Thorsten J. Pattberg
Dr. Thorsten J. Pattberg (裴德思 Pei Desi) is a German philosopher and cultural critic.
He has written and published extensively about Global language, the Competition for terminologies, and the End of translation. He discovered the Shengren as a unique, untranslatable, non-European archetype of wisdom; is the founder of Language Imperialism; and is actively promoting Eastern thought, in particular Chinese terminologies, on a global scale.
Inspired by Dr. Pattberg’s ‘How to translate Chinese key concepts’ the Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China, Madam Liu Yandong, launched a nationwide campaign: ‘Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture.’ Currently, he is cooperating with Hanban and Foreign Language Press on the publication of a collection of essays: Knowledge is a Polyglot.
Dr. Pattberg attended Edinburgh University, Fudan University, Tokyo University, and Harvard University, and earned his doctorate degree from The Institute of World Literature at Peking University. He studied under the guiding stars of Ji Xianlin, Gu Zhengkun, and Tu Weiming, whom he considers his spiritual masters.
He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo; and a former Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies (IAHS), Peking University. He is the author of several monographs, including The East-West dichotomy, Shengren – Above Philosophy and Beyond Religion, Holy Confucius, Inside Peking University, Language Imperialism, Diary of a Mad Imperialist, etc., and some of his representative articles are ‘Language hegemony – It’s shengren, stupid!,’ ‘Long into the West’s dragon business,’ ‘China: Lost in Translation,’ and ‘The end of translation.’
Contact:
pattberg 'at' pku.edu.cn
Websites:
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com
http://thorstenpattberg.blogspot.jp/
Supervisors: 辜正坤, 段晴, and 杜维明
He has written and published extensively about Global language, the Competition for terminologies, and the End of translation. He discovered the Shengren as a unique, untranslatable, non-European archetype of wisdom; is the founder of Language Imperialism; and is actively promoting Eastern thought, in particular Chinese terminologies, on a global scale.
Inspired by Dr. Pattberg’s ‘How to translate Chinese key concepts’ the Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China, Madam Liu Yandong, launched a nationwide campaign: ‘Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture.’ Currently, he is cooperating with Hanban and Foreign Language Press on the publication of a collection of essays: Knowledge is a Polyglot.
Dr. Pattberg attended Edinburgh University, Fudan University, Tokyo University, and Harvard University, and earned his doctorate degree from The Institute of World Literature at Peking University. He studied under the guiding stars of Ji Xianlin, Gu Zhengkun, and Tu Weiming, whom he considers his spiritual masters.
He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo; and a former Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies (IAHS), Peking University. He is the author of several monographs, including The East-West dichotomy, Shengren – Above Philosophy and Beyond Religion, Holy Confucius, Inside Peking University, Language Imperialism, Diary of a Mad Imperialist, etc., and some of his representative articles are ‘Language hegemony – It’s shengren, stupid!,’ ‘Long into the West’s dragon business,’ ‘China: Lost in Translation,’ and ‘The end of translation.’
Contact:
pattberg 'at' pku.edu.cn
Websites:
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com
http://thorstenpattberg.blogspot.jp/
Supervisors: 辜正坤, 段晴, and 杜维明
less
InterestsView All (27)
Uploads
Monographs by Thorsten J. Pattberg
http://www.amazon.cn/%E4%B8%9C%E9%A3%8E%E4%B8%8E%E8%A5%BF%E9%A3%8E-%E8%A3%B4%E5%BE%B7%E6%80%9D/dp/B00GICP9SW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384691402&sr=8-1&keywords=%E8%A3%B4%E5%BE%B7%E6%80%9D
# Featuring defining and thought-provoking chapters on:
* History
* Induction & deduction
* Asia-centrism
* Equilibrium
* Demography & Migration
* Cultural effects of the dichotomy
* Two successful models
* Two incommensurable realities
* The theory of power and to whom it belongs
* The problem of standard
* A loveless Darwinian desert
* The psychology of communion
* The problem with Nature
* Ideology, Gender and many more...
# Including over 345 references and hundreds of quotes from historical personalities
# Becoming the standard work on the East-West discourse
Essays by Thorsten J. Pattberg
Wilhelm believed he was the chosen one, destined to evangelize China. He translated dao as “SINN” (meaning), de as “LEBEN” (life). Wilhelm was obsessed with holiness, and translated shengren as “Heilige” (saints), knowing –perfectly self-interested- that his guru-style and association with Carl Gustav Jung, the psychiatrist and psychotherapist, would attract more funding to sponsor his personality cult.
Richard Wilhelm wasn’t interested in introducing Taoism; but used Taoism (or elements of it) to introduce Richard Wilhelm. While James Legge’s work exhibits scholarly quality, Richard Wilhelm’s interpretations border on the occult. For example, while Legge calls the Taoist shengren “the sages,” (wise men), the mystic Wilhelm talks about “the appointees” (German: die Berufenen). The former suggest wise men from experience; the latter persons chosen or appointed… but appointed by whom? God? Heaven? The Committee of the Taoist Association? The German term ‘Berufene’ is associated with Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation –the belief that God gave each man his profession. Wilhelm shamelessly abused an old language trick first played by Christian Wolff, the Germany’s first sinologist, in that if someone translates a Chinese text, say, from the Chinese into French into Latin –that Latin translation now resembles Latin, thereupon that Wolff (a Latin speaker), overcome with great satisfaction and joy at his new “discovery,” announced that “This looks familiar. I now feel that I totally understand this Confucius!”
One outstanding result was the ‘Wade-Giles’ system (mid -19th century onward). It was successful until officially replaced in 1949 by China’s own ‘Pinyin’ system (in Chinese ‘Hanyu Pinyin’). For example, Tao Te Ching [Wade-Giles system] became Dao De Jing [Pinyin]. Those two prominent systems for transcribing Chinese, both with English speakers in mind, are not the only ones: Americans once attempted their own ‘Yale Romanization’ system, which was short-lived. Indians, of course, use the Devanagari script to transcribe Chinese sounds. Koreans and Japanese always had their own ways, too –using Hangul alphabet and Hiragana/Katagana script respectively. The Germans, to whom Wade-Giles and Pinyin spellings are unnatural, often use ‘Lautschrift’, adjusting foreign words to the German tongue. For instance, Zhuangzi becomes “Dschuang Dsi,” Confucius becomes “Konfuzius,” Shanghai becomes “Schanghai,” and so on. The Europeans can’t even unite under the English spelling ‘Taoism’. Some say “Daoism.” The Spanish write ‘El taoísmo’, the French ‘Le taoïsme, and the Polish ‘Taoizm’. Meanwhile, the Russians use the Cyrillic alphabet: Даоси́зм. Everybody wants to cook his own meal. As a matter of fact, even James Legge devised his own idiosyncratic system, now called the ‘Legge Romanization’. Hence such titles as: ‘The Tâo Teh King’ (1891).
The Europeans searched for reaffirmation of Christianity, and thus looked for “facts” to support European theology. It didn’t take them long and they were looking for a ‘messiah figure’. They quickly found a “Kong-Fu-Tze” (Kongzi). Following the same logic of Christ -> Christianity, the Europeans designated “new” names for Eastern “religions”; hence Buddha -> Buddhism, Kong Fu Tze -> Konfuzianism, and Lao Tze -> Laoism. This has been a spectacular failure for Confucianism in particular, which was (and still is) known in China as ru or rujia (meaning “literati” or “school of literati”). In fact, Kongzi is only one of many representatives in ruxue. Imagine someone would come along and recast Western philosophy as “Platonism” – because Plato allegedly founded it. How bizarre it would look if we called John Locke, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche “Platonists.” Unfortunately, with “Confucianism” in China, the Europeans got their way.
