Confucius : Flavors.me

China, Shengren, and the Rise of the Junzi:

This is fun! Flavors.me offers a neat, sophisticated web-act. Ideal, we think, for individual portfolios, activism, web presentations, and all kinds of art projects. (The upgrade to full-fledged website/blog status -including your own domain name- is possible against a reasonable annual maintenance fee.) Ours was inspired by Marc Perton who is also the Vice-President of Content at Big Think and builder of useful internet things. Image source: xiaokedou.

More Than 150,000 Read The East-West Dichotomy

Featured this month in China Today magazine:

Does a universe of differences separate the two hemispheres that make up Eastern and Western cultures? Or, even in our multicultural world, has the phenomenon always been that of either the West wind dominating in the East, or the East wind dominating in the West? Is equilibrium between the two great cultural systems of China and the West possible?

RELATED The Chinese Really Love Harvard (And Turning It Into A Chinese Outpost) -Thought Catalog

German scholar Thorsten Pattberg has been comparing the cultures of China and the West in his online blogs since 2009. His in-depth philosophical, aesthetic, and sociological analyses include cultural comparative studies – from Zhuang Zi to Jackie Chan, from the Confucian concept “Heaven and men are a unit; they form the one” (“天人之际，合而为一”) to the modern Olympics slogan “One World, One Dream,” and from Plato to Nicolaus Copernicus.

RELATED The Resurrection of Non-Western Civilizations -Big Think

The author’s vivid language and apt examples that pinpoint similarities and differences between Eastern and Western cultures touch as well on contemporary social topics. In the process of writing, Pattberg has also communicated online with his readers, so further piquing their interest.

Around 150,000 people in the U.S. have read and downloaded his articles, which have now been compiled and published in the book, The East-West Dichotomy: The Conceptual Contrast between Eastern and Western Cultures. [...]

READ MORE AT: http://www.chinaculture.org/info/2014-08/12/content_556302.htm

The March of the Confucius Institutes in the West (BRICS Business Magazine)

"That’s a great strategy. I have seen with my own eyes how Western specialists compete for those prestigious posts of ‘Director of the Confucius Institute for X-land at the University of Y.’ It’s inevitably followed by a promotion at the University of Y from unknown professor to the rank of dean. It is because, when dealing with China, no one takes half measures. The perks are obvious: an affiliation with China’s Ministry of Education, easy access to visas, flights, conferences, and wining and dining. Naturally, the newly appointed deans will introduce their students to their CIs. It’s an authoritarian-style top-down approach."

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE.

Ten years ago a network of Confucius Institutes was founded as a soft power tool designed to promote Chinese culture and foster the country’s positive image on a global scale. However, it appears that the institution has not managed to fulfil its primary objective, and to an extent has become ‘westernized.’ BRICS Business Magazine interviewed academics closely familiar with the Confucius Institute system to explore the reasons behind this... (by Olga Sorokina)

DOWNLOAD PDF-VERSION.

Inside Peking University - Public Lecture on 'Shengren'

WESTERN 'China Studies', and by this I mean the army of scholars dedicated to the Westernization of Chinese history and thought, steals its victim’s ideas, buries its socio-cultural originality under sophisticated layers of biblical and philosophical European translations and interpretations. China is not alone. Foreign ideas and thoughts everywhere are quickly translatedor re-named in order to claim ‘Deutungshoheit’ – a German words meaning "having the sovereignty over the definition of thought."

In contemporary ‘China studies’ 99% of its scholars are what I call 'language imperialists'. It is plainly their best career option, and there is no blaming them for that. To be true, most of the sinologists describe China in Western terms, using European categories and taxonomies. Good examples are “democracy,” “human rights,” “freedom,” religion,” “philosophy,” and infinite more.

As a result of language imperialism the China that you were told is essential Chinese-free. This is good for the West, so, naturally, Western scholars are rewarded with Western fellowships, academic chairs, publishing contracts, prizes, awards, and numerous other academic distinctions and accolades. In other words: they are celebrated in their cultural circle like conquerors.

