chinese philosophy – Learn Chinese with Me

I Am Sorry!

Published on April 24, 2023 by Zhi-Juan Guo

–So what do you mean when you say you are sorry?

Confucius to Chinese is very much like Christianity to Westerners: It has been there and it has been there for a while. And even you have not read the book of its creeds. It’s so prevalent in culture, in language and in everyday life that you could not pick up a book that has not dyed by its color in one way or another. It’s in the air you breathe. It’s in the words you speak. It’s in your mind in the way you think.

One big concept of Confucius is that everyone has its place in a family: a father has a father’s place and a son a son’s; a husband has his place and a wife hers.

Confucius expressed it so well that everyone knows his duty and right and what to do in his place.

He looks at the family and puts everyone in its proper place. Then he looks at the nation and tells everyone too has his right place in a nation.

That’s one of the reasons that a feudal government has been able to thrive and exist in China for so long and be so successful, and in the end, indeed, it died hard and left China in a desolate situation.

For if each one knows his place and no one steps over the borderline, there is no fear of rebellion or riots.

The control starts from the very beginning. A Chinese man, sadly, is never a free man. From the moment he was born, he is a son and supposed to take up a son’s duty. And all the sons in China, even today, not many could step out of that heavy duty to be a son but at the same time his own person.

So first thing first, in a Chinese society, is to know your place.

But what does it have to do with the topic you bring up today? I hear you say.

Well. It has everything to do with it. “Sorry” in Chinese is “对不起 dui4buqi3.”

Which if literally translated means: to face(you) I will not rise; I bow to you; I put myself lower to you; I feel ashamed.

If the English word “sorry” means “sorrow”, it means that I feel what you feel, and I feel your sorrow.

The Chinese man when he says “I am sorry”, he means ” I put myself lower than you. I am ashamed. It’s my fault. I have done something wrong.”

So now would you imagine a funeral scene? The Western guy says to the Chinese man who has lost a family member: “I am sorry.”

And what would the Chinese man say?

Would he say what I have said so many times to the westerners who would say–with a sympathizing tone–“I am sorry” when I told about some mishaps in my life?

“But it’s not your fault!”

Magic it up

Published on August 14, 2022August 17, 2022 by Zhi-Juan Guo

—-How Chinese Characters were created? Part Two

It all started with drawing. But there is only so much you could draw. Pretty soon, the Chinese man realized that he has to come up with other ways to make characters.

The first idea is easy enough: signs. Human knows how to use sign language long before they know how to speak, let alone to know the complicated system of written language. So when you point up it means up, and when you point down it means down.

As it’s easy to tell this one means “down”.

But even with this brilliant idea, the Chinese man sees that there are still an awful amount of characters he needs to create.

He thinks. He muses. He sighs. At last he sees before him, a man is putting a hand above his eyes, and even unconsciously, he looks at what that man is looking at, as if the man himself has told him “look!”

“Ah!” He thinks aloud. “I already have the character for ‘hand’ the character for ‘eyes’. If I put the hand above the eyes…..”

Do you still remember the symbol for “hand”?

How about the drawing for “eyes”?

So what about putting a hand above your eyes?

What are you looking for? Yes. That’s the character for “look”.

So with this method, he managed to make many more characters:

He sees one man at the heels of another man.

“That means ‘follow’.” he says to himself.

He sees the sun and he sees the full moon.

“One illuminates the day, the other the night. They are both bright.” He again muses to himself.

And a person waving his arms, with one foot on the ground, the other striding out means “walk”.

There is something joyful and vibrating in the character. For one could tell the walking man is cheerful.

The close relationship between the Chinese and agriculture also shows in the characters, as words like “ox”, “goat” “pig” were the first created characters. So the concept that “the man begs food from the earth” was illustrated even in characters. As an inland country with a vast continent, the Chinese were not, roughly speaking, an ultra adventurous race: there was always land enough to plough and it never was worth one’s while to go to the sea and very likely get drowned. Even the word “water” is unlike the English word which shares the same root from “wave” of the sea. In Chinese the word “water”, instead of sea water, is from the river, and it flows with amazing tranquility and elegance.