A third, very significant approach to Taoism is the study of Taoism as an academic discipline (daoxue). All three approaches to the Tao in Europe shall be discussed in this chapter, in order to see their various impacts on European culture (if any).
BEIJING – Westerners who stay in China longer are often surprised to learn that the ‘salary’ in China for civil servants and public employees is so ridiculously low. “How do they afford all this; how do they get by?” many ask. The answer is that the Chinese have other means and sources of income. Once you work closely with institutions, officials, bosses, or directors, etc., you will experience (or see it all around you) cases in which favors and palm grease are frequent. If this happens, your author claims, you either participate in the game and learn the ropes (but with a bad conscience forever, maybe); or you take moral high ground, but risk your career, and better prepare for a quick exit from the job, if not the profession. That’s because in certain strata of society, in fact the higher you climb, be they Chinese or Western, it’s natural to hand out favors to “loyal” members, and if you expose their system, your colleagues, your firm, your country, they are never going to trust you. [GO TO VIDEO]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdR14SC2Paw
Corruption in China: Can China’s New Government End Corruption?
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/04/06/commentary/world-commentary/can-chinas-new-government-end-corruption/
Corruption in China (Book)
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/new-book-corruption-in-china-meditations-on-salary-mistresses-confucianism-and-chinese-academia/
Transcript: Friends and colleagues, brothers and sisters! This is Thor Tukoll. I’m the author of The East-West Dichotomy. I just discovered a huge internet troll for myself that everyone else already seems to know about: The ‘game feminist’ Anita Sarkeesian.
She is protesting the way women are depicted in video games, and wants them to be depicted more like men; the men whom she accused in first place of depicting the women as women, not as men, because they are the ‘patriarchy’. But before I lose all my 82 subscribers, let us proceed and discuss what TAOISM has to say about Anita Sarkeesian and Feminism:
“Tao begets the One, the One consists of Two in opposition –the Yin and Yang. The Two begets the Three, the Three begets all things of the world. Including video games.”
The two are already one, but different. Only by interacting, do they form a circle.
You say, like most radical feminists do, that ‘gender’ is a social construct. It is not. It is how the world presents itself to us: in binaries, in oppositions. It’s ‘poise and counterpoise’, ‘night and day’, ‘female and male’… This is how we perceive the world, also.
It’s our cognitive dualism: the two hemispheres of our brain; the shared labor we find in society… Everything is based on this perception of the world into ‘one and the other’. Since you study literature you must know that even in writing there is a distinction between the feminine and the masculine aspect: Masculine is the choice of words; the feminine aspect in writing is the position of the words in the sentence. This is just the way how things are. You can change the names, but you cannot change the basic principle.
Besides, there’s nothing wrong with being different. Don’t hate yourself for being feminine, and don’t make others hate themselves because they are feminine.
‘Yin and Yang’ is a metaphor and allegory. It is also the result of a very scientific approach: It is the sunlight that falls on a pole stuck into the earth. It throws a shadow -Yang, that reflects the movement of light -Yin. If you don’t appreciate that simple dualism, call it by any other names you wish… Again, the principle stays the same! On summer solstice, when the day is longest, Yang is born. At winter solstice, when the night is longest, Yin is born. Hence the two little circles of opposite composition in each other’s field.
There is a masculine side to femininity; and there is a feminine side to masculinity. TAOISM says that: “Though knowing what is masculine, You are ready to play the role as female.” [And vice versa!]
We cannot change scientific facts and principles. You say: Well, at least change the way we perceive the world! Well, TAOISM says this is not quite possible, you see:
It is in the interest of women , the female, to strengthen its position in the world… of course, no one is denying it. It includes making full use of your strengths and advantages in life -of which there are plenty. But you will never escape the TAO. It exists forever!
Being different will only strengthen our relation. And we will survive. Balancing our strengths and weakness is very difficult, but is is also very satisfying. Most men still worship women; and most women, I claim, still worship men -it’s a “give-and-take.” But by waging “war” against each other, we will just stir up discontent and chaos.
There’s a good side to all of this, of course: Yin and Yang keep acting upon each other, constantly changing and keep unifying themselves -including video games. But it will never eliminate the distinction between the female and the male.
Anyway, this is the position of TAOISM. No more, but also no less. I’m now going back to play my Lego. Have a nice week, and talk to you soon!
This is all very irritating, since Japan technically lies in Asia, and Americans are a tiny minority here (and mostly military personnel). Nevertheless, is entirely possible for non-US people (over 2 million of them) who live in Japan to gradually become “Americanized” -merely by reading the only English language paper available to them: The Japan Times, aka The New York Times Incorporated. No sovereign country should allow a foreign nation’s ‘corporations’ (dressed as public services) to dominate its media. But Japan does. So people laugh at it. [Largely to deal with their disappointment and pain].
[WATCH THE VIDEO HERE]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTvBOKWakhY
Alas, media monopolies are no laughing matter in world history. In fact, they are extremely dangerous, no matter where they occur. The media and its journalists profit from war more than the military industrial complex:Media Monopoly More misery equals more news. More violence equals more sensation. But having a media monopoly in a foreign country thousands of miles away around the globe is an entirely new mind game. Japan has 127 million population. It is embedded in Asia, where over 65% of the world’s population live. It has “neighbors” like China and Russia and South Korea and India and the Philippines that it should prominently engage with. Asia should be strong. But no, Japan decided to leave Asia and to have America run the show and decide what’s good for the Japanese people.
RELATED Western media is full of shit
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/western-media-is-full-of-shit/
“There’s absolutely no diversity in Japan when it comes to foreign news. It’s all American!”
Why does The Japan Times lend a soapbox and free platform to NY Times columnists like David Brooks, Nicholas Kristof, Paul Krugman, or Thomas L. Friedman? They got nothing to do with Japan or Asia, except that they are… I don’t know… white? Why gratuitously providing an echo chamber for US anti-Chinese, anti-Russian, anti-Islam sentiments among Japan’s English-speaking population? The New York Times is not a neutral media by any stretch of imagination – it has political motives, it promotes US ideology, it practices ‘Orwellian Rules of Writing‘, it dispatches ‘press soldiers‘ to all corners in the world to disrupt foreign governments and demonize America’s enemies, and it clearly wants to influence its readers. Are the Japanese elites perhaps afraid that the US media could pick on them, and ruin Japan’s reputation? (Culturally speaking, Japan is a lot ‘weirder’ than Russia, Iran, or China -it could get globally exposed and ridiculed by US propaganda any time.)
RELATED New York Times shamelessly exploits mom’s escalator death for anti-China propaganda
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/new-york-times-shamelessly-exploits-moms-escalator-death-for-anti-china-propaganda/
Strangely, most what Japan does on the international stage looks like conditioning and pain-avoidance. Don’t hit me, please. Don’t bully me. I’ll bomb all the bridges with my neighbors; I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll suppress the 95% of the world so that only the US shines! Just don’t hurt me any more. Please! PLEAAASE!
…but you can always count on Western scholarship trailing not far behind. China in particular has been the target of ‘Western values’ propaganda and misinformation for centuries, with no end in sight. The NY Times, Economist magazine, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg all practice ‘Orwellian rules of writing’ and suppress non-Western words, ideas, and concepts. Thorsten Pattberg is the author of ‘The rising cult of China experts’ and ‘Free Asian Pacific from Western hold’.
