My Country and my People 吾国与吾民书评

My Country and my People—book review
My Country and my People is written by Lin Yutang, an internationally famous Chinese writer who was conversant with English and had deep understanding of both western and Chinese culture. This book was intended for the westerners who want to have a better understanding of Chinese culture, and who indeed need to have a better understanding of china. The publication of this book was like a bombshell in western countries and in China as well, since it was the first book about china that is written by a serious Chinese who analyzed his culture objectively. This book helps the western understand China and also helps Chinese to reflect on their culture.
This book contains two parts—part one the Bases and part two the Life. The first part “the Bases”focus on the bases of Chinese culture, covering the origin and development of Chinese people, the Chinese character, the Chinese mind and the last chapter Ideals of Life, surveying the mental and moral constitution of Chinese people and the ideals of life which influence the fundamental patterns of life. The second part focuses on the study of Chinese life itself in its sexual, social, political, literary and artistic aspects. Stated briefly, this part covers Chinese women, society, government literature and art. Overall, the book was organized logically.
As the author says in the preface, very few people understood China—the western scholars were so arrogant and viewed China by the western standard, consequently reaching no conclusion other than that China is a barbaric country and the Chinese people is a barbaric people; the Chinese scholars, however, were the same arrogant and proud, unwilling to admit the weakness of Chinese culture, only writing songs of extolling and defending Chinese culture and their pride. We can borrow two famous words from Jane Austin—pride and prejudice, to characterize the attitudes of these Chinese and western scholars. One typical example of extreme pride is Gu Hongming, a famous Chinese scholar and professor of Peking University, who, though conversant with English, German and many other western language, was extremely conservative
and indiscriminately defended everything of Chinese culture. He was unwilling to cut his little braid long after the overthrow of Qing dynasty and keep it all his life.
Except the subjective factors, there were other huge difficulties confronting the scholars in surveying China and Chinese culture—China is so big, with a population of over 400 millions and a vast land over 10 million square kilometer and more than fifty peoples; Chinese culture is so complicated, derived from a five thousand years of uninterrupted history and have no uniform religion that dominant the culture. To have a real understanding of China an Chinese people, one must travel lots of places around the vast country to witness the Chinese people’s life, the farmers, the citizens, the drudge, the vendors, watching them, listening to them, feeling what they are feeling, thinking what they are thinking; one must also spend time in their studies, reading the Chinese classic books and studying the folk literature. It’s hard for a foreign scholar to do all this, considering the language barriers, the lack of Chinese common sense and the huge cultural gap between China and the west. Comparatively speaking, it is much easier for a Chinese scholar, who is born and raised in China, receiving traditional Chinese education and is conversant with both the Chinese classics and folk literature, in one word, he has everything needed to study Chinese culture. But the Chinese scholar must also command scientific method of studying history and culture, which is what the western scholars are good at, and he also need a kind of detachment, that is, he must detach himself from the environment so that he can view the Chinese culture with a cool mind.
Before Lin, there were a few attempts made by both Chinese and foreign scholars to view Chinese culture, but none one their works can be called a success. They either view Chinese one-sidedly, or too subjectively. From the failure of the prior efforts of other scholars derived Lin some important lessons and inspirations, the lessons being viewing Chinese culture from a narrow perspective is impossible and subjective or personal emotions are to be avoided when surveying a culture, the inspiration being the possibility of surveying Chinese culture from a macroscopic view.
Chapter One The Chinese People
Chinese people has survived five thousand years, keeping its vitality and integrity and absorbed in many other minority people, while none of her sisters, the other ancient civilized people—ancient Greek, Ancient India and Ancient Babylon—remains alive today. Generally, a people would start going downhill to extinction after reaching its peak. The Greek is a good example, which reached its peak in about the second and third century but quickly fell down in the fourth century. No nation other than China has survived as long as over five thousand years and still remains a young and vital, for they are doomed to degenerate.
A race or a people may degenerate both in its physical and spiritual aspects. After reaching the peak, a natural tendency of a race is to be indulgent in all kinds of pleasure, with the army left untrained, the official corrupted and the former aspiration and fighting will nowhere to be found. Neither China nor any other nations can avoid this degeneration, but only China survived.
The secret lies in Chinese culture. A fundamental trait of Chinese culture must be moderation, or “the doctrine of gold mean”, which keep reminding Chinese people do not go to extremes under any circumstance—in times of prosperity, do not over indulgent in pleasure but prepare for the pitfalls instead; in times of adversity, do not be overwhelmed with sadness but took another attitude of life and live on. This is a typical Confucian doctrine, deeply ingrained into every Chinese from gentlemen to farmers.