"The East-Asian shengren have been misjudged by Western scholars for over 350 years and conveniently translated as “philosophers” or “saints”, which is wrong. The shengren are above philosophy and beyond religion. It is time to revive an old Asian tradition." (Shengren, 2011)

Foreign history is thus slowly digested into the ‘Story of the Victorious’. Foreign taxonomies are discontinued, foreign words are shunned, and foreign categories are erased and purposely omitted. It doesn't have to be this way forever. Seeing cultural originality as a form of copyright, and looking at vocabularies as a (natural) resource of this culture, China could easily promote its own names, titles, and brands.

Image credits: The Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Peking University - The Future of Global Language and The Rise of Chinese Terminologies, Oct 2013

What if 99% of all books written on China are wrong...

...because they relied on erroneous and misleading translations? Because they are de facto Chinese-free. It is strange that no one seemed to have noticed this before...

A book on China entirely written in English is literally Chinese-free and cannot be taken serious, I think. Yes, ALL Western media reports on China are
READ MORE Language and Empire - Why We Shun Asian Words

Cultural Fascism and White Vocabulary Policies in Major US publications

"The west cultivates the dangerous notion that “knowledge only exists if it’s the West that knows it”. The consequences are far-reaching."

"Expats among themselves:Unfortunately, their journalists and editors, all Western educated, seem to have little knowledge and interest in the Chinese tradition (they couldn't tell your author what rujia or a shengren was); they jet in the country from one English-language conference to another (they don't speak Chinese), and are mostly looking out for English-speaking compatriots or Chinese ABCs in China to help them fill their pages. That the Chinese people for the last three thousand years have all kinds of jia, jiao, and xue (schools, practices, and teachings), and their own terms, categories, taxonomies, and archetypes of wisdom that the West might want to learn, understand, letting alone to know about seems to be beyond Science's mission to create a Chinese-free world of knowledge. As the historian Howard Zinn once remarked: "If something is omitted from history, people have no way of knowing that it is omitted." It is rather sad."

Read at Big Think: Cultural Fascism - Science Magazine: No shengren, please!

Zhongguo sixiang zai fanyi guocheng zhong de yihua (Pei Desi)

中国思想在翻译过程中的异化 (裴德思)

许多人在不断寻找能让他们了解中国的秘密钥匙或魔法公式。自然，在某个时刻他们会想知道中国的教育。中国(The Middle kingdom)有许多有名望的学府，但先让我们走近北京大学 --- 中国“文明”的母矿。

“文明”经常被译为“Civilization”，这是种误导。最近在北京大学的演讲中，著名语言学家辜正坤解释说，“文明”描述的是一个民族高水准的道德和文雅，而英文单词“Civilization”是源自城市居民对物质与技术的掌握，例如火箭与建筑。

[GO TO ENGLISH VERSION at CHINA.ORG]

“Peking University”当然是它西化的称呼，以便于外国人能找到它的地址。然而中国人自己称他们的高等教育机构为“大学”：“Peking University”为“北京大学”或“北大”，“Tsinghua University”为“清华大学”。

“ ‘大学’并不是希腊语“Universitas”的翻译，而是指儒家经典之一的《大学》。”辜教授解释说。

《大学》经常被马虎地译为“The Great Learning”，但它其实是一部如何成为君子甚至圣人的指导手册。

“君子”是中国家庭伦理传统中理想化的人格模型，“圣人”则是最高等级的成员：他实践了完美的最高道德准则，即“德

[...] MORE ON RENREN (Registration required)

Pattberg: How We Will Write in the Future (Video)

BEIJING - In order to preserve the full power and authenticity of any culture really we would have to preserve them their key terminologies -those words and concepts that are demonstrably difficult, if not impossible, to translate without infringing onto their culture's intellectual property rights. The English language has already adopted loads of foreign loanwords, but often in an arbitrary manner, more by chance and goodwill than by any disciplined, organized, and accountable methodology. In other words, for example Western translators, until now, practically could do whatever they wanted with Asian concepts; and Asian ideas, no matter how old and no matter how genuine, enjoyed little to no moral, scientific, or legal protection from being omitted, prohibited, or translated into convenient, often over-used European concepts. This has got to change some day, maybe not so distant a day in the near future...

