Amy Chua is provoking a nation: Parenting - Why some cultural groups seem to do a better job

Some hard-working but insecure moms and dads may find in Ms. Chua's new book exactly what they were looking for to make them and their children succeed in life: become more Chinese and marry a Jew. Just kidding. Here's her book again.
Read at Big Think: Parenting - Why some cultural groups seem to do a better job

Thinkibility: Key Concepts as Optical Fitlers

by Asa Jomard and Gijs van Beeck Calkoen

This great website for creativity and an open mind sets some of Dr. Pattberg's ideas in the right context. Invaluable insights from psychology and spirituality that are highly challenging for cultural policy makers and politicians: Just how much foreigness do we allow to enter our heads?
"Optical filters are devices that selectively transmit light of different wavelengths. They absorb some wavelengths of light – that is, colors – while transmitting others. Optical filters define what we see and what is left out.

Key concepts and filtersKey concepts do exactly the same with what we perceive. They strengthen or weaken information, change “colors”, let things out or vary the contrast. As you will see in the image below a key Western concept like “University” colors the way Westerners interpret the Chinese concept of Dá Xué."Read more at Thinkibility: Key Concepts as Optical Filters - Thinkibility Boost.

Pattberg: How to Live Forever: 12 Steps

Most successful spiritual leaders have much in common: they have powerful personalities, they touch the hearts of the people, and they all climb through more or less similar developmental stages in order to be recognized by society.

Read it at Big Think: How to Live Forever: 12 Steps

Pattberg: Chinese Top Universities Plagued With Corruption

"Xi Jinping’s massive crackdown on corruption has finally reached the ivory towers."
Read at Big Think: Chinese Top Universities Plagued With Corruption

How I got into Harvard and how this could work for others too

China Studies at Harvard: Panel including Ezra Vogel, William Kirby, Dwight Perkins, and Wilt Idema; Harvard China Review, April 2010

Harvard University is global brand name and a great career booster, especially for international students, but how to get in? I recently shared my story with Gherardo Liguori from Italy. Some of the advice in it we believe could work for other people as well. Read the interview HERE.

Chinesischer Yuan als Ersatz für den Dollar?

Gold, Reformen: Wird China den Dollar vom Thron stoßen?

13. September 2013 von Bürgender

China-Experte Dr. Pattberg von der Universität Peking sagte in einem Interview, dass China den Yuan als nächste weltweite Leitwährung etablieren möchte und es bereits einen Plan gibt, um dieses Ziel zu erreichen. [Read more at GEGENFRAGE]

Lothar Spree passed away in Berlin

Another good man of the Sino-German connection, Lothar Spree, the late Shanghai media professor and educator at Tongji University in Shanghai, has passed away in Berlin on Dec 6, 2013. He was 71 years young. [Read obituary at Hochschule für Gestaltung (HfG) Offenbach]

5 Million People Visit Yasukuni War Shrine Every Year

TOKYO - An advertisement in Tokyo's Chuo Line, photographed on Dec 31, 2013. In Japan, visiting the Yasukuni (war) shrine is part of the Shinto tradition and a national ceremony, even a great family day (a War Museum is just around the corner). In the eyes of most Chinese and Koreans, however, the shrine is seen as a relic of Japan's Imperial past and a fetish and reminder of Japan's indifference toward the feelings of those East-Asian people and nations which suffered from Japan's war crimes during WW2. Hence the recent outrage over Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Yaskuni on Christmas, Dec 26. [Read at BIG THINK]

Speed matters

 

Early exercise (almost) always pays off. :-)

Algunos conceptos no traducidos suponen una gran fuente de conocimiento y pueden ser necesarios para entender mejor a China

El experto cree que llegó el momento de devolverle a Asia el gesto por toda la terminología occidental que asimiló en el pasado. Algunos conceptos no traducidos suponen una gran fuente de conocimiento y pueden ser necesarios para entender mejor a China.

Thorsten Pattberg declara que si realmente hay tanto interés en entender a China, uno de los primeros pasos debería ser averiguar cómo se educa a sus ciudadanos, en qué se diferencia su sistema académico de otros.

El experto ofrece un ejemplo que llama mucho la atención a los occidentales: en China no cuentan con el título de "doctor en Filosofía", sino que estudian el texto daxue (un clásico de la época de Confucio) -The Great Learning, en inglés- con el fin de conquistar la sabiduría (shengren) o ser un buen ciudadano, un hombre de familia (junzi). “Es más”, añade Pattberg, “la palabra filosofía no aparece en los textos clásicos chinos: llegó de Europa a través de Japón en el siglo XIX.”