Transcript:
I stumbled into a nest so-called ‘China Experts’ coincidentally while studying the history of Confucianism (the correct name is ‘ru’ or ‘ruxue’). I discovered that most Western accounts were of ruxue are deliberately fake or outright distortions. Those Western philosophers, missionaries, scholars, and journalists never wanted to understand. It was always about life and death of cultures, “us versus them”. The idea that only soldiers fought wars must be rigorously refuted. Scholarship, in fact, the history of the world, is not a string of truths, but the chronicle of survivors. Scholars and journalists are believed to be a benign force of the good. They are not. They are full of shit.
Today, the US media (which is mirrored in its satellite states) promotes a cult of ‘Western values’ and employs ‘press soldiers’ in strategic places all over the world with the profitable mission to distort, defame, and destabilize foreign nations, their governments, and their people. Back in the West, Eastern thought and cultures are censored. This is possible because of brutal segregation of thought and cultures, for example by rampant language imperialism. All Western journalists, especially those at the NYT, WSJ, Economist, Bloomberg etc., practice ‘Orwellian rules of writing’ and are obliged to write pure and clean English, and to avoid foreign words.
There is, in my view, nothing that those foreign nations, governments, and their people can do about those Western methods; although, of course, most are still trying to please. The reality is, it never was about what they did or do; their mere presence (or “existence”) as non-Western nations, governments, and people was (and always will be) the single most important factor for why they were patronized, coerced, and –if need be- viciously attacked. If Asia should ever recover from those brutal Western attacks, most Western scholars must fear for their legacy when it is found they were a bunch of racists and imperialists who were constantly making up realities. It’s like the ultimate revelation that the Western version of history was complete forgery. That’s why those so-called ‘China Experts’, be they professors or journalists, are up in their arms to prevent China from rising. They know very well that if new elites rise, the old ones may get punished and pushed out of business.
This atmosphere of Western fear and negativity gets worse by the year, because this ‘Cult of China Experts’, empowered by the US media monopoly, now reigns supremely from Beijing over Shanghai to Hong Kong. Voices for moderation, neutrality, and calls for humanity are largely marginalized and censored in the West. But what we can humbly do is to record these unruly times so that following generations of investigators might get a better picture of how this branch of Western ‘press soldiery’ was able to drag us all into darkness, silenced its critics, caused misery and distrust, and profited immensely from their militant methods and reckless ambitions.
The rising cult of China experts:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-231014.html
Free Asia-Pacific from Western hold:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2014-11/13/content_18905038.htm
About the author:
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/about-the-author/
RELATED And The Best University In China Is…
Peking University (PKU), China’s “mother lode of higher education” (my shade, but you’re welcome to try to top that), does minister to China’s national flag, the five golden stars –wu xing hong qi- with an equally impressive five star Chinese scholarship program that has the People’s Republic’s media going uuh and ooh since June. Ah, and, yeah, they got themselves a skillful Wikipedian, too.
“The Yenching Academy offers a 1-year Master of Chinese Studies program (in English) designed to prepare an elite class of future leaders to meet the challenges of the 21st century global landscape.” –PKU
Your author had been a visiting student at PKU from 2004 to 2006, and returned for his doctoral studies from 2007 to 2012. Back then, there was nothing like the Yenching scholarship; academic poverty was a big issue (it still is for many Chinese students), letting alone PKU’s guerrilla bureaucracy (graduation procedures required eight signatures and seals). There was also the existential threat of sky-rocketing rents outside campus (now exceeding $1,200/month for a one-bedroom apartment). As to the interview process, we didn’t even use Skype back in 2006, so there was a lot of traveling back-and-forth (obtaining visa was much easier then, though). Luckily (for the new generation of students), Peking University has addressed the issues of funding, housing, and guidance by creating this first-class residential scholarship program. [...]
Blair must have become the most hated man on the planet, the synonym for a political psychopath [22], a textbook case for students of criminology and psychology [23], and, yes, an internet meme of taunt and sneer [24; 25; 26; 27; 28]. The Daily Mail published a piece: 'Impeach Tony Blair' [29]. He is guilty of crimes against humanity; there is no doubt about it.
At times it appears that the most savage critics would back off (just a little bit), perhaps, if only Blair had produced something of a confession; that he did what he did because he could, that war is profitable, that Iraqi casualties are lamentable but ultimately irrelevant, that Muslims are tolerable as long as they agree to live in the year 2014 of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that the disintegration of the Middle East (and Russia, Iran, and China) is necessary for rebuilding it in the West 's image. To their disappointment, however, his autobiography wasn't exactly a 'Mein Kampf.'
They used to say that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were the great losers of the 20th Century, but that's just convenient Anglophone propaganda. The truth is the collapse of the British Empire – the largest in history – was a far more significant crash (some cynics say, only London is left).
For it is when a nation endured great pain and humiliation, and when its people have lost their way, that great seducers promise spiritual relief: "We have to liberate ourselves from the notion that 'we' have caused this. We haven't [30]." I rest my case.
http://www.amazon.cn/%E4%B8%9C%E9%A3%8E%E4%B8%8E%E8%A5%BF%E9%A3%8E-%E8%A3%B4%E5%BE%B7%E6%80%9D/dp/B00GICP9SW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384691402&sr=8-1&keywords=%E8%A3%B4%E5%BE%B7%E6%80%9D
# Featuring defining and thought-provoking chapters on:
* History
* Induction & deduction
* Asia-centrism
* Equilibrium
* Demography & Migration
* Cultural effects of the dichotomy
* Two successful models
* Two incommensurable realities
* The theory of power and to whom it belongs
* The problem of standard
* A loveless Darwinian desert
* The psychology of communion
* The problem with Nature
* Ideology, Gender and many more...
# Including over 345 references and hundreds of quotes from historical personalities
# Becoming the standard work on the East-West discourse
Wilhelm believed he was the chosen one, destined to evangelize China. He translated dao as “SINN” (meaning), de as “LEBEN” (life). Wilhelm was obsessed with holiness, and translated shengren as “Heilige” (saints), knowing –perfectly self-interested- that his guru-style and association with Carl Gustav Jung, the psychiatrist and psychotherapist, would attract more funding to sponsor his personality cult.
Richard Wilhelm wasn’t interested in introducing Taoism; but used Taoism (or elements of it) to introduce Richard Wilhelm. While James Legge’s work exhibits scholarly quality, Richard Wilhelm’s interpretations border on the occult. For example, while Legge calls the Taoist shengren “the sages,” (wise men), the mystic Wilhelm talks about “the appointees” (German: die Berufenen). The former suggest wise men from experience; the latter persons chosen or appointed… but appointed by whom? God? Heaven? The Committee of the Taoist Association? The German term ‘Berufene’ is associated with Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation –the belief that God gave each man his profession. Wilhelm shamelessly abused an old language trick first played by Christian Wolff, the Germany’s first sinologist, in that if someone translates a Chinese text, say, from the Chinese into French into Latin –that Latin translation now resembles Latin, thereupon that Wolff (a Latin speaker), overcome with great satisfaction and joy at his new “discovery,” announced that “This looks familiar. I now feel that I totally understand this Confucius!”
