E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 3, 2018

Learning to Be Human in East Asia:
In Taiwan’s Regard
Ruyu HUNG
National Chiayi University
Executive Committee Member, TPES

Part I: A Brief Introduction of Taiwan Philosophy of Education Society (TPES) (臺灣教育哲學學會)First, I wish to thank the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan (JPES) for inviting
me to speak at the Annual conference of the PESJ. As the Executive Committee Memberof the Taiwan Philosophy Society (TPES), I make a brief introduction of TPES. I
sincerely hope that the TPES and the JPES can build a very good collaborative
relationship to improve the research and teaching of philosophy of education in East Asia.
Then I will address my thoughts about ‘Learning to be human’ from the perspective of a
Taiwan’s philosopher of education.
Taiwan Philosophy of Education Society (TPES) was formally founded in March
19, 2016. The goal of TPES is to facilitate the teaching and research in philosophy ofeducation, and to create a professional network among researchers and teachers. Before
the formation of the society, a small group of scholars who taught philosophy ofeducation in universities already did periodical seminars or reading groups for decades.
The scale of these activities was usually small because of lacking funding. With theformal establishment of the society, the TPES is able to do academic activities and publish
journals with support of members and funding from governmental or nongovernmental
sectors.
The first annual conference was held in May 2017. It was a success at the national
and international levels. The number of the overall participants was over 150 and that ofpresented papers around 60. There were international guest speakers and participantsfrom Japan, Australia, the US and Korea. However, compared with PESs in China, Korea
and Japan, TPES has a smaller population. At the present time, the officially registeredLearning to Be Human in East Asia

47

members are between 70 and 80. Although the number of the member is relatively small,
we still manage to publish an official journal of the society – the Journal of Taiwan
Philosophy of Education ( 臺 灣 教 育 哲 學 期 刊 ). It is a rigorous peer-reviewed
publication and publishes two issues a year. The first issue was released in March 2017.
As a newly founded academic organisation, TPES is earnestly looking forward todevelop international collaboration with colleagues and academia of neighbouring
countries – among them, JPES is one the best fellow organisations to work with.

Part II
Learning to be human is the most profound goal for education, particularly in East Asian
cultures. ‘To be human’ or ‘to humanise’ in Chinese is 成人(or 成為人). 人 means‘human’ whereas 成 (or 成為) ‘to be’, ‘to become’, ‘to complete’ or ‘to accomplish’.
In the Confucian tradition, to be human is not only to grow up. The most important point
for a person to be human is to develop moral characters. The highest or noblest moral
virtue is 仁, which is often translated as benevolence. Etymologically the word 仁
means two ( 二) persons ( 人). Benevolence denotes the proper, moral, and right
relationship between persons. A person who has virtues can build the proper, moral andappropriate interpersonal relationship with others. In the Analects, Zĭlù (子路) asked
Confucius about how to become a complete human person. Confucius answered that if
one person has the following virtues, he is qualified to be fully human. These virtues
include ‘the knowledge of Zang Wu Zhong, the freedom from covetousness of Gong
Chuo, the bravery of Zhuang of Bian, and the varied talents of Ran Qiu; add to these theaccomplishments of the rules of propriety and music.’ (Legge 1861, 14.12)1 However,these virtues may change from time to time because Confucius continues to say, ‘But
what is the necessity for a complete man of the present day to have all these things? Theman, who in the view of gain, thinks of righteousness; who in the view of danger isprepared to give up his life; and who does not forget an old agreement however far backit extends – such a man may be reckoned a COMPLETE man.’ (Legge 1861, 14.12)2
Following this, we might ask: what does it mean to be human in the 21st century? For
educators, what does it mean by teaching or learning to be human in modern societies?
In modern Taiwan, the Confucian view of humanity still has a great impact even12

臧武仲之知，公綽之不欲，卞莊⼦之勇，冉求之藝，⽂之以禮樂。(論語, 憲問 14.12)
今之成⼈者何必然？⾒利思義，⾒危授命，久要不忘平⽣之⾔，亦可以為成⼈矣。(論語, 憲問 14.12)

