Eric's Beijing Diary

Click for larger image.

Last Thursday I went to the National Museum with some friends and saw this chart on the wall showing the dynasties of China. Studying the history of China is useful in helping to understand what makes a dynasty rise and fall, because China has had so many of them. Before I came to China, and even after I arrived, I found that Chinese people were fond of saying that China had five thousand years of history. So I would ask them, "Who was the first emperor of China?"

Invariably the response was "Qin Shi Huang."

Then I would say, "Ok, if Qin Shi Huang was the first emperor China and the Qin Dynasty was a little over two thousand years ago, what did you guys do for the three thousand years?"

But the problem is that if you make the argument that China began with Qin Shi Huang, and is thus only a little more than two thousand years old, you have a problem. China is nothing if not Confucian, and Confucius lived in the sixth century BC, so that would bring the beginning of China back to at least 2600 years ago. But if you say that China began with Confucius, you also have a problem. Confucius never presented his ideas as new ideas. He always saw himself as restoring the Rites of Zhou established by the Duke of Zhou.

The Zhou Dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty (790 years). That is remarkable. The chart pictured above is a bit confusing, because it does not explain that the Zhou Dynasty is actually divided into two segments, the Western Zhou and the Eastern Zhou. This chart shows the Western Zhou, but it doesn't tell you that the Eastern Zhou is actually composed of the two sub-parts that are listed here, the Spring and Autumn Period (during which Confucius lived and taught), and the Warring States Period.

Why is the Zhou Dynasty thus divided? My thinking is that the second part of the Zhou Dynasty (the Eastern Zhou, made up of the two sub-periods I mentioned) represents the decline of the Zhou Dynasty. It seems that Confucius saw this decline and tried to correct it by restoring the values of the first part of the Zhou Dynasty (shown here as the Western Zhou), with particular reference to his hero, the Duke of Zhou. The extent to which he succeeded can be measured by the extent to which China as China became an enduring society.

I don't want to go any further in that direction, because the treatment of Confucius and his influence on succeeding dynasties is far too big a subject to be dealt with here. Suffice it to say that, in my opinion, Chinese dynasties have risen as they have stayed true to those values, and have declined as they moved away from them.

One further note: In my opinion, it is a mistake to refer to Qin Shi Huang as the "first emperor of China," although this is a very common practice. It implies that there really was no Chinese society before Qin Shi Huang, and that China was just a disorganized rabble. That may be true politically, but not culturally. In fact, as you can see, there were many rulers of China before Qin Shi Huang, spanning hundreds of years.

So how did this come about--I mean Qin Shi Huang coming to be thought of as the first emperor of China when, in fact, there were many monarchs before him? People in China usually respond that he was the first emperor of the unified China. Maybe. But in my opinion, a big part of it is due to the way he stylized his name:

It is evident that whatever we think of Qin Shi Huang, he thought of himself as the first emperor of China (or at least the first one that mattered), he stylized his name to reflect that, and he managed to convince succeeding generations of Chinese people to view him in that light.

Not me. I think he had an exaggerated view of his own importance. Don't get me wrong. I don't say that Qin Shi Huang was not important. That would be going too far the other way. No study of China's history is complete without a visit to Xi'an to view the Terracotta soldiers--more than eight thousand of them--who were buried with Qin Shi Huang to protect him in the afterlife. His own body has never been exhumed. He had himself buried in a sea of mercury. He was an extraordinary person, and his influence is important to understand particularly in light of the fact that Mao, who did not encourage the reading of ancient history by the masses, was a prodigious student of history himself, and saw himself as the modern version of Qin Shi Huang.

But calling him the first emperor of China is going to far, I think. The roots of Chinese culture precede him by centuries, and endured his attempts to minimize them in much the same way that Confucian ideas have survived the attempts of the early Communists to wipe them out.

So where does this all end? If you want to know how old China as China really is, you must go back before Qin Shi Huang. Confucius? No, keep going, all the way back to the first half of the Zhou Dynasty. Search there and you will find what makes China China.

Comments

Labels: Confucius, Dynasties, Qin Shi Huang

Couldn't get down to the Square today. The place is sealed off so that they can put on a performance for foreign dignitaries. If they get this worked up about the 60th anniversary, I shudder to think of what it's going to be like at the 75th.

