The unexamined life is not worth living
Socrates, in Plato’s Apology, 38a
Throughout history of Mankind, China has always been a driving force of shaping the human civilization. After more a century of wars and chaos, China started to re-emerge in 1978 and now it has been widely regarded as a would-be superpower. Yet despite that, in an online survey conducted within the PRC in 2006 (details), more than half of the respondant replied that they do not want to be a Chinese again should they had a second life. This finding shocked the Communist regime, and ordered the survey to stop.
As a Chinese myself, I feel amazingly unsurprised about such findings (and you may be very surprised to know I am unsurprized). Shouldn’t the Chinese be very proud of our richness in history & culture? What has made us to hate our own identity so much that we don’t want to be Chinese should we have the choice? That is why I created this blog, to explore how the Chinese people views about themselves, and our reactions to the rest of the world. Same as looking at ourselves in front of a mirror, I view this blog as a reflection to the Chinese identity.
My opinion is mostly based on a Chinese book written by Dr. Sun Lung-Kee (孫隆基), literally translated as “Deep Structure of Chinese Culture” (中國文化的深層結構). When it was published in the early 1980s, it really shocked the overseas Chinese community (N.B. The Communist regime banned this book until 2004, yet the version sold in the PRC today still have some politically sensitive contents, such as Cultural Revolution, censored). In this book, Dr. Sun used the psycho-sexual development theory by Sigmund Freud as a framework to explain the behaviour of Chinese people, and demonstrates his theory using very vivid examples. For readers who cannot read Chinese language, you may read his English book with a similar theme (click here), though the content is much shorter. Of course I’ll add other books’ views into my opinion, but Dr. Sun theory is still my main framework.
I would like to thank Dr. Ronald Teng who, as a friend of Dr. Sun, introduced this book to me. Through his organization called Millennium Education Associates, he promotes Artes liberales in Hong Kong (To distinguish it with the so-called “Liberal Education” as thought by the HKSAR Government, I rather use the Latin word to describe what Dr. Teng is really advocating). I am currently attending his weekly lesson on Western philosophy.
Hope you enjoy surfing here!
