China Archives - Page 83 of 112 - understand-culture

Great Craftsmen of the Nation

During the May Day holiday of 2015, CCTV first broadcast the series Da guo gongjiang, Great Craftsmen of the Nation. In March 2016, Premier Li Keqiang’s Government Work Report used the term gongjiang jingshen, craftsman spirit, for the first time.

One worker the media call a great craftsman is Gao Fenglin, who had worked as an aerospace welder for 35 years by 2015. He calls his job “welding the heart of the rocket.” People’s Daily wrote that he can watch a tiny weld seam for ten minutes without blinking.

The Mean and Harmony

The first chapter of the Doctrine of the Mean: “Before joy, anger, sorrow and delight arise, there is the mean. When they arise and each meets its due measure, there is harmony. The mean is the great root of the world. Harmony is the universal way of the world. When the mean and harmony are fully realized, heaven and earth are in their proper places, and all things flourish.”

Huawei’s Mattresses

At Huawei, the mattress became a symbol. A company text from 2006, titled Heaven Rewards Diligence, describes the origin of Huawei’s chuangdian wenhua, mattress culture. In the words of the business site Jiemian, the mattress stands for “a culture of continuous striving.” Ren Zhengfei once said: “Huawei has no money. If people do not strive, it will collapse. We cannot pay anything for those who do not strive.”

In 2008, Ren played the symbol down. “The mattress is not a culture. Culture can be passed on. A mattress is only a tool for an afternoon nap.”

Enmity Ends in Harmony

The Song philosopher Zhang Zai wrote in Correcting Youthful Ignorance (正蒙): “Where there are images, there are pairs. Each pair acts in opposition. Where there is opposition, there is enmity. Enmity must be resolved through harmony.” In the original, the last line is 仇必和而解.

The philosopher Feng Youlan quoted these four lines in the conclusion of his New History of Chinese Philosophy. Marxist dialectics, he wrote, would accept the first three. “But Marxism would not say the fourth… My guess is that it might say: ‘enmity must be fought to the end.'”

The Ink Pond

In Linchuan, a pond was said to be the ink pond of the calligrapher Wang Xizhi. The Song writer Zeng Gong recorded the legend in his Record of the Ink Pond: “Xizhi admired Zhang Zhi and practiced calligraphy by the pond until its water turned black.” He asked: “Is this really so?”

Zeng Gong was sure of one thing. “Xizhi’s calligraphy became good only late in life. What he could do, he reached through his own effort. It was not a gift of nature.”

The Halls of Harmony

In 1645, the second year of the Shunzhi reign, the three great ceremonial halls of the Forbidden City received the names they still carry. They are the Hall of Supreme Harmony (太和殿), the Hall of Central Harmony (中和殿) and the Hall of Preserving Harmony (保和殿).

Lying Flat

On April 17, 2021, a post titled Lying Flat Is Justice appeared on the forum Baidu Tieba, written by a user called “the good-hearted traveler.” Tangping, lying flat, came to mean withdrawing from fierce competition and no longer striving. It made the lists of the top words of 2021.

In May 2021, Southern Daily answered with a commentary titled “Lying Flat Is Shameful. Where Is the Justice in It?” Xinhua reprinted it.

Harmony at the Olympics

At the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, three thousand performers representing the disciples of Confucius recited a line from the Analects: “Within the four seas, all men are brothers.”

Then a giant movable-type tray of 897 blocks rose. The blocks moved in waves and ripples, and then formed the character 和, harmony, in three scripts: bronze inscription, small seal and regular script.