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本帖最后由 I'm_zhcn 于 2009-4-27 01:54 编辑
Why Confucius matters now
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article6160664.ece
April 25, 2009 John Naish
When Yu Dan updated the ancient sage’s teachings, she didn’t expect to sell 10 million copies — or to anger Chinese academics
Yu Dan has struck publishing gold in her home country with a book that reinvents Confucius’s 2,500-year-old ideas for the 21st century. Now she is here to bring his ancient path of balanced self-cultivation to our materialistic shores.
The Beijing professor is a picture of petite perfection on a London hotel sofa, wearing what we might call Westernised Chinese Smart: a blindingly white designer tunic, precisely tousled hair, short black skirt and patent-leather ankle-boots. Only a snag down the knee of her tights leavens her impenetrable neatness.
This 41-year-old married mother is a fast-talking embodiment of modern China. Though raised on Confucian ideals by her beloved scholarly father, she is also a pioneer of Oriental media and marketing studies. Her book, Confucius from the Heart: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World, which rebrands Confucius as a contemporary sage, has sold ten million copies in China over the past two years, propelling her to national prominence — and exposing her to barbed criticism as the brazen “beauty professor” who presumes to dilute traditional academic subjects.
The collected life-teachings of a low-born provincial politician from 551BC might seem an unlikely guide to navigating today’s swirl of distractions, choices and conflicting aspirations, but Yu Dan says that Confucius’s thoughts offer “an ancient window for a modern world”. She explains: “In the 21st century it is possible to interpret his ideas from a different angle, one that suits our era of globalisation. I’m writing it for modern people, not ancients or academics.”
Confucius was born about 2,500 years ago and although his ancestors are believed to have been members of the aristocracy, they were poverty-stricken by the time he was born. He was taught at home by his mother and then distinguished himself as an indefatigable learner in his teens.
In middle age he served as a magistrate, an assistant minister of public works, and eventually as minister of justice. At 67 he returned to teaching. He was the first teacher in China to strive to make education broadly available to the masses. His lessons attracted about 3,000 followers who collected the teachings into the Confucian Analects.
Confucius, Yu Dan says, has long been misunderstood in his native land, and sorely needed rescuing from near-banishment by the hardline communist Cultural Revolution of the 1970s. “Some leaders in China tried to ban him completely. This was a very stupid thing to do. It’s like our old philosophers are sleeping. What I am doing is to wake them up a bit, not just for Chinese people but for Europeans, too. Now that China is very materialistic, we are struggling to find the balance between materialistic and spiritual. We modern people need to have both sides.”
Confucius’s key message is that we should not look outside ourselves for answers to life’s problems, but to try to cultivate our inner resources and change our attitudes. The secret of lasting satisfaction is to adopt the broad-minded positive outlook of a junzi, Yu Dan says. This Confucian term means “the best possible version of yourself”.
“If we can manage to fully understand where our limits lie, to be cautious and circumspect in our words and actions, to bring the spirit of Confucian courtesy and honour to the world, and to develop our mind and body, we will have many fewer things to trouble us,” she argues. “It is a way of living that every one of us can practise and we can begin today. The happiness that Confucius and his disciples enjoyed can be a wellspring of happiness for us. This is probably his greatest lesson.”
The old sage may even help us to unravel one of modernity’s central paradoxes, she adds. “In modern China, our lives are visibly improving in a material sense, yet many people are growing more dissatisfied. Because we have a highly visible class of people who have suddenly become extremely wealthy, there is always something to make ordinary people feel that their lives contain unfairness. We spend too much time looking at the outside world and too little looking at our hearts and souls. Confucius can teach us the secret of happiness; to find the peace within.”
Yu Dan began reading Confucius’s collected teachings, called The Analects, at 7. She finished it in her early teens. “My father taught me to read it very carefully. He was a scholar of literature and philosophy,” she says with evident pride. “I am his only daughter. He was a big influence on me. So I have been with this book for more than 30 years.”
But what precise changes has Confucianism wrought on her daily existence? “People have different understandings of this book at different stages of their life. I am still discovering a new book in there all the time. What it taught me is very subtle. I am very much against the idea of learning something like this very quickly and simply.”
Nevertheless, she used markedly Western means to repackage the ancient master for modern readers. “My first degree was in philosophy and literature. After that, I changed my speciality and did a PhD in mass media. So I am using the media as a tool to deliver the message of philosophy, to produce an easy-to-understand way for Confucius. I wanted to introduce him to the less educated, normal, non-academic Chinese.” It’s not the first time that Yu Dan, a professor of arts and media at Beijing Normal University, has used this strategy. Over the past decade she has become a television personality and written popularising texts on the Tao and on Chinese ancient opera.
This populist approach has, however, provoked vitriol in her homeland. In November last year, for example, the Shanghai Daily sniffed: “Her knowledge is over-simplified, yet she boldly appears as a great scholar.” How does she respond to such personal attacks. “I think that everyone has the freedom to make comments about other people. So I don’t really mind what people say about me.”
Just as I’ve decided that she’s a thoroughly tough 21st-century cookie, Yu Dan turns all coquettish. Personal questions prompt her to giggle girlishly. “People have their biological age and their psychological age. Physically I am around 40, but I am feeling the joy of being in my teens or having the depth of someone in their fifties.” Is she married? More giggling and wiggling. “What do you think? Most people would think that a woman doing literature and philosophy would be single. But I am married, with a daughter and a husband.”
Yu Dan is a modern Chinese paradox. But she’s proud to be that way. Confucianism can, she says, bridge the confusion. “I love modern jazz. I’m going to a jazz concert with a male friend while I’m in London. But that does not mean that I can’t appreciate classical Chinese music and ancient philosophy. These things,” she says, “are not in conflict.”
CONFUCIUS AS INTERPRETED BY YU DAN
“Think more, listen more, see more, be cautious in your words and in your actions — the advantage of doing things in this way is that you will have fewer regrets”
“Our friends are like a mirror: by watching them, we can see where we ourselves fall short”
“Our biggest difficulty is that of choice. Live plainly and simply: do what is in front of you as well as you can; there is no need to worry about most things, so don’t worry about them”
Confucius from the Heart, by Yu Dan, to be published May 1, Macmillan £14.99
读者评论
1. Jenny Hao, London, UK
I saw Professor Yu Dan speak at Asia House, 23 April. I think she is an excellent speaker and I learnt much about Confucius and subsequently about myself. I have talked in more detail on my journal: http://thejennytimes.blogspot.com/2009/04/modern-confucianism-professor-yu-dan.html
2. Jeff, London,
Confucius says, "Buy her book".
3. CS, Hong Kong,
A small mention of the Chinese Communist Party's adoption of Confucianism over the past few years and the reasoning behind that adoption might have been appropriate in this account of Yu Dan, as might a question as to whether she is a party member. |
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狗仔卡
发表于 2009-4-26 22:56
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斑斑我错了，已经有发过，且被认领了。劳烦将我那个删了吧。。。