Resurgence of The Sage

The political changes that led to the overthrow of the imperial system in 1911 and establishment of the Republic of China the following year were quickly followed by the New Culture Movement, which sought the overthrow of a whole range of traditions that its leaders, Lu Xun, Hu Shih and others, held responsible for holding back China's development into a modern nation. Confucian influence over morality, education and public office came especially under attack, as did Confucius himself, as a symbol of the ossification of Chinese culture.

Although somewhat rehabilitated later under Republican rule, Confucius was again vilified by the Chinese Communist Party, which dedicated itself to smashing the “Four Olds”: old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas.

This reached its peak during the Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards ran amok in Confucius' hometown of Qufu in Shandong Province. With connivance of the central government, they smashed or destroyed thousands of cultural artifacts relating to the man who, for two millennia, had been revered as the nation's sage and its first teacher.

So it is even more surprising that Communist Party officials were among those honoring this erstwhile villain in Qufu and elsewhere this morning; that Yu Dan's “Confucius from the Heart: Ancient Wisdom for Today's World” stayed on the Chinese bestseller list for more than two years, selling around 10 million copies; that 2,008 performers at the opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics sang “Friends have come from afar, how happy we are,” in quotation from the “Confucian Analects;” that a biopic of Confucius' life starring Chow Yun-fat received government sponsorship; that “guoxue” — national learning, the study of traditional Chinese history, culture and literature — is currently undergoing a nationwide resurgence; and that when the PRC decided to set up a system of international institutes along the lines of the British Council or Alliance Francaise to promote Chinese language and culture, it decided to call them the Confucius Institutes.

Some people, most vocally those in South Korea, have suggested that the PRC's reappraisal of its views on Confucius is merely a cynical attempt to cash in on his international “brand recognition,” and have attacked the institutes as tools of Chinese cultural imperialism. But the truth is more complicated.

1|2|Next Page>>

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email