One outstanding result was the ‘Wade-Giles’ system (mid -19th century onward). It was successful until officially replaced in 1949 by China’s own ‘Pinyin’ system (in Chinese ‘Hanyu Pinyin’). For example, Tao Te Ching [Wade-Giles system] became Dao De Jing [Pinyin]. Those two prominent systems for transcribing Chinese, both with English speakers in mind, are not the only ones: Americans once attempted their own ‘Yale Romanization’ system, which was short-lived. Indians, of course, use the Devanagari script to transcribe Chinese sounds. Koreans and Japanese always had their own ways, too –using Hangul alphabet and Hiragana/Katagana script respectively. The Germans, to whom Wade-Giles and Pinyin spellings are unnatural, often use ‘Lautschrift’, adjusting foreign words to the German tongue. For instance, Zhuangzi becomes “Dschuang Dsi,” Confucius becomes “Konfuzius,” Shanghai becomes “Schanghai,” and so on. The Europeans can’t even unite under the English spelling ‘Taoism’. Some say “Daoism.” The Spanish write ‘El taoísmo’, the French ‘Le taoïsme, and the Polish ‘Taoizm’. Meanwhile, the Russians use the Cyrillic alphabet: Даоси́зм. Everybody wants to cook his own meal. As a matter of fact, even James Legge devised his own idiosyncratic system, now called the ‘Legge Romanization’. Hence such titles as: ‘The Tâo Teh King’ (1891).
The Europeans searched for reaffirmation of Christianity, and thus looked for “facts” to support European theology. It didn’t take them long and they were looking for a ‘messiah figure’. They quickly found a “Kong-Fu-Tze” (Kongzi). Following the same logic of Christ -> Christianity, the Europeans designated “new” names for Eastern “religions”; hence Buddha -> Buddhism, Kong Fu Tze -> Konfuzianism, and Lao Tze -> Laoism. This has been a spectacular failure for Confucianism in particular, which was (and still is) known in China as ru or rujia (meaning “literati” or “school of literati”). In fact, Kongzi is only one of many representatives in ruxue. Imagine someone would come along and recast Western philosophy as “Platonism” – because Plato allegedly founded it. How bizarre it would look if we called John Locke, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche “Platonists.” Unfortunately, with “Confucianism” in China, the Europeans got their way.
A third, very significant approach to Taoism is the study of Taoism as an academic discipline (daoxue). All three approaches to the Tao in Europe shall be discussed in this chapter, in order to see their various impacts on European culture (if any).
BEIJING – Westerners who stay in China longer are often surprised to learn that the ‘salary’ in China for civil servants and public employees is so ridiculously low. “How do they afford all this; how do they get by?” many ask. The answer is that the Chinese have other means and sources of income. Once you work closely with institutions, officials, bosses, or directors, etc., you will experience (or see it all around you) cases in which favors and palm grease are frequent. If this happens, your author claims, you either participate in the game and learn the ropes (but with a bad conscience forever, maybe); or you take moral high ground, but risk your career, and better prepare for a quick exit from the job, if not the profession. That’s because in certain strata of society, in fact the higher you climb, be they Chinese or Western, it’s natural to hand out favors to “loyal” members, and if you expose their system, your colleagues, your firm, your country, they are never going to trust you. [GO TO VIDEO]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdR14SC2Paw
Corruption in China: Can China’s New Government End Corruption?
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/04/06/commentary/world-commentary/can-chinas-new-government-end-corruption/
Corruption in China (Book)
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/new-book-corruption-in-china-meditations-on-salary-mistresses-confucianism-and-chinese-academia/
Transcript: Friends and colleagues, brothers and sisters! This is Thor Tukoll. I’m the author of The East-West Dichotomy. I just discovered a huge internet troll for myself that everyone else already seems to know about: The ‘game feminist’ Anita Sarkeesian.
She is protesting the way women are depicted in video games, and wants them to be depicted more like men; the men whom she accused in first place of depicting the women as women, not as men, because they are the ‘patriarchy’. But before I lose all my 82 subscribers, let us proceed and discuss what TAOISM has to say about Anita Sarkeesian and Feminism:
“Tao begets the One, the One consists of Two in opposition –the Yin and Yang. The Two begets the Three, the Three begets all things of the world. Including video games.”
The two are already one, but different. Only by interacting, do they form a circle.
You say, like most radical feminists do, that ‘gender’ is a social construct. It is not. It is how the world presents itself to us: in binaries, in oppositions. It’s ‘poise and counterpoise’, ‘night and day’, ‘female and male’… This is how we perceive the world, also.
It’s our cognitive dualism: the two hemispheres of our brain; the shared labor we find in society… Everything is based on this perception of the world into ‘one and the other’. Since you study literature you must know that even in writing there is a distinction between the feminine and the masculine aspect: Masculine is the choice of words; the feminine aspect in writing is the position of the words in the sentence. This is just the way how things are. You can change the names, but you cannot change the basic principle.
Besides, there’s nothing wrong with being different. Don’t hate yourself for being feminine, and don’t make others hate themselves because they are feminine.
‘Yin and Yang’ is a metaphor and allegory. It is also the result of a very scientific approach: It is the sunlight that falls on a pole stuck into the earth. It throws a shadow -Yang, that reflects the movement of light -Yin. If you don’t appreciate that simple dualism, call it by any other names you wish… Again, the principle stays the same! On summer solstice, when the day is longest, Yang is born. At winter solstice, when the night is longest, Yin is born. Hence the two little circles of opposite composition in each other’s field.
There is a masculine side to femininity; and there is a feminine side to masculinity. TAOISM says that: “Though knowing what is masculine, You are ready to play the role as female.” [And vice versa!]
We cannot change scientific facts and principles. You say: Well, at least change the way we perceive the world! Well, TAOISM says this is not quite possible, you see:
It is in the interest of women , the female, to strengthen its position in the world… of course, no one is denying it. It includes making full use of your strengths and advantages in life -of which there are plenty. But you will never escape the TAO. It exists forever!
Being different will only strengthen our relation. And we will survive. Balancing our strengths and weakness is very difficult, but is is also very satisfying. Most men still worship women; and most women, I claim, still worship men -it’s a “give-and-take.” But by waging “war” against each other, we will just stir up discontent and chaos.
There’s a good side to all of this, of course: Yin and Yang keep acting upon each other, constantly changing and keep unifying themselves -including video games. But it will never eliminate the distinction between the female and the male.
Anyway, this is the position of TAOISM. No more, but also no less. I’m now going back to play my Lego. Have a nice week, and talk to you soon!
This is all very irritating, since Japan technically lies in Asia, and Americans are a tiny minority here (and mostly military personnel). Nevertheless, is entirely possible for non-US people (over 2 million of them) who live in Japan to gradually become “Americanized” -merely by reading the only English language paper available to them: The Japan Times, aka The New York Times Incorporated. No sovereign country should allow a foreign nation’s ‘corporations’ (dressed as public services) to dominate its media. But Japan does. So people laugh at it. [Largely to deal with their disappointment and pain].
[WATCH THE VIDEO HERE]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTvBOKWakhY
Alas, media monopolies are no laughing matter in world history. In fact, they are extremely dangerous, no matter where they occur. The media and its journalists profit from war more than the military industrial complex:Media Monopoly More misery equals more news. More violence equals more sensation. But having a media monopoly in a foreign country thousands of miles away around the globe is an entirely new mind game. Japan has 127 million population. It is embedded in Asia, where over 65% of the world’s population live. It has “neighbors” like China and Russia and South Korea and India and the Philippines that it should prominently engage with. Asia should be strong. But no, Japan decided to leave Asia and to have America run the show and decide what’s good for the Japanese people.
