don't want to agree, you have to agree on the surface.

He marked it in the notes: "Tomorrow after tomorrow." Meaning you can put off until tomorrow, and then put off until tomorrow, and so on.That way he won't feel so uncomfortable.People who are in debt also use this method.So no one can get all the money back at once, but these people will not be disappointed, because those who are in debt will definitely say that they must pay it back next time, and then push it until the next time, and then there will be a next time.

The Chinese attitude towards children is the best proof of Chinese hypocrisy.These children learn to lie from an early age, but the educators and the children themselves do not discover this.When the child was just ignorant, the adults told him that if he was disobedient, the monster in his sleeve would come out and bite him.

Foreigners often become "monsters" in these big populations, so Chinese people often speak ill of foreigners.Because these children think we are scary since they were young, and when they grow up, they suddenly find that we are not as scary as adults say, and it is very ridiculous, so they will chase us away on the street.

Several foreign guests were sitting in the carriage, followed by a group of shouting children.The driver was furious and threatened the children that he would tie them behind the car and drag them to death.When encountering such a situation, the boatman would also threaten to scald them to death with boiling water.To a sensible Chinese child, "I beat you to death" and "I killed you" mean almost the same as "don't do this".

Living in China, if you want to appear to know "etiquette" very well, you have to learn a lot of honorific words. These honorific words can enhance the status of the listener and show the speaker's humble attitude.To give an example, some literati call their wives "Chuo Jing" or "Jian Nei", which is a kind of elegant self-modesty language.Perhaps it is also a kind of "propriety" for country people to call their wives "stinky mother-in-law".Chinese people pay great attention to etiquette, and there is a story that can illustrate this point: A man dressed in fine clothes was quietly waiting for the arrival of the host in the living room. Jump, but his action also alarmed the mice on the beam.When fleeing, the mouse knocked over the oil bottle, and the lamp oil spilled on the guest's body and stained the clothes.The guest was very angry, and the host happened to come out from the back hall. After exchanging greetings, the guest explained: "I just came to your house a short time ago and sat under the beam. I couldn't help alarming the mouse. The mouse went away, and the expensive oil tank fell in the cold room." Above the obedience, under the embarrassment of the appearance really makes the foot laugh."

It is obviously impossible for a foreigner to receive Chinese people according to Chinese etiquette, unless he has been educated and trained for a long time.When entertaining guests, the host should bow sincerely to the guests, and then greet them with a smile and say: "Please come to the table, all distinguished guests." When drinking tea, the host should bring the teacup to his mouth, then nod to the guests, and say solemnly : "Everyone, please use tea."

On some occasions, the Chinese also "kowtow" to each other to express that they "must greet you, must greet you, or I should greet you".This kind of etiquette is undoubtedly difficult for every foreigner to accept.There are also some people who ignore some details and don’t take care that some people will slap themselves on the mouth and say: "Damn it, I really deserve it." If the direction of walking is in the same direction as myself, I immediately got off the horse and said, "Come and ride, I can walk."

Even without education, Chinese people often invite each other humbly.This kind of etiquette amazes Westerners. Even very indifferent Westerners will respect and praise Chinese people for such a humble attitude.This kind of small etiquette that can be seen everywhere has brought about a huge change in the social atmosphere, and the friction between people has become less and less. This is undoubtedly a great contribution made by the Chinese to society, even if this contribution is sometimes Persecuted.If someone does not want to make such a contribution, then he is a person with evil intentions and will be punished by heaven.

If a coachman wears his braids around his head when asking for directions, it is very likely that the other party will point him in the wrong direction, or even blame him for his faux pas.

How to choose a gift is a very deep knowledge, not only in China, but also in other oriental countries.For the person receiving the gift, some gifts can be accepted a little, while some gifts are definitely not acceptable.If a foreigner decides what to send without authorization, there will be [-]% mistakes.The recipient will think about it, especially for some special occasions, they have to consider what kind of gift is suitable.For example, when a son is born, when the child is full moon, and so on.

There is a proverb that is very famous in all countries in the world, and it is also very applicable in China: "I am afraid of the Greek, even if he brings a gift." There is a saying in China that perfectly illustrates the knowledge behind gift-giving, "The mouse pulls the wooden shovel - the big head is behind".This sentence means that the return must be more than the give.

(End of this chapter)