Daxue sería algo similar a un manual para convertirse en un junzi o (idealmente) en un shengren,figuras clave en esta cultura. Comprender el significado total de estos términos en su ‘versión original’ es algo mucho más “bello” y “preciso”, cree Pattberg.

El lingüista alemán denuncia la tendencia histórica a evitar conceptos y terminología china en los libros de estudio, siempre se traducían. Los profesores europeos se tomaban la libertad de crear términos para ideas del pensamiento asiático. Estas traducciones de ideas originales del Este de Asia también son las que utilizan despues los turistas que llegan al país.

El imagen que Occidente creó de China siempre fue bastante confusa. Sería necesario adoptar un vocabularios básico chino en Occidente, afianzarlo y transmitirlo a futuras generaciones.

Thorsten Pattberg recuerda que, durante el s.XIX, los países asiáticos tomaron directamente una gran cantidad de palabras procedentes de Europa relacionada con el arte, la filosofía o la ciencia:

“Ha llegado el momento de darle algo a cambio a Asia”, dice. “Adoptar una serie de conceptos clave sería un gesto de reciprocidad”. Occidente ya no puede ser reacio a aprender terminología básica en chino, es importante que se dedique esfuerzo a su estudio. [READ AT DONTKNOW.NET]

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)

Protecting cultural diversity, originality, and multitude of all human thought

Pattberg commented on TED Talk: Mark Pagel: How language transformed humanity

When linguistics talk about the “death of languages,” they usually don't mean that as a metaphor. Words die - or better: they are murdered - every day. Read any Western China report these days and you will find that the piece is literally Chinese-free. Translation is to language what genocide is to people. Remarkably, language is the only field of the sciences where no revolution has taken place. Yes, we have more nice explanations and theories, all fine. But we are still destroying foreign words as if there was no tomorrow. The only way forward to a Global Language, as I see it, is to limit translation of foreign key terminologies and instead adopting them into our lexicons. This way, we would include all the world’s cultures’ socio-cultural originality into one and thereby value the cultural diversity, originality, and multitude of all human thought. Just saying.

Chinese Not Afraid of US Military Threats 裴德思：中国已是世界大国并不在意美国压力

裴德思：中国已是世界大国并不在意美国压力
"博弈论者或许会将这幅情形与“围棋”联系起来。您或许听说过围棋，这是一种着名的桌上战略游戏，有黑白两种棋子。现在美国及其盟友的举动，就好像是在试图一步步包围中国的棋子，从外围逼迫中国棋子向内收缩，最终让中国屈服归顺。" [Read more at Tianxia Junshi]

China's Mistress Culture: Sex And Power Are A Pair / 中国情妇文化：性与权力结伴同行

This Chinese translation of my article on China's Mistress Culture showed up at Topnews9. It didn't say the translator, though.

A scene from The Golden Lotus/Jin Pin Mei.

中国情妇文化：性与权力结伴同行

裴德思/作者

我必须告诉你一件有关中国的事：中国女人的作用，从道德层面而言可谓是“别出心裁”。

 
没有一家宾馆，按摩院，ktv或者城镇会议中心不是被“小姐”，护送人员（鸨婆），女服务员（陪女）或其他种类的妓女频繁光顾的。每个陷入非正常交往关系（即“被玩弄”）的女性都会获得一种特殊的称号：
 
先是“二奶”（二老婆），一个女人（她或许已有家室或孩子）会与一个已婚或未婚的男人沉溺于婚外情。这就是所谓的“第三者”——拿爱情当儿戏的人。
 
位于顶点的角色，其地位可直接挑战妻子（老婆）的，就是情妇。情妇，即蛇蝎美人，不仅可以让男人体验偷腥的刺激和快感，也是最能显示男人身份的象征：包养情妇意味着你很有钱！
 
从技术上看，只有已婚男人才能拥有情妇，否则，若这个男人是单身，我们则会将他的女伴—无论有几个—单纯地看作他的“女朋友”。中国人包养情妇的传统与基督徒眼中的通奸别无二致——是一种原罪；但在中国这不过是一种风俗习惯罢了。
 
因此，当西方人第一次来中国的时候，他们常常会被中国人对婚姻、浪漫和性之间严格的界限搞得摸不着头脑。在中国，这三种场景通常对应三个不同身份的女人。[Read Full Text Here] 

(推荐人：韦以锡) (编辑：林昌峰) [Read it in English at Asia Times]

Pattberg: Add Daxue, Junzi, and Shengren to the Global Language

Dr. Pattberg explains why certain Chinese words are mandatory for global citizenship:

"China cannot make the West learn the Chinese language. But what it can do is to promote certain key terminologies back into world history. China, to this day, keeps the spirit of the Daxue. It is a living shengren culture." - T. Pattberg