RELATED Western media is full of shit
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/western-media-is-full-of-shit/
“There’s absolutely no diversity in Japan when it comes to foreign news. It’s all American!”
Why does The Japan Times lend a soapbox and free platform to NY Times columnists like David Brooks, Nicholas Kristof, Paul Krugman, or Thomas L. Friedman? They got nothing to do with Japan or Asia, except that they are… I don’t know… white? Why gratuitously providing an echo chamber for US anti-Chinese, anti-Russian, anti-Islam sentiments among Japan’s English-speaking population? The New York Times is not a neutral media by any stretch of imagination – it has political motives, it promotes US ideology, it practices ‘Orwellian Rules of Writing‘, it dispatches ‘press soldiers‘ to all corners in the world to disrupt foreign governments and demonize America’s enemies, and it clearly wants to influence its readers. Are the Japanese elites perhaps afraid that the US media could pick on them, and ruin Japan’s reputation? (Culturally speaking, Japan is a lot ‘weirder’ than Russia, Iran, or China -it could get globally exposed and ridiculed by US propaganda any time.)
RELATED New York Times shamelessly exploits mom’s escalator death for anti-China propaganda
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/new-york-times-shamelessly-exploits-moms-escalator-death-for-anti-china-propaganda/
Strangely, most what Japan does on the international stage looks like conditioning and pain-avoidance. Don’t hit me, please. Don’t bully me. I’ll bomb all the bridges with my neighbors; I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll suppress the 95% of the world so that only the US shines! Just don’t hurt me any more. Please! PLEAAASE!
…but you can always count on Western scholarship trailing not far behind. China in particular has been the target of ‘Western values’ propaganda and misinformation for centuries, with no end in sight. The NY Times, Economist magazine, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg all practice ‘Orwellian rules of writing’ and suppress non-Western words, ideas, and concepts. Thorsten Pattberg is the author of ‘The rising cult of China experts’ and ‘Free Asian Pacific from Western hold’.
Transcript:
I stumbled into a nest so-called ‘China Experts’ coincidentally while studying the history of Confucianism (the correct name is ‘ru’ or ‘ruxue’). I discovered that most Western accounts were of ruxue are deliberately fake or outright distortions. Those Western philosophers, missionaries, scholars, and journalists never wanted to understand. It was always about life and death of cultures, “us versus them”. The idea that only soldiers fought wars must be rigorously refuted. Scholarship, in fact, the history of the world, is not a string of truths, but the chronicle of survivors. Scholars and journalists are believed to be a benign force of the good. They are not. They are full of shit.
Today, the US media (which is mirrored in its satellite states) promotes a cult of ‘Western values’ and employs ‘press soldiers’ in strategic places all over the world with the profitable mission to distort, defame, and destabilize foreign nations, their governments, and their people. Back in the West, Eastern thought and cultures are censored. This is possible because of brutal segregation of thought and cultures, for example by rampant language imperialism. All Western journalists, especially those at the NYT, WSJ, Economist, Bloomberg etc., practice ‘Orwellian rules of writing’ and are obliged to write pure and clean English, and to avoid foreign words.
There is, in my view, nothing that those foreign nations, governments, and their people can do about those Western methods; although, of course, most are still trying to please. The reality is, it never was about what they did or do; their mere presence (or “existence”) as non-Western nations, governments, and people was (and always will be) the single most important factor for why they were patronized, coerced, and –if need be- viciously attacked. If Asia should ever recover from those brutal Western attacks, most Western scholars must fear for their legacy when it is found they were a bunch of racists and imperialists who were constantly making up realities. It’s like the ultimate revelation that the Western version of history was complete forgery. That’s why those so-called ‘China Experts’, be they professors or journalists, are up in their arms to prevent China from rising. They know very well that if new elites rise, the old ones may get punished and pushed out of business.
This atmosphere of Western fear and negativity gets worse by the year, because this ‘Cult of China Experts’, empowered by the US media monopoly, now reigns supremely from Beijing over Shanghai to Hong Kong. Voices for moderation, neutrality, and calls for humanity are largely marginalized and censored in the West. But what we can humbly do is to record these unruly times so that following generations of investigators might get a better picture of how this branch of Western ‘press soldiery’ was able to drag us all into darkness, silenced its critics, caused misery and distrust, and profited immensely from their militant methods and reckless ambitions.
The rising cult of China experts:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-231014.html
Free Asia-Pacific from Western hold:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2014-11/13/content_18905038.htm
About the author:
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/about-the-author/
RELATED And The Best University In China Is…
Peking University (PKU), China’s “mother lode of higher education” (my shade, but you’re welcome to try to top that), does minister to China’s national flag, the five golden stars –wu xing hong qi- with an equally impressive five star Chinese scholarship program that has the People’s Republic’s media going uuh and ooh since June. Ah, and, yeah, they got themselves a skillful Wikipedian, too.
“The Yenching Academy offers a 1-year Master of Chinese Studies program (in English) designed to prepare an elite class of future leaders to meet the challenges of the 21st century global landscape.” –PKU
Your author had been a visiting student at PKU from 2004 to 2006, and returned for his doctoral studies from 2007 to 2012. Back then, there was nothing like the Yenching scholarship; academic poverty was a big issue (it still is for many Chinese students), letting alone PKU’s guerrilla bureaucracy (graduation procedures required eight signatures and seals). There was also the existential threat of sky-rocketing rents outside campus (now exceeding $1,200/month for a one-bedroom apartment). As to the interview process, we didn’t even use Skype back in 2006, so there was a lot of traveling back-and-forth (obtaining visa was much easier then, though). Luckily (for the new generation of students), Peking University has addressed the issues of funding, housing, and guidance by creating this first-class residential scholarship program. [...]
Blair must have become the most hated man on the planet, the synonym for a political psychopath [22], a textbook case for students of criminology and psychology [23], and, yes, an internet meme of taunt and sneer [24; 25; 26; 27; 28]. The Daily Mail published a piece: 'Impeach Tony Blair' [29]. He is guilty of crimes against humanity; there is no doubt about it.
At times it appears that the most savage critics would back off (just a little bit), perhaps, if only Blair had produced something of a confession; that he did what he did because he could, that war is profitable, that Iraqi casualties are lamentable but ultimately irrelevant, that Muslims are tolerable as long as they agree to live in the year 2014 of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that the disintegration of the Middle East (and Russia, Iran, and China) is necessary for rebuilding it in the West 's image. To their disappointment, however, his autobiography wasn't exactly a 'Mein Kampf.'
They used to say that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were the great losers of the 20th Century, but that's just convenient Anglophone propaganda. The truth is the collapse of the British Empire – the largest in history – was a far more significant crash (some cynics say, only London is left).
For it is when a nation endured great pain and humiliation, and when its people have lost their way, that great seducers promise spiritual relief: "We have to liberate ourselves from the notion that 'we' have caused this. We haven't [30]." I rest my case.
THE CHRISTMAS that we used to know was essentially a Pagan tradition taken by Christianity and exploited by Capitalism. The Christmas tree is clearly a pagan element; Saint Nicholas is a biblical saint; and the gift-giving culture is pure commercialism. So what’s in it for China and Confucianism?