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though it is centuries-old. Confucian virtues like filial piety for parents (孝親) and respectfor elders (尊長) are still important parts of character education proposed by the Ministryof Education. In addition, some modern or Western values are included in the popular
view. In my view, the mainstream (or official) view adopts a modern progressive andchild-centred education position with a mixture of traditional Confucian ideas. In a certain
sense, the adoption of progressive virtues is to modernise Confucian humanistic
education on the practical level. Let me take the National Curriculum Guidelines of 12Year Basic Education (MOE, 2014) as an example of the official as well as the popular
view to reveal the generally accepted conception of the human being.
The latest official guidelines were announced in 2014 and put into practice in 2018.
According to the fundamental idea of the guidelines, three points are drawn. First, thegoal of the state education is to develop younger generations into autonomous individuals
who can self-motivate and self-teach. Second, individuals are seen as co-existents, or in
Heidegger’s (1962) term, Mit-sein (Being-with), who are living among others. Third, thefinal end of education is to build a harmonious and organic community that everyone
shares with each other. The goals of the official education, in my view, are the beneficiaryof Confucianism and progressivism.
Let us take a closer look. The learner rather the teacher is the key of education. The
child-centeredness of progressive education is recognised in Taiwan’s formal education.
We can find many vocabularies that the national curriculum guidelines share with
progressive education, such as ‘learning by doing’, ‘experiential learning’, ‘integrated
and crossing disciplinary curriculum’, ‘democracy’, ‘human rights’, ‘community spirit
and service’, ‘’lifelong learning’, etc. However, these terms are not simply transplanted
from the West to Taiwan. They have been contextualised and reborn in Confucian culture.
For example, the key difference of the 2014 guidelines from the 2008 edition lies at the
replacement of ‘basic ability’ (基本能力) with ‘core competence’ (核心素養). ‘Core
competence’ refers to the knowledge, abilities and attitudes that are required to develop acomplete human being with adaptability and resilience (MOE, 2014). There are 9
dimensions of the core competence. If we take a careful examination of the contents of
the 9 dimensions of the core competence, we will find concepts entailing Confucian
merits including ‘moral practice’, ‘appreciation of beauty and good’, ‘virtues of knowing
good, doing good, and enjoying good’, ‘friendly interpersonal relationship’, ‘being
altruistic and gregarious’, etc. The self as target of the national curriculum is a person who
is an active individual and simultaneously a gregarious and sociable human being. These
terms are the modern interpretation of the characters of the Confucian self as the
Confucian learning revolves around morality. Learning is to be a moral human being, toThematic Research: Learning to Be Human in East Asia

