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Calling the tune in time with the money
By Wan Lixin |
July 30, 2009, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ON a weekend trip on the No. 995 bus line, my six-year-old son found himself in a totally new bus.
With the pride akin to that of an owner, he began to count the number of new No. 995 buses from the other direction, and at the end of his journey announced that the whole fleet have been replaced.
"What happened to the old 995s?" He asked. The "old" was actually still new, even by Shanghai standards.
I wished to know too.
Late this March when the new bus management authority in Pudong announced a "renationalization" drive to highlight bus service's "public service" nature, there was talk of redesigning the bus exterior so as to "greet World Expo in a unified, standardized image."
But a total replacement has little to do with "public service," and has more to do with shoveling public money to bus makers.
Like all reforms promoted in the name of "public good," this one too has fallen into the clutches of market forces.
It sets me thinking about the discrepancy between what people claim to be doing, and what they are actually doing.
This discrepancy is not just observed among bus management, but also among professions that we once assumed to be above suspicion.
For instance, professors are found to be stealing from their colleagues, lawyers are guilty of bribing judges, surgeons are robbing patients.
This suggests an utter failure of our education, in which the first teachings should be: thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not lie.
A total lack of dignity and pride even in professions once held in high esteem can be explained in terms of our recent past.
We often speak of scholars educated early last century with unbounded admiration, not only for their academic excellence, but also for their personality and character, their integrity, and their sense of duty and loyalty.
Many of them as children learned to recite Confucian classics, which were supposed to turn a pupil into a responsible person, namely one who is filial (to parents), trustworthy (to friends), and loyal (to sovereignty).
Inner conflict
Thus, an educated being becomes constitutionally distinctive in mind, temperament and outlook in that he or she is eminently good.
In other words, a school's primary mission is to teach what is right and wrong.
The institution of education made it possible to keep Chinese people in order for thousands of years, not from fear of God, as in Medieval Europe, or the fear of law, as in the West today.
When education fails and turns out professionals (divinity, medicine, lawyers) more eager to make money than to save and heal people or promote social justice, chaos ensues.
We begin to see that knowledge and belief become two discrete things.
And nowhere has this sense of discreteness been so poignantly experienced as by late 19th century Chinese scholars who first received traditional Chinese education, but intended to strengthen the country by learning from Western specialized expertise.
Xie Jian (1883-1960) was one example. He had a solid grounding in Confucian classics, but studied law for six years in Japan early last century in the belief that law could help safeguard social order and justice.
That was definitely a motive that rose above the considerations of moneymaking that inspires would-be lawyers, doctors and teachers today.
He went to Taiwan in 1949. After serving as a teacher, prosecutor, lawyer, and administrator, he decided that the law had degenerated into a mere tool for making a living.
And law solely as a means of making a living couldn't engage his heart and feelings and give him calmness of mind and temper.
Gone were the happy union of heart and head, and after experiencing the vicissitudes of life and personal bereavement, Xie took refuge in Buddhism.
He remarked in his late life, "For years I had to appear frequently in court as a lawyer, shuttling between Taipei, Tainan ... Kaohsiung ... day and night, rain or shine, and what's the sense of it? In one word, all for the purpose of feeding ourselves, and that is little different from chicken and ducks."
Another internationally known Chinese legal expert John Wu Ching-hsiung (1899-1988), after finding he could no longer be consoled by the practice law, in later life found himself translating the New Testament into Chinese, and Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching into English.
As scholar Chien Mu observes, this inner conflict among true Chinese stems from how education is perceived by Chinese and Westerners.
"Chinese education begins from filial piety, loyalty and faithfulness, while Western education seeks to obtain riches and power. One emphasizes inner feelings, while the other stresses external forces," he wrote.
Body and soul
Consequently, a true Chinese cannot be viewed independent of his personality and character, while Western academic inquiry can exist in its own right, as something distinct from personal life, which can even be seen as part of "privacy."
Lao Tzu said, "True wisdom is different from much learning, and much learning means little wisdom." As a matter of fact, heart should always take precedence over head.
What distinguishes scholars today from Xie and Wu is that many scholars and professionals today have been purged of their soul, which enables them not to be discomforted by a soulless existence.
When students began to justify their choice of specialties by their moneymaking prospects and take undiluted delight in their "success," when even Chinese scholars - paragons of moral values and last custodians of code of ethics - begin to steal, we should not be much surprised at the little double-talk employed by the Pudong bus management to whitewash its mercenary intentions.
