Confucious
HDCS6 who-is-at jetson.uh.edu
Thu, 07 Dec 1995 16:42:53 -0600 (CST)
Angel and Phillip's comments about Confucious lead to an interesting
idea in terms of how we perceive culture. My wife grew up in mainland
China during the cultural revolution. I have always been a little
interested in Confucious so I asked her about the effect his teachings
have had on her life. She told me that Confucious was never discussed
during her growing up. As a matter of fact he was never mentioned.
He does so many interesting things, but his views can also be seen
as harshly patriarchal on both a family and a social level. Then I
said that Confucious then has not had much of an effect on her life.
She replied no, that the teachings of Confucious was probably one of
the major center pieces of her life. That even though it was never
discussed, and it never was taught to her (and I mean this in the
most extreme sense, remember this was during the cultural revolution)
that she knew it was one of the central tenets of her lifestyle. She
had no control over it, and her social system had no immediate control
over it. She never thinks about Confucianism, but it is always there
as a part of her life. This is really well reflected in the movie.
Confucious is never mentioned. The phrase instead is mumbled between
two old friends during a drunken stupor...and I believe it is attributed
to a cooking teacher. To me the whole movie is about this omnipresent
status of humanity that is never mentioned, but somehow survives every
modern onslaught. What is this all about? And is Philip right, is
there nothing parallel to this in Western culture?
Michael Glassman
University of Houston