The Life Story of Confucius | Tea with Erping

You may have noticed that there is one man whose words of wisdom often appear in my YouTube videos and social media images. I think it's about time that I pay my tribute to this legendary man, which is why I made this episode. Dubbed the Uncrowned King, the founder of ancient Chinese philosophy, and whose teachings are observed by nearly a quarter of humanity, ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, Confucius. Welcome to Tea with Erping. In case you are not familiar with Confucius' quotes and have the thought of Confucius who? Is he an ancient Chinese man who invented Confucian? Allow me to recite a few of his famous words, and I'm sure you would have heard at least one of them, somewhere and somehow. Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. Indeed, interest in Confucius' teachings and philosophy seems to be only growing both in and out of China. More people are following his beliefs on being a junzi, translated to English as the demeanor of a perfect gentleman. Such a noble and superior man is not a ruler of inferior subjects, but rather a moral person who lives by his character and conduct. Confucius was born on September 28, 551 BC in the year known in Chinese history as the Spring-Autumn Period. His home was in Zhou, or the modern-day Shandong province. This area was controlled by the kings of Zhou dynasty. But was effectively independent under the local lords of Lu kingdom. He was born into the class of Shi, which is a class between the aristocracy and the common people. They are what western society would claim as knights of a kingdom. His father, Kong He, also known as Shu Liang He, was an elderly commandant of a garrison in eastern China. His ancestry traced back through the Dukes of Song to the Shang dynasty, traditional accounts of Confucius' life relate that his great-grandfather migrated the family from the Song kingdom to the Lu kingdom. Confucius' father died when he was three years old, so he was raised by his mother, Yan Zhengzai, in poverty. His mother passed away before she was 40 years of age. At the age of 19, Confucius married Lady Qi Guan, and a year later, the couple had their first child, a son named Kong Li. They also had two daughters, one of whom is thought to have died as a child, another named Kong Jiao. Confucius was educated in a school for commoners where he studied and learned the six arts, the basic education of ancient Chinese culture. It includes learning writing, music, archery, territory, calligraphy, and mathematics. During the era in which Confucius lived, China enjoyed no political unity and suffered from the warfare among small states, remnants of the once great Zhou dynasty that collapsed after the barbarian invasions in 771 BC, for more than 300 years since Confucius' birth. The Chinese would fight each other for control of the empire left behind by the Zhou dynasty. In the process, life became difficult, especially for the Shi class that Confucius belonged to. Who lost their jobs as their feudal lords, were defeated in battles and fell into poverty. The knowledge of aristocratic traditions, however, was valuable to competing kings. Who wished to learn how to regain the unity imposed by the Zhou dynasty, they sought to emulate the Zhou culture such as its court rituals and other institutions. Thus, a new role for the Shi class as antiquarians emerged. In such roles, these knights found themselves in and out of office as the fortunes of various patron states ebbed and flowed. Confucius held office for only a short time before withdrawing into scholarly retirement. While out of office, veteran knights might gather small circles of disciples, young men from the Shi class backgrounds, who wished to succeed in public life. It's precisely such master and disciple exchanges between Confucius and his students that the Analects of Confucius claims to record. The Analects, traditionally known in Chinese culture and history as Lunyu, is an ancient Chinese book composed of an extensive collection of sayings and ideas attributed to Confucius and his teachings, compiled and written by his disciples. This book often reminds me of the writings by Plato, who recorded the dialogues of his teacher, Interestingly, Confucius and his mentor Lao Tzu lived in about the same era as Plato and his teacher Socrates. Back then, these sages didn't have an iPhone nor the internet to communicate with one another. But they shared much in common in terms of great ideas. For instance, both Socrates and Lao Tzu held that the purpose of man is to return to some original higher state of being. In Plato's words, this is to return to one's original true self. Confucius' Analects was written during the Warring State period and was finalized during the mid-Han Dynasty. By the early Han Dynasty, the Analects was considered merely a commentary on the Five Classics. Still, the status of Analects grew to be one of the central texts of Confucianism by the end of the Han Dynasty. During the late Song Dynasty, the importance of Analects as a philosophical work was raised above that of the old Five Classics and was recognized as one of the Four Books. The Analects has been one of the most widely read and studied books in China for the last 2,000 years and continues to have a substantial influence on Chinese and East Asian thought and values today. Its overseas influence is only shy of another book that was actually written in our current day, an original Chinese book that holds the record of having the most translated version in the world. The book is called Zhuan Fa Lun, a top 10 bestseller already back in 1996 according to the Beijing News Daily. Look it up if you're interested. It's a book that teaches spiritual enlightenment through practicing the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance in our daily life. Back to the Analects, its central theme can be summarized by his belief that a country's welfare depends on its people's moral cultivation. Beginning with the nation's leadership, individuals could begin to cultivate an all-encompassing sense of virtue through Ren, roughly translated as being altruistic. And the most basic step to cultivating Ren was devotion to one's parents and older siblings, in current terms, filial piety. Confucius taught that one's desires need not to be suppressed, but that people should be educated to reconcile their desires via rituals and forms of propriety, through which people could demonstrate their respect for others and their responsible roles in society. Confucius taught that a ruler's sense of virtue was his primary prerequisite for leadership. His primary goal in educating his students was to produce ethically well-cultivated men who would carry themselves according to traditional moral values, speak wisely and truthfully, and demonstrate righteousness in all aspects of life. In sum, central to Confucian teachings are five moral codes. For thousands of years, Confucius has been regarded as a symbol of China's traditional culture, but was denounced by Mao Zedong, founder of the PRC, as a regressive pedant and a feudal during the Cultural Revolution. As part of the anti-Confucius campaign, Red Guards destroyed the Temple of Confucius and vandalized