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be good in terms of Confucian ethics. Within the Confucian heritage cultural sphere, tobe a morally good person means to be a good team player of the community, as a moral
vanguard of the society to maintain social solidarity and enable people to live in harmony
and prosperity (Tu, 1988).
In addition to the progressive-Confucian inclination, the guidelines also assume
pragmatic values. Compared with the previous guidelines, a new learning field of scienceand technology is added as a requisite subject in the curriculum from year 7 to year 12(MOE, 2016). The learning field of science and technology includes two main subjects:
information technology and technology for daily life. The aim of this learning field is todevelop students’ ability to use knowledge of science, technology, engineering,mathematics and design in a coordinative way. As the official curriculum guidelines(2016) reveal, preparing students for employment on the pretext of developing logicalthinking ability plays an important role. The human subject targeted by the official
curriculum is a technician, a programmer, or an engineer. More importantly, he or she issupposed to be a fully prepared employee ready for the information industry after
finishing 12 year basic education. Therefore, the human subject aimed for by the official
curriculum, by the government, society or state should be useful and usable. The goal of
the official curriculum is to prepare workforce for business sectors, industry, or economy.
As the official curriculum represents the public educational policy, the public educationis strongly outcome-oriented for producing effective workforce. The outcomes-based
education anticipates to building effective human resources. The human subject then is
reduced as an instrument of industry. This view somehow narrows down and dilutes themeaning of education and humanity.
There have been many criticisms about the outcome-based education with thepreference for cultivating workforce for business or industry (Berlach & McNaught,
2007; Biesta, 2007, 2009; Martin & Alderson, 2007; Lee, 2003; Towers, 1992). I do notmean to reject the demand of ICT workforce and the corresponding response of policy
of formal education. what concerns me is that the concepts of ‘usability’ and ‘usefulness’,and the relatives like ‘practicability’, ‘accountability’, ‘measurement’ and others,
powerfully dominate educational discourse and limit the meaning of humanity as the endof education – if cultivating humanity is the end of education. In modern times, the virtues
valued in the Chinese traditional values of hierarchical society are transformed, someeliminated, displaced, accommodated, or reserved. One thing is for sure, that is,community life and common values are both cherished in the Confucian and progressivepragmatic traditions. Thus the human person in the popular educational papers is targeted
to be a team player. In addition to the pragmatic ideas catering for capitalist marketisation,
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what else can we envision for education and human beings? Can we imagine humanbeings otherwise? Dare we imagine an education for, say, anarchists? Do we dare to
propose an otherwise way of thinking education for human being?
Attempting to imagine the otherwise education, I take the ‘dao-de-construction’approach, which is formed with the inspirations of Daoism and the philosophy ofdeconstruction. Drawing on Caputo and Derrida (1997, p. 79), ‘to explore what [thetradition] omits, forgets, excludes, expels, marginalizes, dismisses, ignores, scorns,
slights, takes too lightly, waves off,’ is the serious way of treating the tradition. And thatis not enough. The deconstructive reading needs to be transgressive, and yet,transgression is ‘a passage to the limit (passage à limites, à frontières), the crossing of awell-drawn border that we all share, giving something straight a new bent or twist’(Caputo & Derrida, 1997, p. 81). In a similar tone, I seek inspirations from the Daoist
philosopher Zhuangzi as he provides abundant insights about the marginalised or thedismissed by the tradition. In many aspects Zhuangzi counters and problematises,
disturbs and deconstruct the normal. Besides Zhuangzi, an American-Taiwanese artist
Tehching Hsieh who displays the remarkable performance art to interfere and unsettle
what has been taken for granted. The Hsieh-Zhuangzian approach offers the daodeconstructive approach to education to be human with regard to the abnormal body.

Zhuangzi’s Abnormal Body: The Deformed Body
Zhuangzi is taken as one of the most creative philosophers ever. His book Zhuangzi
named after the author is listed in the greatest literary and philosophical masterpieces.
The Zhuangzi text is an anthology, of which is a very unique literary style. It tells a lot ofinteresting, fascinating, and ridicules stories about real and imaginary figures. The most
captivating and unusual figures addressed in the Zhuangzi are the handicapped people,
whose bodies are impaired or deformed. In the ancient society, the handicapped people
are supposed to be the most vulnerable and weakest, and perhaps the most discriminatedand hated. Yet in the Zhuangzi the bodily impairments or weird bodily movements do notcause failure or difficulty to the body-knowing and the fulfilment of the self. Furthermore,
it is the defective or deformed body that a True Human Person (真人) or a Perfect Human
Person (至人) is fleshed out.
The handicapped people that Zhuangzi presents include the Master of the Right (右師), Shu the Deformed (支離疏), Wang Tái the De-footed (兀者王駘), Shen Tújia theDe-footed (兀者申徒嘉), Shú Shan the Toeless (叔山無趾), Ai Táita the Ugly (惡人哀Thematic Research: Learning to Be Human in East Asia