China is vowing to make more reforms, among them cutting red tape and establishing the yuan as a world currency. The 7th Annual Meeting of the New Champions is opening in the Chinese city of Dalian, the gathering has become known as a 'summer Davos'. RT has talked to Dr. Pattberg about China’s prospects for introducing a new world currency.
for their terminologies. The 21st Century is going to witness tens of thousands of non-Western words enriching the future global language.
2013年10月13日,首届乐教文化国际学术研讨会; Beijing Traditional Music Festival Conference 2013
裴德思 (Pattberg, Thorsten): On German Basic Music Education
[Transcript/Summary] Thank you very much for your interest in German music education. We are going to talk about the typical German education that most children and teenagers should expect in Germany. But first let us recall why German education is interesting for Chinese scholars: First, Germany is the homeland of the Germanic cultures which include the Scandinavians and various other Germanic tribes like the Anglo and the Saxons. Second, the Germans are the descendants of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation. Last, German culture is rich of folklore and fairy tales, like those of the Grimm Brothers. Goethe, the great German poet, referred the Germans as people of the forests. This all lends greatly to the imaginations of Chinese scholars when they study the history of Germany. And all those aspects of Germany mentioned above, the Germanic origin, the Christian tradition, and the folkloric way, greatly influence German educational ways, which includes the musical education. (There are other influences on musical education, such as the classics and the military tradition, but those won’t be discussed here). There are three main institutions that shape education for the young the most: the state, the church, and society (which include parents, family, and the community). We shall hear various examples that should give a basic notion about how Germany maintains and preserves its own cultural tradition and peculiarities in midst globalization. Our investigation will be concluded by three findings: That state and church both provide basic (music) education; that intermediate and advanced music skills are left to the individual (which means there is almost none state selection like, say, in former East Germany or the Soviet Union); and that German education, including musical education, is fixed on Germany and Europe and thus, broadly speaking, remains essentially ‘Eurocentric’ to this day. […] [GO TO PROGRAM]
Program Info:
全国教育科学“十二五”规划2012年度国家重点项目《中华优秀传统文化教育研究》课题由中国音乐学院音乐研究所所长谢嘉幸教授主持,率领大家组建包括文化学、教育学、社会学等学科在内的,涵盖大中小学研究人员的研究团队,强调理论研究与实践研究相结合,从音乐教育的角度切入,探讨如何在学校与社区中进行中华优秀传统文化教育,覆盖大、中、小、幼各个学段以及社区与农村教育的各个领域,涉及音乐、文学、历史、哲学、地理等多学科,强调理论研究与实践研究相结合,进行全方位的中华优秀传统文化教育体系建设的理论与教育实践研究。
书院承担《当代乐教的理论构建与实践探索》子课题,拟以四海孔子书院作为基地,系统探索中华乐教教学体系,研究以“乐记”为核心的中国古代音乐教育哲学思想及“乐教”“诗教”“礼教”三者关系,并转化为一套可实施、可操作的课程体系;筹建中华乐教馆、儿童雅乐团,在对读经儿童进行音乐熏陶和乐器教习中,积累教学材料资源,摸索总结出基于现实、直接传统文化心法的教学经验、方法。
会议日程:
1.报到:10月13日上午9点前(星期日)
2.会议:2013年10月13日9点30分至18点 (北京“京民大厦”会议厅)
3.观摩:重建六代之乐《大武》《箫韶》专场表演
(10月13日晚于中国音乐学院国音音乐堂)
Posted by admin on October 15, 2013. Leave a comment.
北京大学高等人文研究院讲座:未来的全球语言与中文术语的崛起
The Future of Global Language and the Rise of Chinese Terminologies
【主讲人】裴德思 博士 (Pattberg,Thorsten)
【时 间】2013年10月17日(周四),下午15:00-17:00
【地 点】高等人文研究院,北京大学守仁国际研究中心
【主办方】北京大学高等人文研究院
讲座文章摘要
Chinese words are underrepresented in the English language for a variety of reasons but mainly because –commencing from the 17th century – the entire Confucian tradition has been meticulously translated into convenient and familiar European vocabularies. For example, China’s single most important archetypes of wisdom, the ‘shengren,’ have been rendered as “saints,” “philosophers,” or “sages;” likewise the Confucian ‘junzi’ have been called “gentlemen,” “superior personalities,” or “noble people;” and so on. It will be argued, however, that the original terms and correct names should matter to the Chinese world, especially in today’s age of knowledge, branding and intellectual property rights, which surely extend, or should extend, into the realms of Culture. Henceforth, this talk supports the notion that more Chinese key concepts should be adopted into the future Global language.
讲座人介绍
裴德思(Pattberg, Thorsten)、德国籍、语言学者以及作家,北京大学高等人文研究院研究人员。北京大学文学博士。专攻中西方比较文化与语言文学。北京大学、东京大学,哈佛大学的校友。
Posted by admin on October 19, 2013. Leave a comment.
公开讲座:后翻译时代的到来以及中文术语的崛起
裴德思 博士 (Pattberg,Thorsten): 后翻译时代的到来以及中文术语的崛起, 主办方: 云英语
The Coming of Post-Translational Society and The Rise of Chinese Terminologies
【主 题】后翻译时代的到来以及中文术语的崛起
【主讲人】裴德思 博士 (Pattberg,Thorsten)
【时 间】2013年10月19日(周六),下午15:00-17:00
【地 点】云英语,北京市海淀区五道口华清嘉园商务会馆801
【工作语言】英文/中文
【主办方】云英语
讲座文章摘要
The English language is rich of foreign loanwords. Some languages were traditionally more welcomed than others. There is a plethora of words from the Sanskrit, Persian, and Japanese traditions in the Oxford Dictionary, but comparatively little Chinese terms. Why is that? One of the main reasons for the lack of Chinese expressions in the English language is the European tendency for translating the Confucian tradition into convenient biblical and philosophical European vocabularies. That is the reason why even China’s most important key concepts like ‘shengren’, ‘junzi’, or ‘ren’ are largely unknown to even educated Westerners. If China were to promote her own socio-cultural originality and inventiveness to the world, the author argues, she would have to promote her own key terminologies on a global scale. This would greatly impact the future of global language and the way we go about translation of invaluable cultural artifacts –China’s names.
讲座人介绍
裴德思(Pattberg, Thorsten)、德国籍、语言学者以及作家,北京大学高等人文研究院研究人员(Research Fellow)。北京大学文学博士。专攻中西方比较文化与语言文学。北京大学、东京大学,哈佛大学的校友。
关键词
Global Language, Translation, Chinese, Comparative Studies, 翻译,中华文明,语言,中文,汉语,中外交流
Transcript from Talk presented at the ‘Songshan Forum – Chinese Civilization and World Civilization’ on Sept 8, 2013:
Good afternoon, everyone!
It is a privilege to be able to present this talk at this prestigious conference in Dengfeng, Henan province. Today I will talk about a new research field – even a new methodology – in Culture Studies: Translation History.
The exact topic of my talk is the ‘36 (Foreign) Translations of Shengren of the Confucian Analects’. I chose this number-title because we are close to Shaolin, and I have found memories of the myth of the 36 chambers of the Shaolin. Legend has it that the most perfect kungfu fighter will be tested on 36 different aspects of abilities. After he passed through all 36 chambers, he would receive the branding from carrying on the inside of his forearms an iron filled gauntlet.
Today, we will also be doing a branding exercise in some way: after passing through 36 translations, we are going to establish the true name of a Chinese concept.