Confucius' cemetery. Traditional Confucian values such as filial piety and living in harmony were acted against to the extremes. These values were deemed to be inferior, and citizens were encouraged to turn against each other through betrayal and violence. China expert Anne Thurston of the Johns Hopkins University described it to be a period of an extreme situation characterized by loss of culture and spiritual values, loss of status and honor, loss of career, loss of dignity. The Cultural Revolution dismantled China's ancient belief systems. And the economic revolution that followed could not rebuild them. Economic prosperity was not enough to define the ultimate purpose of the nation and the people. The authorities have now urged people to forget the tumultuous past. The older generation dare not look back, while the younger generation doesn't have the slightest idea of what went on and tends to have a romanticized view of it. These days, there is a spiritual void in the hearts of the Chinese people, and Confucianism resonates well as they search for the spiritual nourishment they feel is missing in their lives. Now the Communist Party is turning to China's ancient past to draw inspiration from. But the version of Confucius they use is not the same as the original teachings of the Confucius written in the Analogues. The Party is taking a very narrowly defined selection of Confucianism to push ideas for more useful political purposes. For instance, the Communist Party's version of harmony is a society where there is no dissent from Party rule, whereas in Confucian teaching, a harmonious society is where everyone, including the leadership, fulfills their responsibility in a moral way to create a harmonious and prosperous country. Many would agree that current-day China is having the worst moral crisis with immense top-level corruption, widespread fraud, pollution and environmental degradation, and a massive violation of human rights. Confucius stretched compassion, ritual, and duty, while the Party stayed focused on imperial Confucius, which was all about their obedience to the emperor, hierarchy, and loyalty to support their authoritarian rule. By misconstruing Confucian teachings, the Communist Party is making a point that China has its own political culture rooted in past history, fending off Western ideas of democracy and human rights. Other Asian countries that are highly influenced by Confucianism, like South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, have proven that it is possible to uphold Confucianism and be democratic. Pro-democracy advocates in Asia believe that Confucius gave people the right to choose their leadership, and also overthrow a leader who was immoral and tyrannical. Confucius believed that people should do the right thing because it was the right thing to do, and doing the right thing will have a ripple effect through society. In the past decade, China has opened more than 400 Confucianist institutes around the world to teach the Communist version of Chinese language, culture, and history, with controversies arising from these institutes and pressures from the government. By the end of 2021, 104 of the 118 Confucianist institutes that once existed in the United States have closed or are in the process of doing so. I've touched upon this issue in my previous video, Why Should Confucius Be Upside? Kindly take a look. Yet, a recent detailed report by the National Association of Scholars confirms that not a single one of these institutes disappeared. They were just rebranded under a sister university arrangement with universities in China, given a different name, or moved to a different sponsor school. For example, the Confucius Institute at the University of Washington in Seattle was spun off to Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. The Confucius Institute at Western Kentucky University wound up partnering with the county K-12 school system in Simpson County, where it continues to be run by the same people. These American schools continue to receive funding from the Chinese government agencies. The report also highlighted that the Chinese government renamed Hanban, the arm of the Chinese Ministry of Education, to the Ministry of Education Center for Language Exchange and Cooperation. A separate organization called the Chinese International Education Foundation was also established and continues to fund overseas Confucius Institutes and their replacements. The Confucius Institutes, the Southern Talents Program, the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, and many other Chinese government-backed programs came with strings attached. Beijing spends approximately 10 billion dollars a year on these initiatives. In 2010, a Chinese state-run People's Daily article wrote that the Chinese propaganda minister Liu Yunshan said, with regards to key issues We should actively carry out international propaganda battles against issues such as Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, human rights, and Falun Gong. We should do well in establishing and operating overseas culture centers and Confucius Institutes. There are many examples of universities withdrawing invitations to controversial speakers under pressure from Beijing or removing certain publications. In 2014, at an European Association for Chinese Studies conference in Portugal, Han Ban director-general Xu Lin confiscated all the printed programs and ordered pages of advertising of Taiwanese co-sponsors to be removed. After receiving pressure from the Chinese government, Israeli Tel Aviv University closed an art exhibition on Falun Gong, a Buddhist spiritual practice that is ruthlessly persecuted in China. The independent Canadian documentary in the name of Confucius has exposed in detail how Confucius Institutes infiltrate foreign countries. I highly suggest that you watch it on the internet. I came across a China-made blockbuster, a movie, Confucius. It was made to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, as well as the 2560th birthday of Confucius himself. Sadly, I found it to be least entertaining nor inspiring. As an avid student of Chinese history myself, the image of Confucius is one that is filled with wisdom, having less concern with the humanly material gains, let alone lust. He was on the endless journey of perfecting one's moral values. This movie, however, starts out with gory war scenes and depicts a tradition of killing a whole household from wives, children, concubines, and servants when this great master passes away, a tradition that Confucius would never agree upon. After seeing the trailer, Confucius's descendant, Kong Jian, sued the filmmakers and demanded some of the scenes be deleted as they seemed inappropriate. It came as no surprise that Chinese authorities reportedly pulled out the movie Avatar from cinemas all around China and made sure the government-sanctioned Confucius movie was placed as number one. Again, I believe that Confucius would return in his grave had he known what the Communist Party had done in his name these days. For now, I should just get back to my good old classic, The Analects, alongside a cup of green tea and be reminded of how beautiful and profound the teachings of Confucius are. Until next time, peace and tea be with you.