Learning to Be Human in East Asia51駘它), Yin Chí the Cripple without Lips (闉跂支離無脤), and Wòn Yan the Goitre (甕盎大癭). These handicapped people, in the public eye, are often taken as worthless,useless, hopeless, miserable, disgusting and repulsive. Yet as Zhuangzi addresses, they
live in the way that is in accord with nature, with dao. Their lives are not as miserable orpathetic as ordinary people thought. Instead, the way they live is so calm, peaceful andcarefree that ordinary people cannot be. These handicapped people do not only live inserenity but also satisfy people in an unexpected way. For example, Ai Táita the Ugly hasa most terrifying and repulsive look but whoever comes near him is attracted by him andloves to stay with his company (Zhuangzi, 5.4; trans. Legge, 1891). Why does the ugly
man have such charms? As Zhuangzi replies, Ai Táita is indeed ‘all-powerful’ (全才)with hidden virtues (德不形). What does it mean by ‘all-powerful’?
According to Zhuangzi, the power is the ability to follow the nature, keep intrinsic
nature pure and intact, and carry out the inner potential to the fullest. Having such a power
is a virtue. To initiate the power needs to work with nature, otherwise there will be
disturbances or conflicts. The Perfect Human Person does not only self-realise but alsoenables other beings to self-fulfil in peace. Due to the power of enabling all beings to be
who or what they really are, Ai Táita the Ugly is therefore esteemed as a Perfect Human
Person.
The handicapped people, who are supposed to obtain help from others, as a matterof fact, are able to give help and support to other normal people. Shu the Deformed is
described as with shocking and extreme deformities: ‘His chin seemed to hide his navel;
his shoulders were higher than the crown of his head; the knot of his hair pointed to thesky; his five viscera were all compressed into the upper part of his body, and his two thighbones were like ribs.’(Zhuangzi, 1.4.7; trans. Legge, 1891)3 Despite of the deformities,
Shu is surprisingly productive. ‘By sharpening needles and washing clothes he was able
to make a living. By sifting rice and cleaning it, he was able to support ten individuals.’(Zhuangzi, 1.4.7; trans. Legge, 1891)4 In this vein, the handicapped person is more
useful and helpful than ordinary people.
Overall, the handicapped people presented by Zhuangzi all go beyond the
expectation of ordinary people. They do not have any indignation at their bodily
deformities, whether these impairment are born or cased by other reasons. Nor do theyseek for repairs, remedies or compensations of their deformities. It is noteworthy thatthese people do not ask help from others but rather provide help to the world. The
3

⽀離疏者，頤隱於臍，肩⾼於頂，會撮指天，五管在上，兩髀為脅。(莊⼦⼈間世, 4.7)

4

挫鍼治繲，⾜以餬⼝；⿎筴播精，⾜以⾷⼗⼈。(莊⼦⼈間世, 4.7)

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R. HUNGhandicapped people, to our surprise, embody Daoist virtues through deformed body toexemplify the Daoist ideal human person. By these characters Zhuangzi poses questions
regarding ethics, aesthetics, and language. These questions are still irritating and thoughtprovoking today. The terms such as ‘handicapped’, ‘crippled’, ‘deaf’, ‘blind’ and others,
are taken as discriminative or too strong, and thus they are replaced by terms like‘disabled’, ‘physically challenged’, ‘visually impaired’, and ‘hearing-impaired’.
However, in Zhuangzi, the disable person becomes the ablest one. The physicallychallenged person does not have difficulty in his life. On the contrary, he does great help
to others. As a matter of fact, those who are with deformities and supposed to be‘challenged’, rebound the challenge. It is us normal people who are challenged.