Another cultural characteristic that greatly contributes to the vitality of China is the imperial examination system. It does not only pay a crucial role in the prosperity of culture but also in the stability of the society, because it provides a ladder the
unprivileged class, even the poor farmers, with a ladder along which they can climb into the privileged class, thus there is no eternal up-dog, nor eternal underdog, they take turns to rule the country and enjoy the privilege. Simply speaking, this system guaranteed a equality of opportunity, which is vital for the stability of a society.
The race remains vital for still another reason—the infusion of new blood. From time to time china was conquered by the northern minority people who are better at fighting, but without exception they only contributed to the revitalization of Chinese people and they are finally conquered by the Chinese culture, readily accepting it and becoming part of it. Every infusion of new blood brought something new to the original culture, especially the vitality of a new and ascendant race. The rich culture and advanced feudalism system was always a great magnet for the surrounding minorities and Chinese people inconvincible culturally.
Chapter Two Chinese Character
Mellowness, patience, indifference, old roguery, pacifism, contentment, humor and conservatism are the eight prominent characters of Chinese people. But in the finally they are all originated from a same source—the agricultural economy, or, in still further analysis, the characteristics of natural environment.
The mild climate and vast land make it possible the prosperity of agriculture which finally became the dominant economy. The agriculture always requires a peaceful environment, because unlike nomads, farmers must keep closely attending to their farmland in order to get good harvest and guarantee the continuation of production, thus once a war breaks out their production would be interrupted and their surviving would be seriously threatened. So they need peace, and they love peace, diligently working on their farm and patient waiting for the harvest. And only if there is no war and natural disaster, they can always expect a decent harvest, they are quite content with their peaceful life. Thus there is a general contentment, pacifism, and patience in Chinese people’s mind.
Agricultural production rarely needs any cooperation in large scale and farming is usually a family activity, and the farmers can completely depend on themselves for food and clothing, not needing much interaction with the rest of the society. As a result, they are often not united and are indifferent to anyone other than their family members, only wars and large governmental projects can bring them together. And because of the relatively low interaction between social members, there is no need to make and apply strict laws; just moral is enough to bind the social members. In the tightly organized feudalism system, China was always ruled by man instead of by law. The so called of law were applicable only to common people, not to the rulers or the gentry’s class, just as the old Chinese saying goes: courtesy is not extended to the commoners, and punishment is not served up to the lords. The lack of strict law left people’s civil rights unprotected, and consequently they learned to be mellow, old roguery and indifferent, not willing to break the social convention and offend the authority and incur troubles.
Chapter Three The Chinese Mind
A prominent characteristic of Chinese mind is great intelligence. The ordinary Chinese usually have great common sense and wisdom. If you go to a 18th century factory district or slum in the west you are very likely to meet some husky animals with big jaw, low forehead and brute strength. But if you go to the countryside of the Chinatown which is mostly resided by Chinese coolies, you will see a different type, with intelligent eyes and cheerful appearance and eminently reasonable temperament.
Chinese people can easily be trained to be highly skilled workers in any field, they are quick learners. Chinese merchant have prospered in the Malay State, in the East Indies, chiefly because their intelligence has been greater than the native, and because of the virtues coming from intelligence, such as thrift, steady industry and
farsightedness. In western countries such as America, Chinese people are referred to as the yellow peril, because the American Chinese people are usually diligent, thrifty and smart, often winning the job opportunity and market from the native people.
Intelligent as they are, Chinese minds have several fatal weaknesses—lack of scientific spirit, bad at logic. Overall, Chinese mind is feminine, which are good at common sense and intuition but bad at scientific research and logic. The western know things through experiments, while Chinese know things through intuition of mere contemplating. In spite of a five thousand-year development, China does not have modern mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and so forth, instead the have Chinese medicine and a Confucian school of idealist philosophy of the Song and Ming Dynasties.
The great intelligence of Chinese mind is the result the cultural heritage of five thousand years’ history, while the lack of scientific spirit and logic is a product of the agricultural economy and the Confucian doctrine that slights techniques. There was no impetus or stimulus for the development of techniques and science, and the Confucian doctrine has also hindered or repressed the development science and technology. Though China had an advanced talent selection system, namely the imperial examination system, the examinations only focused on literature and common sense, making no contribution to the development of technology, which was generally thought to be the stuff of the craftsmen who were much inferior to the scholars in social status.
In modern times, when the dominant economy of China is no longer agriculture and the Confucian doctrines have long been discarded , Chinese people are catching up with the west in every scientific field with incredible speed, and we have every reason to believe that in the foreseeable future, China will be playing a leading role in science and technology.
(余下几章没来得及完成)。