In a recent feature article at Big Think, the global think tank, Dr. Pattberg argues that the future Global Language will have to include many more Chinese key terminologies. The reason why those terminologies are missing now lies in erroneous European translations of Chinese names in the past. Foreign concepts and categories were simply replaced with convenient European words in order to keep what the Germans call 'Deutungshoheit' - the sovereignty over the definition of thought. This kind of 'Language Imperialism' in the 21st Century, says Pattberg, is no longer adequate or called-for. On the contrary, he believes that the world is now ready for Chinese words and what better place to find some than Inside Peking University - China's mother lode of higher education! [Read at BIG THINK]

Thorsten Pattberg is a German writer, scholar, and cultural critic. He received his PhD from Peking University, spent time at Tokyo University and Harvard University, is a former research fellow at The Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Peking University and is the author of ‘Shengren’ and ‘The East-West Dichotomy’. 

No Head of State Should Be Allowed In Office Without Having Spent Time In Asia And Learnt An Asian Language

“In fact, no executive, expatriate, leader of a party, director or a large organization, let alone head of state, should be allowed to assume such a post without having spent some time in Asia and learnt the local language.” The East-WestDichotomy (2013)

Thorsten Pattberg with Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia

Found memories of Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia and now a Member of Parliament, who speaks fluent Chinese.

What exactly is “Socialism with Chinese characteristics?”

Everything the Party does is de-facto 'Socialism'

BEIJING - Outside observers who believe China to be a full-blown capitalist society are often confused by its government’s “socialist” rhetoric. That’s because China escapes most Western-defined categories, or at least it believes and desires to do so, hence the well-known appendix “with Chinese characteristics.” For simplification, we may as well conclude that everything the Communist Party does is de-facto socialism; and, in reverse, that the Party cannot do “not socialism.” [Read it at Big Think]

Islam should contribute to our global civilization

Islam should contribute to our global civilization and come to the table where the future rules of the games are formulated.
This rough version of a transcript from a shaky interview on Building-Bridges-TV (Istanbul) came to light recently at Diplomacy Post. The website looks great, lots of prominent analysts, philosophers, political analysts etc. The team around Burcu Cekmece, the Executive Producer at the Building Bridges Initiative, is very dedicated and persistent. Hope that I can join and write a column about recent events in China and how the relate to Turkey and the Middle East. China has officially 20 million Muslims, although unofficial numbers say more than 40 million. I also hope to be able to write something about the Turkish-German relations and the European Union. So much to do, so little time...

What's the Global Language?

Pattberg on Global Language and The End of Translation, Beijing 2013

What's the Global Language?

"The true 'global language' would be radically different from today's English (or any other major language); it would need to adopt the originality and the tens of thousands of words provided by humankind's other language traditions on top of it." -- T. Pattberg, The East-West Dichotomy (2013), Foreign Language Press, Beijing

I'm so excited to begin offering more public talks on 'Global language' and the 'End of translation' this winter 2013/2014, and I can't wait to expand the universe of Chinese (and other non-European) concepts and terminologies during my stay in Japan (and, hopefully, a brief excursion to the US).

Meanwhile, check out the new edition of The East-West Dichotomy (2013) available soon in book stores in China, university libraries, and in global online stores. I still have some free author copies, just send me an email at pattberg 'at' pku.edu.cn. Best!

Thorsten Pattberg with YANG Rui, famed Chinese journalist and CCTV International Presenter

YANG RUI and Thorsten Pattberg, Beijing Forum 2013

BEIJING FORUM 2013 – No other media figure has helped to accommodate if not to shape China’s rise more in the recent decade than YANG Rui, the CCTV International Presenter and host of ‘Dialogue’, an English-speaking political TV program. Mr. Yang has been called the Larry King of China, and his show Dialogue is watched by tens of millions. He recently drew criticism in particular for his anti-foreign, xenophobic remarks on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, and in general for his aggressive personality and stance against foreign media that tends to report China in an unfavorable light. I met him at the Alliance of Civilizations meeting during the Beijing Forum 2013, where he shared his views on how China should be presented and respected by international media, and how especially CCTV tries to convey a China image from the point of view of the majority of the Chinese, which is naturally and often very different from Western-based media. Mr. Yang enjoys cult-status and has attracted a huge fellowship of Chinese students who regularly flock to his CCTV show(s) not only to student current international affairs and culture trends but also to study Political and Culture English. Among expats and foreign students in China, Yang Rui is known as probably the most international and recognizable Chinese media personality of the decade. [VISIT EAST-WEST DICHOTOMY]