Tehching Hsieh’s Abnormal Body: The Suspended Body
The stories of deformed body in Zhuangzi can be seen as metaphorical strategy, similar
to what Edmund Husserl (1982) called, époché, or ‘bracketing’. It is to question andsuspend the taken-for-granted beliefs, presuppositions, biases and conventions, and lay
them aside. The stories of the deformity show the body as a thinking method, a powerful
metaphor that breaks the habitual way of thought. The deformed body is able todeconstruct the accepted and so be the ‘body in suspension’. Here I take a TaiwaneseAmerican artist Techching Hsieh (謝德慶) as an example to demonstrate the suspended
body displayed in his performance art. In my way of reading, Hsieh’s body art
intriguingly speaks Zhuangzi’s language.
At the present time Tehching Hsieh is representing Taiwan at the 57th Venice
Biennale in 2017 with an exhibition in Italy. The discussion about Hsieh’s art in this
symposium sounds an unexpected interesting echo.
Between September 1978 and July 1986 Hsieh accomplished five separate
extraordinary yearlong performance artworks. His sixth epic work is a thirteen year plan
which began on 31 December 1986 and came to a close at the turn of the millennium.
For an artist, six pieces of artwork are few. However, as ‘the scale, nature and affects’ ofHsieh’s artworks really display a particular intensity, he is recognised as ‘something of acult figure’ (Heathfield & Hsieh, 2009, p. 11). Especially, his artworks or lifeworks in aparticular sense incorporate Zhuangzi’s unusual body.
Hsieh’s first One Year Performance 1978-1979 (Cage Piece) was to lock himself ina wooden 11’ 6”X9’X8’ cage without any communication with anyone, without reading,writing, listening to the radio or watching television. He remained alone in a strict solitary
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confinement and deprived ‘himself of almost all means of communication and cultural
stimulation’ (ibid, p. 24). During this year, audience members were able to visit Hsieh on
selected days. The artist made no response whatsoever.
The second piece, One Year Performance 1980-1981, is usually called Time Clock
Piece. From 11 April 1980 to 11 April 1981, Hsieh made himself punch a time clock
every hour, on the hour, 24 hours a day for a whole year. Each time he punched, he took
a picture of himself. As he was unable to do the punch-in for 133 times, at last he hadoverall 8,627 mugshots for making a 6-minute movie.
Hsieh’s third lifework, One Year Performance 1981-1982, is generally known as
Outdoor Piece. He spent one year outdoors, not going inside, not entering any building
or shelter of any kind, such as a building, subway, train, car, airplane, ship, cave, and tent.
During this year he took an extreme form of homeless street life. He had a sleeping bag
and a radio set. It is extremely freezing in winter in New York City. Therefore, Hsieh
needed to know about the weather on the radio to prepare himself. Every day hewandered through the streets of Manhattan and depicted his walking route on the map.
In total he created 365 walking route maps.
The fourth piece, Art / Life: One Year Performance 1983-1984, or Rope Piece, wasperformed by Hsieh and Linda Montano from 4 July 1983 to 4 July 1984. These twoartists were tied by an 8-foot-long rope for a year without touching each other.
Hsieh’s final One Year Performance 1985-1986 is the so-called No Art piece. On 1
July 1985 Hsieh embarked on the lifework and announced the inaugural statement that
he would ‘not do ART, not talk ART, not see ART, not read ART, not go to ART gallery
and ART museum for one year’ (ibid., p. 296). He would not do anything related to art.
Compared with his previous works, this piece left very little artefacts except thedeclaration of intent and its initial poster (ibid.). The artist was forbidden to experience or
produce art in any way although this was paradoxically a yearlong artwork. This No Art
Piece was a precursor of the artist’s next as well as the final lifework – Tehching Hsieh
1986–1999 (Thirteen Year Plan).
On 31 December 1986 Hsieh published the statement of the Thirteen Year Plan. He
declared that he would make art during the time without showing it publically. On New
Year’s Day 2000 Hsieh issued his concluding report with two simple sentences: ‘I kept
myself alive. I passed the December 31, 1999.’ He then completely stopped creating art.
Hsieh’s lifeworks can be understood from many aspects. Here I only explore thedimension in relation to the body with deformity in Zhuangzi. The body with deformity
refers to the being that is not concordant with others in a certain way. It suspends ouraesthetics, ethical, cognitive, and ontological judgements. In this view, Hsieh’s body in
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these artworks can be said as incorporating deformity for his suspension of the ‘normal’
way of life. Zhuangzi’s discourse and Hsieh’s practice are different forms ofmanifestation of bodily suspension, which is to deconstruct, undo the taken-for-granted,
the accustomed, the accepted, the established, and the ready-made.