With the pride akin to that of an owner, he began to count the number of new No. 995 buses from the other direction, and at the end of his journey announced that the whole fleet have been replaced.
"What happened to the old 995s?" He asked. The "old" was actually still new, even by Shanghai standards.
I wished to know too.
Late this March when the new bus management authority in Pudong announced a "renationalization" drive to highlight bus service's "public service" nature, there was talk of redesigning the bus exterior so as to "greet World Expo in a unified, standardized image."
But a total replacement has little to do with "public service," and has more to do with shoveling public money to bus makers.
Like all reforms promoted in the name of "public good," this one too has fallen into the clutches of market forces.
It sets me thinking about the discrepancy between what people claim to be doing, and what they are actually doing.
This discrepancy is not just observed among bus management, but also among professions that we once assumed to be above suspicion.
For instance, professors are found to be stealing from their colleagues, lawyers are guilty of bribing judges, surgeons are robbing patients.
This suggests an utter failure of our education, in which the first teachings should be: thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not lie.
A total lack of dignity and pride even in professions once held in high esteem can be explained in terms of our recent past.
We often speak of scholars educated early last century with unbounded admiration, not only for their academic excellence, but also for their personality and character, their integrity, and their sense of duty and loyalty.
Many of them as children learned to recite Confucian classics, which were supposed to turn a pupil into a responsible person, namely one who is filial (to parents), trustworthy (to friends), and loyal (to sovereignty).
Inner conflict
Thus, an educated being becomes constitutionally distinctive in mind, temperament and outlook in that he or she is eminently good.
In other words, a school's primary mission is to teach what is right and wrong.
The institution of education made it possible to keep Chinese people in order for thousands of years, not from fear of God, as in Medieval Europe, or the fear of law, as in the West today.
When education fails and turns out professionals (divinity, medicine, lawyers) more eager to make money than to save and heal people or promote social justice, chaos ensues.
We begin to see that knowledge and belief become two discrete things.
And nowhere has this sense of discreteness been so poignantly experienced as by late 19th century Chinese scholars who first received traditional Chinese education, but intended to strengthen the country by learning from Western specialized expertise.
Xie Jian (1883-1960) was one example. He had a solid grounding in Confucian classics, but studied law for six years in Japan early last century in the belief that law could help safeguard social order and justice.
That was definitely a motive that rose above the considerations of moneymaking that inspires would-be lawyers, doctors and teachers today.
He went to Taiwan in 1949. After serving as a teacher, prosecutor, lawyer, and administrator, he decided that the law had degenerated into a mere tool for making a living.
And law solely as a means of making a living couldn't engage his heart and feelings and give him calmness of mind and temper.
Gone were the happy union of heart and head, and after experiencing the vicissitudes of life and personal bereavement, Xie took refuge in Buddhism.
He remarked in his late life, "For years I had to appear frequently in court as a lawyer, shuttling between Taipei, Tainan ... Kaohsiung ... day and night, rain or shine, and what's the sense of it? In one word, all for the purpose of feeding ourselves, and that is little different from chicken and ducks."
Another internationally known Chinese legal expert John Wu Ching-hsiung (1899-1988), after finding he could no longer be consoled by the practice law, in later life found himself translating the New Testament into Chinese, and Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching into English.
As scholar Chien Mu observes, this inner conflict among true Chinese stems from how education is perceived by Chinese and Westerners.
"Chinese education begins from filial piety, loyalty and faithfulness, while Western education seeks to obtain riches and power. One emphasizes inner feelings, while the other stresses external forces," he wrote.
Body and soul
Consequently, a true Chinese cannot be viewed independent of his personality and character, while Western academic inquiry can exist in its own right, as something distinct from personal life, which can even be seen as part of "privacy."
Lao Tzu said, "True wisdom is different from much learning, and much learning means little wisdom." As a matter of fact, heart should always take precedence over head.
What distinguishes scholars today from Xie and Wu is that many scholars and professionals today have been purged of their soul, which enables them not to be discomforted by a soulless existence.
When students began to justify their choice of specialties by their moneymaking prospects and take undiluted delight in their "success," when even Chinese scholars - paragons of moral values and last custodians of code of ethics - begin to steal, we should not be much surprised at the little double-talk employed by the Pudong bus management to whitewash its mercenary intentions.
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