Kai Kai invited me to have lunch with her and her friend. I took the subway to Liufang and met them. They asked me where I would like to eat. I suggested we head down to Dongzhimen, because there is a street there that is famous for its restaurants. Her friend had a Honda minivan, so we all got in and found a restaurant built according the pattern of a classic Siheyuan.

After we ate, they were going to take me back, but I noticed a subway station, so I told them to just drop me off. It happened to be one of the stops on Line 5. Not that it matters. Anytime you see a subway station in Beijing, you just head down under and it's pretty easy to figure out where you are. I was just ready to do that, but I decided to stop at a coffee bar and do some reading first. I started asking around for a coffee bar, and ended walking right by the old Confucian temple. I was interested in this, becuase Chinese people are fond of saying that Confucianism is not a religion, but a philosophy. But this temple was very religious. And it was built in the early 14th Century. Yuan Dynasty. That's going back a ways. When they built the temple, they planted a Cyprus tree. It's still there. Ever seen a 700 year old Cyprus tree? Pretty impressive.

After going through the temple, I walked around and finally found a little sidewalk cafe. I decided that this was a better way to spend the afternoon that standing in the crowds down at Tienanmen. I was ready to forget about National Day and get lost in a good book. But it was not to be. Right up on the wall was a flat screen playing the events of the day, and Hu Jintao was just getting ready to speak. I listened for awhile to him repeating the old line about how there is no hope for China except the pathway of Socialism. Rubbish, of course, and nobody believes it. Well, I guess somebody must, because there has to be some reason he feels compelled to put on a Mao Jacket and recite Marxist pablum. This is the dilemma of Modern China. It is no longer politically correct to take a Marxist position. But it is also not politically correct to publicly acknowledge that we no longer follow what Marx teaches. So whatever political system China employs, we must call it socialism. This is why the young people are so confused. They say, "Professor Eric, what's the difference between capitalism and socialism?" These are the brightest kids in China. They have taken all the required Marxism classes to get to where they are at a National Key University. But they don't know the difference between capitalism and socialism. And the reason is plain. They look around them, and think, "If this is socialism, what is capitalism." And I have to tell them, "This is not socialism. Your grandparents had socialism."

I was debating this issue at the English corner at Renmin University once, and one guy told me that the reason for the confusion is that this is a very complex issue. Not true. Socialism has the simplest definition in the dictionary: "Public ownership of the means of production." In today's China, most of the businesses that an average citizen encounters are not publicly owned. There are exceptions, of course. Raymond is a Beijinger, and he takes me to the traditional Beijing eateries. One time he took me to a little place in Old Beijing that was kinda little dark and dingy (although the food was good). It was about 7:30 or so, and Raymond told me that we had to hurry, because they were getting ready to close. I was surprised. So early? Then Raymond told me that this was a State owned cafeteria.

I have been in Beijing for almost six years, and in all that time, I have been in one state owned restaurant. Most of them are private businesses. I guess I should mention that I have eaten in campus cafeterias, so perhaps that would put a few more marks in the socialism column. But my point is that today's China is not really socialist. China actually has a very Republican economy. Low taxes, and lots of emphasis on business development and market economy. Anything but socialism. But the ancient tendency for leaders to "point to a deer and call it a horse" prevails. So we cannot say "capitalism." We must call it, "socialism with Chinese characteristics."

Labels: Capitalism vs Socialism, Confucius, National Day

Back in Beihai. Flew in last night from Beijing. Don't tell anyone, but I accidentally stole the safety instructions from the Airbuss 320 when we changed planes in Changsha. It somehow got stuck between the pages of the International Herald Tribune that I had stuffed in the chair pocket and grabbed quickly as I was leaving. I don't feel to bad, though. Last year, someone from the airline stole my paper. It was one of those deals where we didn't actually change planes--we just landed in Changsha to drop off and pick up passengers. I had gotten off the plane for a few minutes, and when I got back, my paper was gone. Some over-zealous clean freak had thrown it away.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, except that when I got to Beihai, I forgot to pick up my checked baggage. It was kinda embarrassing, because it is quite a drive from the airport out to the college, and I didn't discover I had left it until we were carrying my stuff into my apartment. The guy who picked me up was very cheerful about it. He immediately took me back to the airport, which, unfortunately, was closed by that time. So, we had to go out there this morning and get it. Disgusting. If I added up all the time I have wasted in my life going back to get something that I have forgotten the first time...I don't even want to think about it.