Hsieh’s performance artworks demonstrate a series of undoing the self bydisengaging the body from the comfort zone, locating the body in the place and time thatis out of order. The temporality and spatiality of the body’s kinestics questions andinterrogates viewers. Like Zhuangzi’s handicapped men, the artist interrupts, disturbs andannoys the senses of viewers. And yet, as the artists announces, there is no art but life. Or,
I should put it this way, there is no art without life.
The Cage Piece presents the state of being strictly confined, physically andpsychologically, since the artist was nearly disconnected with the world. There is nointeraction between him and the world. Not giving a word to anyone else, not receiving
a word from other people, Hsieh disengaged himself from the rest of the world except in
the space of the cell measuring 11’ 6”X9’X8’. Within the cell with little space andextremely poor facilities, the artist was imprisoned in the state of heavy material
deprivation. Besides, Hsieh set the rule against contacting with other people. The double
deprivation – mental and physical – minimised the artist’s life to the simplest and purest.
There was no stimulus form outside. The situation was similar to a monk’s retreat, near
monasticism because the worldly pursuits were renounced. At the same time, the artist
lived the animal life. He exposed himself when feeding, sleeping, washing, discharging
urine and excrement in front of viewers. Such exposure deprived him of the humandignity. What then was left in the cage, so to speak, was the self. The self comes to thequestions concerning freedom and restraints, existence and subjectivity, speech andthought, time and space, art and life. The creation of the Outdoor Piece drives the artist
into an extremely deprived and harsh situation and therefore he became disempoweredand disabled in some way. Hsieh’s artworks demonstrate that free spirit would not bebound by any cage or cultural artefact. This works echoes the Daoist philosopher Laozi’s
having nothing but simultaneously relaxing in the beings of the world.
The Time Clock Piece shows rigid serialisation and routinisation of the time. It is a
way of doing time as well as undoing time (Heathfield & Hsieh, 2009). It is doing time
because in daily life ordinary people are not particularly aware of the flow of time. They
only speak, act, eat, sleep and work in the normal pace. At some point a certain accident
makes the moment powerfully impressed, and thus people suddenly and clearly come togrips with temporality. We live most of our life without clear consciousness of the time.
The punch-ins separate and regulate the time flow and thereby make time sensible,
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intelligible and visible. Each punch-in is a registration of time which ‘was accompaniedby exposure, by a capture of his body in the still instant of the photogram’ (Ibid., p. 32).
The invisible yearlong period of time is embodied and condensed in a six-minute movie.
The visualisation of time is to undo time by replacing temporality with spatiality. The
inseparable duration of time is reorganised as a collections of images. The problem: if
temporality is, as Heidegger (1962) states, fundamental to the ontological and existential
construction of Dasein, what being one becomes when he does time by undoing time, or
when he undoes time by doing time?
Hiesh’s artworks encounter viewers with open-ended questions, however, theanswers to which are difficult to define. Hsieh’s fifth and sixth lifeworks confuse theboundary between art and life. In what sense is the No Art Piece an artwork if there is noart, neither imitation, nor representation, in Plato’s term? Is mere living art? Then what is
the nature of art? Nor can we find any trace of imitation or representation from theThirteen Year Plan because the ‘artist’ refused publication of anything during this periodof time. Is the refusal itself an art? This artwork reframes art as an ‘open possibility’(Heathfield & Hsih, 2009, p. 58). Viewers have to seek or construct the answer bythemselves. Moreover, the Thirteen Year Plan Piece paradoxically demonstrates theinvisibility, inaudibility and intactility of art. These qualities (or non-qualities) project
towards Zhuangzi’s chaos – the undifferentiated one. In Zhuangzi (Legge, 1891), chaos
is the ruler of the centred land but he does not have seven orifices to see, smell, breathe,
eat and hear. The rulers of southern and northern oceans drill orifices on chaos to give
him senses. However, chaos dies when seven orifices are made. Hsieh keeps his art frombeing sensed by the public is to keep art in chaos. This work’s not being seen, heard,
viewed, and communicated by others makes it chaos-like. The viewer does not know
anything created during these years. This artwork embodies non-knowledge and non-art
as chaos – something cannot be made sense of.
Overall Hsieh’ body arts with Zhuangzi’s inspiration reminds us that a human being
is a flowing body-subject that travels around various states of being, being born andyoung, being ill and old, being strong and handsome, being ugly and weak, being admired,or being rejected. The states of being alive cannot be exhaustively addressed but only
experienced. No one state can be undergone once and for all.

