In 1751, Zheng Banqiao wrote his famous calligraphy Nande hutu (难得糊涂; "It's difficult to be muddled"). Inquiries into the calligraphy reveal different dimensions of the saying. Its most popular ...interpretation can be found in self-improvement books on "the art of being muddled" (hutuxue). What academic, official, and popular discourses on the saying have in common is their dialectical reasoning and frequent references to other popular related sayings, to quotes from the ancient classics, and to ancient heroes and historical figures. This issue will explore a few interpretations of the saying. Some prove to be critical with regard to the application of its underlying wisdom, while others focus on its philosophical (Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist), psychological, and/or sociocultural dimension. This issue will also shed light on its pragmatic interpretation as a popular strategy to navigate more positively through life.
Chinese Happiness Matthyssen, Mieke
Chinese Discourses on Happiness,
01/2019
Book Chapter
Publicly planting a wishing tree where people can write down their wishes and worries on paper leaves can be a rewarding way to investigate about their level of happiness. This is what Gerard Lemos ...did in China in 2007, in the area of Chongqing, obtaining valuable results from respondents of different ages.¹ In the book he wrote about this experiment, he concludes that “Deng Xiaoping’s new China had created a dream in the 1980s, but a dream for others. For most people, the dream, so quick to take shape, had just as swiftly died” (Lemos 2012, 81). Indeed, decades of
Chinese Happiness Matthyssen, Mieke
Chinese Discourses on Happiness,
02/2019
Book Chapter
Following decades of disorientating economic, social and societal changes, the Chinese self-help market flourishes. These self-help sources contain many popular sayings that represent wisdoms of life ...strongly rooted in Daoist and Confucian cosmology and ethics, such as constant change and cyclic thinking, and moral self-cultivation. Such sayings often contain a dialectical phrasing using opposites, and reflect the typically Chinese perceptions of happiness (fu), contentment (zu), and joy (le). They also offer concrete advice on how to navigate happily and smoothly through life. On the one hand, they embody individual strategies for coping with conflicts, failure, grief, powerlessness, and the quirks of fate. On the other hand, these sayings emphasize the importance of harmonizing interpersonal relations (zuo ren). This chapter argues that such popular philosophies are an essential part of today’s folk psychology and popular health discourse, and will lay bare not only their ancient philosophical, but also their psycho-social dimensions.
U članku se tvrdi da je tradicionalno kinesko društvo karakterizirala “struktura dijela i cjeline” u kojoj se vrijednost pojedinca mjerila prema njegovoj vrijednosti za društvo. U Europi, počevši od ...sredine petnaestog stoljeća, razvilo se društvo kojeg je karakterizirala “struktura jednog i mnogih”. U takvome društvu pojedinac slobodno bira u koje se organizacije uključuje. Čovjek se počeo smatrati kreativnim djelatnikom u povijesti a osobna sloboda shvaćena je kao nužan preduvjet za kreativno djelovanje. Usporedno s razvojem kapitalizma, suvremeno kinesko društvo obilježava pomak od tradicionalne “strukture dijela i cjeline” prema “strukturi jednog i mnogih”. Analizirajući neka osobna stajališta pojedinaca te internetskih autora, u članku se istražuje promjena mjesta pojedinca u suvremenom kineskom društvu.
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