In other news, I started a podcast. The first program features some friendly folks from the English Corner discussing the question, "What do Chinese people believe?"

For those of you who may not be too familiar with podcasting, there are three ways to deal with podcasts:

1. You can listen online directly.

2. You can download the .mp3 file to your hard drive.

3. You can install free podcasting software which will manage the download(s) for you.

If you have a fast internet connection, and don't want to store the files, the first option might be best for you. If you don't have a very good connection, or you want to transfer the .mp3 to an Ipod or .mp3 player, you could chose the second option. If you listen to a number of podcasts (as I do), you may want to consider the third option, because you don't have to go to the web site for each podcast and download the file. Your podcasting software will visit the web sites for the podcasts you have subscribed to, check for the latest program for each podcast, and download it automatically.

Labels: Christianity, Confucius, Religion

10:10 PM 2/5/2004

Had an interesting talk with Adam this evening. I ran into him at the Lush. I had gone there to study, but they had scheduled a dance, so it was not condusive to study. So I gave up studying and spent some time talking with him and an American economics professor. Adam is from Sichuan Province in the western part of China. He has never been to the United States, but would like to go there to study. He noticed my interest in Chinese history, and particularly commented on a book I had by Lin Yutang. Lin Yutang is actually more of a philosopher than an historian. I told him that I thought Lin Yutang was a very talented writer, but that his western education had influenced his philosophy considerably. To be sure, he is Chinese, and he is widely regarded as the person who, more than anyone else, helped to explain Chinese thinking to the West. He was educated in the West, he spent many years in the West, and he writes in English for a Western audience. But, as I told Adam, my frustration with Lin Yutang is that his education was so western that he sometimes sounds like a run-of-the-mill American professor.

Both Adam and I agreed that "orthodox" thinking in China is essentially Confucian. During the cold war, many in the west came to believe that the key to understanding China (and other eastern countries) was to understand Marxism). But that was a mistake. Mao himself patterned himself after the Qin emperor, and all the rage and fury of the Cultural Revolution did not put as much as a dent in the pervasiveness of Confucian thinking. I expressed my frustration that in America, it is very easy to study the history of China for the last 200 years, but very, very hard to find books (in English) on the dynasties which proceded what we commonly know as "Modern China." Adam agreed, but he said that in many ways the history of Modern China is more important. Perhaps, but I still believe that understanding the history of transition from one dynasty to another throughout the thousands of years of Chinese history is critical to understanding how Modern China came to be what it is. From an historical perspective, the end of a dynasty is seen as a tragedy. The Qing dynasty is a good example of this. During the Qing dynasty, China was ruled by the Manchus. They were essentially foreigners, not Han Chinese. But there is really nothing unusual about that. The Han people have not historically conquered their foes by fighting them off, but by absorbing them. Beijing is actually a good place to study history, since Beijing has ruled China for six dynasties. The only city which exceeds this is Xian, which was the seat of power for twelve dyanasties. It's just really hard, with such a long history, to get a grasp on consistant patterns of history without doing a tremendous amount of reading. Part of this can be circumvented by reading the four classic novels. I have read "Outlaws of the Marsh" (actually about three-fourths of it--I got kinda bored after the vigilantes made up with the Emperor), and now I am reading "The Three Kingdoms." But in addition to this, I am reading a biography of Deng Xiaoping by his daughter. Adam noticed a quote I had underlined. Deng's daughter says,

"Happiness always contains some hardship;
within hardship there is always a little joy.
As long as you do your best to adjust to your
environment, life will provide you with compensation."

She is talking about the Cultural Revolution, when her father was placed under house arrest by Mao. Her book is a fasinating portrait of the one man who, perhaps more than any other, gives credibility to Adam's statement about the importance of modern history. Fortunately (both for him and for China), Deng was spared the fate of Liu Xiaoqi. Nevertheless, the man who would change the face of China--whose economic reforms would one day lift more than 250 million people out of poverty--was forced to live under very spartan conditions. He was confined to his home except in the morning, when he worked in a local factory as a fitter. It is an enlightening thing to watch how he handled his period of disfavor. Gives new meaning to what Solomon said twice in the Book of Proverbs, "before honour is humility."

Labels: Confucius, Deng Xiaoping, Dynasties, Qing Dynasty