[Bin He]

The samurai, quoting from Confucian ethics, is to eat the rice of the lord of the king, and must resolutely abide by the absolute obedience of the lower to the upper. Although the chaos of "down against the upper" appeared in the Warring States period, this relationship of absolute obedience did not result Weakening is only a step-by-step strengthening, until the establishment of the Edo Shogunate, the ethics and morals of the samurai were institutionalized, so the national character of obedience has penetrated into the bones of the Japanese at this time.

A high recognition and obedience to the collective is one of the core contents of Japanese values. In contemporary Japan, it is not surprising if you see long queues during peak periods, but no one jumps in.

 

[Bin He]

Before Murasaki's death, empress Mingshi wrote: "everything is like autumn dew, not long in the wind.". Who said that the perishable, only grass edge frost? I think this poem just interprets another aesthetics embodied in the tale of Genji -- the beauty of impermanence. Impermanence is originally a Buddhist term. I don't know much about it and don't make any false statement about it. However, the main idea is that the law of all things and all actions in the world will eventually mutate and have no permanent existence [3]. There are some familiar verses in the Vajra Sutra, which are just the verses describing "impermanence": all actions, such as dreams, bubbles, dew and electricity, should be observed in this way. Genji's story has a very obvious mark of being influenced by Buddhism: when the characters (especially women) in the book are unhappy in their lives, most of them break away from the world, escape from reality, convert to Buddhism and die. There are also some related parts of their deeds in the middle of the year, such as offering sacrifices to Buddha and preaching scriptures. Perhaps because of the influence of religion, Genji's story reveals the acceptance and appreciation of the impermanence of the world.

 

[Bin He]

The chivalry class in Europe is very similar to the samurai class in Japan, which is quite surprising at both ends of Eurasia. The knight class and the warrior class were both produced and formed in the military activities, and their time was similar to that of the middle Tang Dynasty.

The process of its emergence is that the monarch enfeoffs part of the territory in the activities of external war and internal centralization, thus forming a direct or indirect subordinate relationship between the two classes and the monarch. Even the moral evaluation standards of knights and warriors are surprisingly similar, which are based on a certain religion and emphasize loyalty and bravery.

In the later period, the two classes also developed from simple military aristocracy to bureaucrat, and even the modern European aristocracy and the Japanese Chinese also evolved from these two classes.

[Bin He]

With the development of productive forces, human society is gradually moving forward from family, tribe, tribal alliance, nation and unification. Therefore, the political system evolved from alliance, enfeoffment and centralization. In the early human society, it was a small family as a unit. After the family grew, several different families intermarried and gradually formed a larger tribe. The tribes gradually merged into a tribal alliance. The tribal alliance would take turns in power. Finally, the leader of a certain tribe monopolized the power for a long time and finally established a state. Small states submit to big states, and big states recognize the legal status of small states, which is called enfeoffment. In the big states, prefectures and counties were formed, and eventually all the states were unified, and a completely unified system was established, which was centralization.

Before we talk about Japan’s centralization process, we need to talk about China as a benchmark. The abdication of the three emperors and five emperors can be seen as the tribal alliance taking turns in power, and finally Xia Qi established the state, and other states nominally submitted to Xia. With the continuous development of productive forces and the development and possession of land, the system of enfeoffment was formally established in Zhou Dynasty, which institutionalized the management of the subject country. At the same time, its relatives were enfeoffed to establish a new country. Here, the state of Zhou was actually the largest country, and other countries accepted the king of Zhou as the ruler of the world by the force of the largest country. However, King Zhao of Zhou did not return to the south, which greatly weakened the strength of Zhou. King Li and king you eventually lost their states, and King Ping moved eastward. The strength of Zhou was no longer the same as that of other vassal states. But in the spring and Autumn period, the power of the vassal states was limited, so they could only respect the king and seek hegemony. Monarchs generally can only rely on the strength of domestic families to govern the country, leading to monarchs are easily overhead by big families. This is true in Jin and Lu dynasties. After entering the Warring States period, the major countries completed the reform and gradually realized the county system. The county system and the later centralized system, compared with the previous enfeoffment system relying on family governance, is a huge leap. The concept of "public" really established, all families are "private", and the behavior of all officials who are "public" conflicts with the "private" of the family. If we only count Zhou's enfeoffment, it took 800 years from enfeoffment to centralization.

Now let's look at Japan. From the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate to the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, from 1192 to 1868, a total of 676 years. Through the shogunate of the three dynasties, Japan gradually completed the division of power over the whole Japanese land and consolidated it. Up to the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa was only the biggest name (country). On the surface, it was centralized, but the feudal states were still inherited and managed by the families themselves. The central government could not appoint officials, and the important positions of the central organization were also inherited and controlled by several families.

Although many specific situations have their own characteristics, in terms of the great historical process, what Japan's shogunate can compare with is China's Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period.

 

 

[Bin He]

The Belt and Road Initiative is a product of a new trend in world diplomacy.

On the one hand, it is undeniable that military power is still an important factor in diplomatic relations. But at the same time, contemporary regional peace is based more on economic interests than on conquest or colonization.

In China's country governance strategy, the practice of "not interfering in each other's internal affairs and seeking common interests" has been a principle of China's diplomacy for centuries. This is in line with current trends. For example, when China and ASEAN launched free trade negotiations in 2002, then Premier Zhu Rongji stated that China did not seek an exclusive status in Southeast Asia. He added that if the agreement leads to an imbalance in China's favor, the terms should be changed. At the African Leaders Summit in South Africa in December, President Xi Jinping promised to provide US$60 billion in aid to African countries and emphasized that China will not interfere in Africa’s domestic politics.