Thorsten Pattberg advocates for a global language, and by that he has something very specific in mind. We need to continue to translate, of course, in order to communicate. But when it comes to the key terminologies of a culture, "we should not translate them but rather we should adopt them," Pattberg says. "The only way, as I see it, to create the global language is really to find a scientific way to adopt as many key terminologies as possible and to unite all the languages’ vocabularies into one."  [READ FULL TRANSCRIPT] [WATCH VIDEO]
Many thanks to Daniel Honan, Managing Editor, Big Think, and Jonathan Fowler & Elizabeth Rodd, Producers, Big Think

Shengren is ”Mordantly humorous study of misunderstanding of Confucius” (Wordpixelsblog)

Thorsten Pattberg, author of 'Shengren'

“Mordantly humorous study of misunderstanding of Confucius” (by Wordpixelsblog)

Extract from Linda Colman’s Misunderstanding Laozi through the Discourse of Modernity:

“In a mordantly humorous study of misunderstandings of Confucius as a thinker, based on the perpetuation of an error in translation, Thorsten Pattberg demonstrates the pitfalls of using dogmatic language––whether religious or philosophical––when translating a classic work such as Confucius’ Analects. The historic error of mistranslating “sheng(ren)” as ‘saint(s)’ or ‘philosopher(s)’ rather than the more appropriate ‘sage(s)’ has compounded the initial error of construing Confucius as a saint or a philosopher, and has compounded misunderstandings of Confucius’ work.

 

Scholar Beware!

Pattberg’s analysis of the misunderstandings that have resulted from mistranslation of this one very important word includes a discussion of cultural assumptions underlying the Western, especially German, philosophical tradition, which make the use of such language ill-suited to the exegesis of classical Chinese literature. [See especially Ch. 11: “Nonsensical Philosophical Reading,” and Ch. 15: “The Great Man Theory.”]”

Linda Colmanis a culture critic and writer at The Booklist Lady

Chinese American Confucianism Vs. American Chinese Confucianism

The two modes of Confucianism in the United States: Chinese American Confucianism means that Chinese language elements slowly sink into American society. American Chinese Confucianism, on the other hand, refers to English words fueling a bit on Chinese meanings. [...]  [READ ARTICLE HERE]

It’s Zhongguo Meng, stupid! (Interview, Shanghai Daily)

"Salaries in China are still too low, so most employees tend to stay close to the mother lode, like little children. Many feel “wu nai” – helpless. This inhibits their creativity and drive for self-actualization." 

Yao Minji (Emily Yao) from Shanghai Daily sits down with Thorsten Pattberg from Peking University to discuss the Chinese Dream. Dr. Pattberg argues that Chinese key concepts should not be translated, and explains why, in his view, the Zhongguo Meng is very different from the American Dream.(July 2013)

READ FULL UNABRIDGED INTERVIEW HERE

Add wushu, shengren, junzi and zhongguo meng to the global language!

DO NOT translate Chinese key terminologies!". This is true for kungfu, wushu, shengren, junzi, and... the zhongguo meng. Thorsten Pattberg, a disciple of Ji Xianlin, Gu Zhengkun, and Tu Weiming from Peking University explains why the correct names and the language of origin matter for inclusion into World History... a field that to this day is literally Chinese-free. [...] One day in June 2013; IAHS, Peking University.

Peking University - Rise of the junzi

Peking University - Rise of the junzi

PKU is the mother lode of Chinese education, and Confucianism (rujia) wants to cultivate the 'junzi' - the ideal scholar. At the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Pattberg explains how an old tradition is on the march again. [BACK TO MAIN]

Shocking Interview on Academic Imperialism

In this exclusive interview with veteran journalist Victor Fic, Pattberg calls for a respectful accuracy and opposing “language imperialism.”

German Scholars thinks Shengren are overlooked; photo: Dong Guisheng, Beijing

Calling the shengren "philosophers" or "saints" is a historical mistake

Calling the shengren “philosophers,” “saints,” or any other familiar name is the greatest historical blunder since Christopher Columbus’s discovery of “the Indians” in America.

Check the Pattberg interview by veteran journalist Victor Fic!