Concluding Remarks
In what sense can the stories of handicapped people told by Zhuangzi and Hsieh’s body
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artworks enlighten East Asian education that has been committed to standardisation,
credentialism, elitism, and accountability for a long time? Overall, the abnormal body of
Zhuangzi and Hsieh deconstructs the normal human subject, that is, the weird, deformed,
defective, abjected body deconstructs the ritualised, moralised, and respected body. By
doing so, Zhuangzi and Hsieh unsettle the accepted values systems, ideologies, andinstitution of education. They show the possibility of pedagogy of deconstruction because
they both provide ways of ‘crossing the borders, establishing new themes, new problems,
new ways, new approaches to new problems’ (Caputo & Derrida, 1997, p. 7). Education
is not only about maintaining the status quo, but also about creating and opening up new
spaces regarding ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology. The understanding of
good and evil, right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, truth and falsehood, reality andillusion, should be examined again and again.
Second, Zhuangzi and Hsieh demonstrate the profound resilience of theextraordinary people who have a free spirit to transcend the ordinary life. Those people
with handicapped, ugly or deformed bodies, or the people who chose to live an eccentric
life, are often detested, excluded and rejected due to their weird looks or outlandishness.
Yet in Zhuangzi the deformities do not limit their potential or creativity. They play a far
more important role than normal people in helping others. Likewise, Hsieh’s performanceart made him rejected when he kept himself outdoors and homeless-like, or disabled
when he alienated himself from anything related to art or the public. However, it isbecause the body is such a bête noiré, who is avoided, and sometimes, rejected andexcluded from the majority. He thus is in solitude. Let us push the idea a bit further. Beingat a distance with people – being alone, or being self – is an alternative way of existence.
Being alone is the first step of practising Zhuangzi’s ‘mind-fasting’ (xinzhai, 心齋) –mind-emptying. In the state of mind-fasting, one is able to hear without ears, and see
without eyes. He is able to be free from sensual interferences and external temptations toattain great serenity.
The juxtaposition of Zhuangzi and Hsieh helps us to examine the meaning andpurpose of education through a lens different from the mainstream one. Whether or not
we accept Nussbaum’s (1998) suggestion that the process of living is all about cultivating
humanity (Todd, 2015), cultivating humanity is surely one of the most important issues
concerning the end of education. Zhuangzi and Hsieh bring a new light to how weunderstand human existence, humanity and education. I do not mean to reject theConfucian-progressive view of humanity as the goal of education. What I mean is thatthe traditional or popular view of humanity and education must be interfered, disturbed
and challenged. With this regard, the alternative ways of human existence andThematic Research: Learning to Be Human in East Asia

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conceptions of humanity will and should be tolerated and included, invited andencouraged. Then we may keep the human mind and future open to possibilities although
there could be dangers and difficulties. Education is not only about peacekeeping, butalso about risk taking. Being a normal body is to be a team player and live safely within
the community whereas being an abnormal body is to live in the unexpected anduncontrollable situation, sometimes alone. However, life can never be rid of changes that
include all kinds of imperfections, problems, pains, accidents, threats, hazards, and so on.
Zhuangzi’s metaphor of deformed body and Hsieh’s lifeworks of suspended body help
us to grasp the profound understanding that learning to be human may be an endlessjourney without definite ends or specific patterns. To be human never completes, neveraccomplishes, never ends.

Acknowledgments
I wish to thank the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan (JPES) for the invitation ofpresenting this paper at the 2017 JPES Annual Conference in Osaka and the support of
the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Taiwan (MOST 106-2410-H-415007-MY2).

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Thematic Research: Learning to Be Human in East Asia