For modern China, the One Belt One Road is just one of the means to establish its own trade network system, rather than relying on the World Bank or the World Trade Organization. Specifically, the country itself hopes to establish its own internal operating system. Participants accept higher agreements (such as trade rules, property rights, dispute settlement), allowing economic exchanges to proceed. Of course, this is not just China's strategy. All countries are striving to establish a self-led regional trading system. This is why we will see the continuous emergence, reorganization and collapse of regional trade organizations outside the WTO.

Extra reading news:

What’s Next for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)?

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp

 

[Bin He]

Because my father committed a very serious crime, I will not shield him. Because he committed a serious crime, his neighbors and relatives have to be punished along with him. But because I am a soldier, I wonder if I can use my military merits to help him reduce his sentence.

[Bin He]

As I prepare to debate and collect legalist materials, looking back at China's history, I find two interesting phenomena.

1. The prosperity of legalism originated from a weak state power that eagers to revive.

2.Every time an emperor uses the legalist thought to govern the country and achieves specific goals, there will always be the opposite result to the legalist expectation after a while.

Here I take Qin Dynasty and Ming Dynasty as examples.

First of all, the king of Qin used Shang Yang's new deal with the background of the decline of Qin's national strength. And the Legalists' thought of stressing interests and strengthening the country soon accumulated much wealth for this weak country. At the same time, it also helped the government to enhance its control over the ordinary people. The law endorsed the centralization of power at this moment. Of course, after that, the bad genes of Legalists were soon exposed, that is, the contradiction between officials' executive management and the interests of the gentry in the process of law enforcement. Shang Yang's achievements were quickly divided by the power group, and finally, nothing was settled.

Secondly, in the Ming Dynasty, the whole dynasty began with Zhu Yuanzhang and was constantly under legalists' rule. The cruel officials of the Ming Dynasty were rarely heard of in Chinese history. They hated corruption and had many anti-humanity punishments. In the early days, ordinary people did have a stable environment, and the country could quickly recover from the war. However with the monopoly of power and the complicated official system, the Ming Dynasty did not establish an orderly society as the Legalists imagined.

 

[Bin He]

Question in Video 1 (5:00) What symbols of Chinese culture do we see in pop culture, and would students recognize them? 

When I watched Star Wars, I notice that the Force is kind of modeled after Qi（Chi气) Concept.

In the movie, the Force is omnipotent energy that surrounds all living beings, and it's a semi-sentient primordial Force of nature that exists throughout the whole space-time continuum, in every sub-atomic particle. It also governs reality, fate, etc. 

In traditional Chinese culture, Qi or Chi is believed to be a vital force forming part of any living entity. Qi translates as "air" and figuratively as "material energy", "life force", or "energy flow", and also is the central underlying principle in Chinese traditional medicine and Chinese martial arts. The ancient people believe Qi represents the vital energy of the body flowing along invisible energy channels. The balance of Qi is dependent upon the functional relationship between Yin and Yang. 

I think most of the students can not recognize it at first sight.

The image: https://taiji-forum.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/qi003.jpg

 

[Bin He]

5:03 from the Video #2: "China" Before the Qin Dynasty-)Initial plan 

Target students: Post-AP Chinese students

Teaching objectives:

1.Understand the myths and stories of traditional cultural figures

2. Deepen students' understanding of the values behind traditional Chinese festivals through the analysis of historical figures in traditional festivals.

3. Be able to compare the stories of cultural figures between China and other countries 

How to start

1.Involving student participation

use the story of Shennong to taste herbs to introduce, and ask students about the value of promotion behind this character.Shennong-is one of the leaders in China's historyGuide students to think about whether there are similar stories in Western mythology.

2 .Encourage students to explore

Each group selects a character from the selection provided by the teacher and analyzes the values behind their legendary story. Including: Descendant-descendant shooting the sun, Shun-tolerance to his family, Yu-Dayu's water control.

3. Share and discuss.

4.  Implementation The modern emperor’s god-making movement gave students a few articles from the Chinese official media to analyze the value promoted behind it.  

Articles:1.https://www.sohu.com/a/430905751_100047440The story of Mao Zedong and Yang Kaihui 

2.http://news.12371.cn/2018/07/18/ARTI1531896662454569.shtml  The story of Deng Xiaoping in his youth

3.https://cn.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202005/03/WS5eaf6891a310eec9c72b6c63.html  The story of Xi Jinping's going to the countryside

 

[Bin He]

Regarding the question at 17:05, my answer is that water has become a symbol of political power in allocating resources as a necessary resource for human survival. In other words, the water power has always existed, and it has always been firmly controlled in the hands of those in power, whether in the East or the West, ancient or modern.

The specific explanation is that water is an objective existence in nature, but because of human activities-drinking, irrigation, transportation, and energy production, it has become a resource of high value like land. You can use the following two reports to understand the impact of water resources distribution (water conservancy projects) on these two superpowers at different times in the United States and China. Perhaps my view is a bit pessimistic: the control and use of water resources, directly or indirectly, have been firmly controlled in the hands of the political or economic power, and the significance of individual influence is minimal.

 

Articles：

• History of Hydropower (https://www.energy.gov/eere/water/history-hydropower)
• Water conservancy projects in China: Achievements, challenges and way forward (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378013000216)

 

[Bin He]

Dear all,

 

大家好！It is a privilege to participate in the Origins to 1800 Online Seminar. 

 

To briefly introduce myself, My Name is Bin He, who is a current Chinese teacher at Harvard Westlake School in Los Angeles. I will teach a new course named 'History's Imprint on Modern Chinese Culture 'this fall and hope to learn more from this seminar regarding East Asia's history and culture.

Prior to coming to Los Angles, I taught Chinese at the U.S. State Department and a public middle school in China for four years each. 

 

I'm so glad to meet you all here and can't wait to start our journey with you all!  

 

 

 

[Author]

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