So, what’s Translation History? Very easy: You pick a foreign key terminology and trace back all its major translations committed, say, by European scholars in the field. If you do this with more than two languages, you will see a monstrous pattern emerging. In fact, many new patterns emerge, and I am confident to predict a great change the way we look at cultures. By exposing ‘translation’ as what it (often) is: a reduction, simplification, or distortion, we are able to demonstrate certain biases, prejudices, or motives behind each European trial to conform a non-European tradition into all-too-convenient European categories and terminologies.
Let us look at the shengren. See, I wrote the book about the shengren. The shengren is the single most important concept in Chinese tradition. However (and because) the Europeans had not anything like it, and – for various reasons – refused to hold the candle to China, they instead withheld the shengren and talked about some lesser versions of (Greek) philosophers or (Christian) holy men, and so on. The Anglo-Saxons soon found a slightly better translation, calling the shengren sages. This isn’t a perfect translation, but it is neutral enough, e. g. sages coming from the Latin word sapientia, meaning “wisdom” or even “having taste”.
The Germans however, the descendents of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation, never had a concept for sages and sagehood. In their effort to Christianize China, they called the shengren saints. With little regard for what was actually written in the Chinese Canon, the European imperialists engaged in a battle of control over China’s most valuable possession: its names.
[It follows a discussion about some of the 36 translations.]
In conclusion, if cultural preferences, ideologies, confessions, etymologies, motives, sense and entitlement, and even the desire to destroy Chinese words for the sake of it (language imperialism) determined how various European cultures for over 360 years went on about domesticating the Chinese tradition, or any foreign tradition really, then it seems obvious that we are on to something truly remarkable: we are wasting our time. Why? Because instead of allowing 6000 translations of shengren (given that there are 6000 languages left in the world); would it make more sense to simply adopt the original word instead?
In our case, the shengren of the Chinese tradition is demonstrably untranslatable (because the Europeans don’t have such a concept, they use familiar words from their own tradition that are, by definition, biased and colored) and should be adopted into the European lexicon. In fact, the shengren of Confucianism are as unique and clearly defined as the buddhas of Buddhism and constitute a truly non-European archetype of wisdom.
Thank you for your eyes and ears!
West wants to know what China dreams (Thorsten Pattberg Interview on Zhongguo Meng)
Thorsten Pattberg 裴德思 Interview on Zhongguo Meng 中国梦
West wants to know what China dreams (Pattberg Interview on Zhongguo Meng)
SHANGHAI – Yao Minji (Emily Yao) from Shanghai Daily sits down with Dr. Thorsten Pattberg from Peking University to discuss the Zhongguo Meng (Chinese Dream) Dr. Pattberg argues that Chinese key concepts should not be translated, and explains why, in his view, the Zhongguo Meng is very different from the American Dream.(July 2013)
Emily Yao: You mentioned in your article that “Zhongguo Meng is about achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation back to its former pomp,” do you consider that the key difference between Zhongguo Meng and American Dream? What other differences are there?
Thorsten Pattberg: I am a historian, so I learned some tricks: Do not translate Chinese key terminologies! This is true for kungfu, wushu, shengren, junzi, and… the zhongguo meng. Why, because if you translate Chinese concepts you are giving away the definition of thought. Only if European classrooms teach about the (zhongguo) meng, your culture will truly have emancipated. Otherwise, Western readers, when they see ‘Chinese dream,’ will always have the American dream at the back of their head. This reminds me of the Slovene philosopher Slavoj Zizek who once said: You must not dream dreams which are not yours.
EY: Does it mean Zhongguo Meng is a national dream rather than individual dreams?
TP: It can only be a national dream, I think. You wouldn’t go to England to live the Chinese dream, right? China experienced dynasties, emperors, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Communism, the lifting of 400 million people out of poverty. Nothing of this happened in the west, so, Yes, China is chasing a dream – big and different. Chinese don’t want to be Americans; they want to be Chinese; a strong, rejuvenated wenming (a spiritual civilization). There is little individualism in China to speak of, at least not yet. But this is just my opinion.
EY: Many say a lot of Chinese people today don’t have dreams, or their dream is just to save a lot of money and immigrate to a Western country, as an academic who has been in China for years, how do you think of that comment?
TP: China tries to imitate the US in many ways, as you can clearly see this wink to the ‘American dream.’ However, World history (with a capital ‘H’) is totally and irreversibly written by the west. This has to do, again, with language. Chinese who blindly study English often forget that it is European thought, not theirs. If China really wanted to flex its soft power muscle, it would have to bring its own Chinese terms to the tables; otherwise any dialogue will always be just that: a Western monologue. In this sense, Japan is far ahead of China, because it exported countless loanwords like samurai, bushido, shogun, kamikaze, karate, sumo and zen. The list goes on. Think about it as cultural property right. So China, why not going ahead and promote the zhongguo meng? Just saying.
EY: In your opinion, what defines China Dream?
TP: It’s not about definition, more about universality. You, I and everyone has dreams, no? The question is: Can you fulfill your dreams in China, and not elsewhere? And how many people would think that too?
EY: In your opinion, does China have a good environment for dreams to be realized? Does that only apply to Chinese or does that include expats in China as more and more foreigners come to work and live here?
TP: Oh yes, a lot of dreams get realized. Chinese people are hard-working, smart, and optimistic about the future, while Europeans tend to get a bit finicky and pessimistic. There are 10,000 Germans in Beijing right now. Their dreams are inextricably linked to China’s new ambition, power and prosperity. Think about that.
EY: What is the advantage and what does it lack?
TP: Salaries in China are still too low, so most employees tend to stay close to the mother lode, like little children. Many feel “wu nai” – helpless. This inhibits their creativity and drive for self-actualization. Premier Li Keqiang wants to double the average income in China, which would give each citizen the means to more private consume, to pursue hobbies, and to set personal goals in life. That’ll help society a lot.
EY: Do you have a zhongguo meng? If so, what is it?
TP: I believe that part of the zhongguo meng is the revival of Chinese categories and terminologies into the global language. Anyone who in twenty years from now still translates shengren or junzi is going to be a dinosaur.
EY: Thank you very much!
Thorsten PATTBERG
Doctor of Letters, D.Litt.
Research Fellow
The Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies (IAHS)
Peking University
Tel.: +86 15501111449 (China)
Pattberg’at’pku.edu.cn
[PATTBERG'S BLOG]
“I don’t think that China’s spirituality has been globalized, again, how can you globalize anything Chinese if you can’t transport the key Chinese terminologies into the West.”
“I don’t think Confucianism is in competition with anyone at the moment because Confucianism is more like an attitude towards life.”
“Well, it is certainly taught into China because you can’t separate Confucianism from the Chinese language.”
Blue Ocean Network (BON TV) was struck by the global financial crisis and had to cancel a show on Confucianism. This interview went rather well; so here is the raw version:
Transcript: BON.TV Interview with DR. Thorsten Pattberg, Confucian Scholar and Linguist at The Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Peking University
Host: MIN Weiyuan (闵蔚远), Tsinghua University, August, 2012
Dr. Thorsten Pattberg is a renowned author and lecturer at Peking University. His books include The East-West Dichotomy, Shengren, and Inside Peking University. He has written extensively on linguistics and the relationship between language and imperialism. Visit his website at www.east-west-dichotomy.com
When: Dec 3, 2012
Organizer: Dr. A. Doostdar, President of the Center for International Scientific Studies and Collaboration (CISSC); Dr. S. A. Mirhosseini (CISSC)
Host: M. M. Khodaei (President), A. A. Zinatizadah (Head of International Affairs), Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran
Abstract: Many Western observers remain blissfully ignorant about Eastern concepts and ideas and refuse to adopt, for example, Chinese terminologies into their China reports. They describe Eastern cultures on the back of their own Western taxonomies. Is this really how we want ‘Asia Studies’ to be for the future?
