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Happy Confucius' (551 BC-479 BC) 2566th's Birthday !
Happy Teacher's Day. Hopefully, everyday...
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David Frazer Life leads the thoughtful man on a path of many windings. Now the course is checked, now it runs straight again. Here winged thoughts may pour freely forth in words, there the heavy burden of knowledge must be shut away in silence. But when two people are at one in the inmost hearts they shatter even the strength of iron or of bronze. And when two people understand each other in their inmost hearts their words are sweet and strong, like the fragrance of orchids.
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Crystal Huang An interesting fact: China changed her Teacher's Day- Sept.10 which was around the beginning of the fall semester to Sept 28 - Confucius' Birthday.
Taiwan has observed Confucius' birthday as Teacher's Day for many decades. Now, both China and Taiwan celebrate on the day day, starting in 2014.
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Crystal Huang During China's Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), this cultural and teacher paragon - Confucius- was iconoclastically "purged" as a reactionary. Now, as the world changes, Confucius "has been resurrecting" in China as a value-added cultural icon to the Capitalistic-Communist regime.
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David Frazer Just heard a BBC radio show on huge new find of texts in the Gobi desert, sounds very exciting.
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David Frazer The superior man abides in his room. If his words are well spoken, he meets with assent at a distance of more than a thousand miles. How much more then from near by! If the superior man abides in his room and his words are not well spoken, he meets with contradiction at a distance of more than a thousand miles. How much more then from near by! Words go forth from one's own person and exert their influence on men. Deeds are born close at hand and become visible far away. Words and deeds are the hinge and bowspring of the superior man. As hinge and bowspring move, they bring honor or disgrace. Through words and deeds the superior man moves heaven and earth . Must one not, then, be cautious?
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Crystal Huang A quick and brief of Confucius and Mao in 2 minutes (could be my own biases, though I am trying to be neutral...): To understand Confucius' historical status, the time machine needs to be rewound back to the chaotic Spring-Autumn and the Warring States of his time. The desire of social order and socio-economic stability was yearned by the suffering mass and some empathetic intellectuals. His theories and practices were based on Structural-Functional Perspective (haha, again, via my Sociological Imagination!) which was supported and "Propagandized" by the later Ruling Elites throughout many Dynasties (over 2 thousand years) to consolidate power structure, resources and opportunities into the hands of a small dominant royal, aristocratic, and socio-economic privileged groups.
Such repressive socio-political system accumulated much silenced grievance throughout centuries. Not until Mao surged as a "Revolutionary" Messiah did the Tsunami change actually happen. During the Cultural Revolution, any school of thoughts if not fitting into the Marx-Lenin's "Revolutionary" box, would be "exterminated"... Unfortunately, Confucius' theories and ideologies were so much re-manufactured into protecting the Rich, the Powerful and the Privileged class and perpetuating the social inequality by oppressing the poor mass for so long...
Mao picked up Confucius and chopped him into pieces as a symbol to vindicate the historical repression by the upper class (地富反壞右) to gain the support from the powerless mass - (農工兵幹革), Surely, he himself then had taken on the ROCK-STAR-SUPER idolized Political Icon status for many decades and killed ["bad guys", according to this Messiah,] more than any rulers in the human history. Correct me if I am wrong...
Note: The charm and danger of all sorts of ideologies, in the long run, whether from the right to the left wingers, in particular, the idealistic, passionate ones, have to face the blind-spotted human nature in the specific environment - the visible and invisible forces embedded in the micro-bio-psychology (the "unique" individual's histrionic propensity) tangoing with the macro socio-economic conditions (historical opportunities) where power, status, or wealth hypnotically emerging and turning into the essences of the conscious or unconscious driving forces.
The world is a well-scripted stage that only allows the theatrical actors/actresses to lead the human drama, to entertain the audience, and to bring the mass into trance - for better or worse into future.
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David Frazer Warring States period, properly so called?
