From: yeonwook@hardy.u.washington.edu (Mark Choi)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Why are we different?
Date: 5 Jan 1993 14:47:36 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: hardy.u.washington.edu

In article <Jan.5.02.56.37.1993.23527@gandalf.rutgers.edu> jin@gandalf.rutgers.edu (GJ) writes:
>
>Personally, I consider the current Chinese culture the main reason that China
> has freefallen in her international status in the past 200 yrs, and many CA
> are victims of that indirectly. However, the Chinese-cu that we hates most may
> not be real Chinese-cu.

But it is the same culture that inspired China to become great.

>What is real Chinese culture? The language? The current official Chinese
> language was not considered Chinese 100 years ago. Mandarin is the language
> of Manchurian. Manchurian, Mongolian, and many other invaders had destroyed
> much of the old culture. I would say you may find more old Chinese culture in
> Korean and Japanese than in "Chinese". Cantonese and Taiwanese are much
> closer to the old language than Mandarin. I know many Taiwanese and
> Cantonese refuse to learn Mandarin.  They may have ancestors killed or
> tortured by Manchurian. The invaders had created a lot of hatred in the
> culture.

Yes. I agree that what could be considered "Chinese thought, religion, and
philosophy" (aka culture) are best carried on in Korea and Japan, and that
years of domination by this or that has resulted in a much different China
than that of the T'ang times, or even as recent as the Ming times.

>The mind of people? Chinese 2000 yrs ago was more open-minded. You can find it
> in the literature. Many creative thoughts! The real decline in culture  came
> after emperors adopted Confucian as the only moral and knowledge
> intellectuals need to know. Everything else was belittled. The emperors were
> quite successful in limiting people's mind and prolonging their empires.
> The culture has been therefore degraded consistently.

Hmm...although I agree that Chinese culture was more open-minded 2000 years
ago, you must remember that 2000 years ago, China was still divided into many
different states, and that each of these states were culturally different.
Buddhism as the inspiring force to be dealt with, but I cannot remember any
Han Chinese dynasties actually adopting Confucianism as the _only_ moral
philosophy as in the case with Yi Korea. However, I do not doubt Confucianism's
influence in Han courts. But this influence came just as important as Buddhist
and Taoist influence. 

Also, I do not agree totally that Confucianism degraded the advanced state
of Chinese dynasties. Although it is known that if applied incorrectly,
Confucianism can do all the bad things that weren't supposed to happen
(political factions, massive government intervention, dragging, lack of
artistic inspiration). However, in cases where the state is totally following
either Confucianism or Neo-Confucianism, and the people also follow it 
(as in Korea during the early half of the Yi), it can be quite a productive
inspirational force that can adequately replace Buddhism in numbers.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american