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Crystal Huang As to me, since I am a teacher, unavoidably, happy to see there is a day attributed to teacher's work recognized as an important part of social construction to cultivate/concern human quality, future, and hopes ....! Why not? Hopefully, everyday is Teacher's Day without worrying the "Right to Work" via strikes or picketing in order to care a future of a nation... something like that.
Aren't teachers/instructors important to a humanized or civic society to keep humanity going?
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Crystal Huang To be honest, having been an educator both in Taiwan and the US., I need to confess, being an instructor in the US is a 10-times harder, and tremendously more challenging job than that of in Taiwan.... Why, one of the complex reasons, seemingly and ambivalently speaking....perhaps... respect - is "less expensive and easier" to earn in Taiwan than in the US !?? I might be wrong - just a personal bias, maybe.
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Crystal Huang Confucius' theories and practices had maintained the ethics and proper human relationship (power structure) of family, economy and political order for more than two thousand years diffusing into several Asian societies (Taiwan, China Mainland, and other regions, such as other Far-Eastern and South-East Asian countries), a cradle of cultural hub similar to the Mesopotamia, Hellenistic culture, and the Hindu core...
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Crystal Huang So what is Confucianism? In brief: it is a complex and well integrated human relational system regulating human interactions in a hierarchical fashion to sustain social order or in "equilibrium". Now, since this is Teacher's Day, let's share something about Confucius' business... To be honest again, he is a truly a great teacher. Most of the modern teaching philosophy, pedagogy, andragogy, curriculum and instruction, as well as the rest of "Lesson Plans" can be traced back to his loving and caring teaching for his students who were about 3000 of the total enrollment throughout his life. Can you see how the "smaller class size worked for him and his students, surely 2000+ years ago? The smallest one had been only 2 students in a classroom (proof: 顏淵, 季路伺. 曷各言爾志? Short translation: Students Yen and Lu attended the class. Confucius said "Would you two guys sharing the career plan?" grin emoticon!) These students, mainly came from the ruling and the aristocratic class, except ONE, a very intelligent but extremely poor student- 顏回 whom Confucius liked very much. Unfortunately, 顏淵 died very young that truly broke Confucius' heart (social class and life expectancy... correlation??)
Ironic, wasn''t it, Confucius propounded the equal opportunity for education (almost free, 自備束脩以上 = just a couple of dried fish to show the D2L would be enough for the whole semester's tution, no matter rich or poor), applying flipped classroom, all face-to-face (no online, no MOOCs, no hybrid, no BYOD, no any fancy digital gadgets... ), no student loans, no expensive textbooks, nor magnificent bricks and mortar shiny school buildings... he only ended up enrolling ONE POOR student among the 3000+.....
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Crystal Huang A conclusion of my monologue: Education promotes humanity... as well as perpetuating social inequality?? Does it ring a bell, now, today...?
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David Frazer Not that you would need this one but very interesting program, extremely wide scope www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03qf7qx
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Crystal Huang Thanks, David. Football time, Monday night! - some friends call me redneck... haha... Wish us luck!
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David Frazer For liking it, or disliking it? I basically understand the game, not my favorite, enough to fulfill social obligations.
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Crystal Huang Life without football is "miserable", while, with football is intolerable smile emoticon! - Crystal, a modern redneck's confession.
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David Frazer Decadent western bourgeois deviation.
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Crystal Huang Redneck Decadent ?? tongue emoticon!
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黃麗月 黃老師-----教師節快 樂!See Translation
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Crystal Huang Sister 麗月, is everyone safe? Hope Typhoon (tropical cyclone or hurricane) Dojuan 杜鵑 won't hit too hard...... http://www.weather.com/.../tropical-storm-typhoon-dujuan...
Tropical Storm Dujuan a Typhoon Threat to Japan's Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, China…
WEATHER.COM
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黃麗月 平安!See Translation