Purpose: Persian tradition is a cultural universe with tens of thousands unique non-European terminologies, words, and names. These are precious. Find the ones that are untranslatable (e. g. cannot be expressed adequately with Western lexicon) and introduce them to the world – in your essays, in your papers, books, interviews. Make globalization sound a bit more Farsi in the future.
Examples: Words that cannot be adequately translated into Western European languages without loosing their Eastern originality, for example Persian: bazaar, kalif, imam, Ramadan, halal, Allah, ayatollah; but also less know concepts like hakim, hekmat, phir and elm: or Sanskrit: dharma, karma, prajna, avatar, nirvana, pundit, atman, yoga; or Chinese wenming, kungfu, fengshui, tao, daxue, and shengren, etc.
Conclusion: Without adopting Eastern terminology in the international discourse, the East will forever look like a place of zero originality.
Thank you!
Key words: Science, Allah, ayatollah, hakim, hekmat, phir, elm, Germany, full, censored, language policy, Asian Studies, place of zero, originality, Eastern saints, Persian origin, problem of translation, language revolution, future language, globalization of language, Kermanshah, Iran, public talk
Purpose: Translation is a tool to communicate ideas from one language group to another. That said, translation must also have its limits when it comes to names, titles, and concepts that, often as a matter of common-sense, mutual respect, or simple ownership, should not be or cannot be easily translated at all. Words like Allah, Imam, or Ayatollah for example. Somehow, translation has made us act carelessly when trying to understand and research foreign cultures, especially when it comes to studying Eastern traditions.
Thorsten Pattberg, Peking University, China
This paper consists of two parts. First, I shall give a brief introduction on German
orientalism from the end of the 18th to the beginnings of the 20th century. We will see that
German intellectuals on Oriental thought can be divided into four classes: the philosophers (e.
g. Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche etc.), the orientalists (e. g. Weber, Mueller, Winternitz
etc.), the practitioners (e. g. Neumann, Dahlke, Zimmermann etc.) and the sponsors (e. g.
Humboldt, Wagner, Goethe, Hesse etc.). The definition, function and interaction between
these four classes will be discussed in some detail.
In the second part I shall analyze the attitude in Germany toward Oriental thought, and
discuss 20th century German religious (oriental) education against three recent, post-modern
criticisms: Edward Said’s Orientalism (1987), Kamakshi Murti’s German Orientalism (2001)
and Suzanne Marchand’s Orientalized Germany (2001). In particular, I will argue that despite
the combined efforts of the four classes mentioned above, in accordance with their critics
mentioned above, Germany could not - and never had the means to - succeed at establishing a
"German Buddhism" for her lack of sages, or better a culture for sages; she only could
welcome, so to speak, a "Buddhism in Germany" as a new exercise of the mind contributing to
philosophical projects such as German romanticism and idealism. As a result, till today, the
cultural outlook of the German people and their religious (oriental) education continue to
remain largely “no country for sages”.
[*Ch: “Shen wu suo yi” (No country for sages) is an alteration of the common Asian idiom
“Lao wu suo yi” (No country for old men) referring to a society lacking filial propriety,
usually said of elders, “lao”, who – despite their vast life experiences and spiritual wisdom –
are ignored and thus helpless.]
包子烤鸭不需要翻译
裴德思,德国人,北京大学高等人文研究院研究人员,在大学时代就开始学习汉语以及中国文化,“中华思想文化术语传播工程”得以启动,和他穷究其里研究中华传统文化分不开。2013年他的相关研究文章《怎么翻译中华文明的核心词》引起中国有关方面的关注,并成为该工程得以启动的一个诱因。
在接受本报记者专访时,裴德思回忆起写这篇文章的前前后后。“当我深入理解汉语之后,发现许多词汇的概念与我在德语或英语里所理解的有些出入和不同,比如‘圣人’这个概念的定义就十分不同。”他因此萌发更加深入研究的念头,他发现,像Yin-Yang(阴阳)和Kungfu(功夫)这样的词汇,已经被西方语言吸收并被他们的人民所接受。但这样的例子毕竟是少数,“我个人认为,任何一个中国名牌,像Baidu(百度),Weibo(微博)等都不用翻译。传统食品,类似Baozi(包子)、Jiaozi(饺子)、Kaoya(烤鸭)等也不需要翻译。”裴德思说,中国文化博大精深,应该以最贴近汉语意思的表述方式让世界理解,这样才能让中国文化在世界发扬光大。“现在时机到了,中国应当把‘文化财产权利’看得与领土、海洋权利一样重要,向全世界普及一些重要的中国文化词汇。”
产权利”看得与领土与海洋权利一样
重要。一个概念的发明者或者命名者
往往具有很大的优势与主导权。德国
人把它叫做“Deutungshoheit”,意
思是拥有给思想定义的主权。我们需
要认清这样一个现实——现在的西方
希望的是用西方的方式谈论他们自己,
而不是用中国的方式。
——裴德思
http://rt.com/op-edge/china-control-world-currency-707/
Transcript: BON.TV Interview with DR. Thorsten Pattberg, Confucian Scholar and Linguist at The Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Peking University
Host: MIN Weiyuan (闵蔚远), Tsinghua University, August, 2012
Eric Draitser: And we are back here on Stop-Imperialism.com. It is my pleasure and privilege to be talking to Dr. Thorsten Pattberg; he is an author and lecturer and his books include The East-West dichotomy, Shengren, and Inside Peking University. Dr. Pattberg, I wanted to come back to this issue of Academic Imperialism and I am very curious to get your perspective on how this has changed. One of the thing that we have seen in the last fifty years – at least in the West – has been a shift in academia from to some degree a reactionary type of mentality to what we call a “progressive liberal establishment”. So how has this changed, if at all, the nature of academic imperialism?
Dr. Thorsten Pattberg is a renowned author and lecturer at Peking University. His books include The East-West Dichotomy, Shengren, and Inside Peking University. He has written extensively on linguistics and the relationship between language and imperialism. Visit his website at www.east-west-dichotomy.com
Today I would like to talk about three notions that are likely to influence the way we write in the future. The first is the End of Translation, the second is the Competition for Terminologies, and third is the Future of Global Language.
Let me start with the End of Translation, and I will talk about it in the context of the Chinese language: Chinese words are largely underrepresented in the English language. Of course, we have adopted some loanwords like kungfu or yin and yang; but the cast majority of unique Chinese terminologies are still unknown to the West. What’s the reason for that? The main reason is that –commencing from the 17th century and onwards- the entire Confucian tradition has mainly been translated into European biblical and philosophical terminologies. As a result we don’t know much about the Chinese tradition at all. Did you know that the Chinese have a very unique archetype of wisdom called the shengren? Well, Confucius is a shengren. Unfortunately, European missionaries often translate the shengren as philosophers, saints, or sages. The consequences of this are enormous. Well, the problem is, is this really ethical, scientific, or even legal to translate Chinese terminologies into European words in this 21st century of knowledge and cultural, intellectual property rights? I don’t think so.
That leads me to my second point: the Competition for Terminologies: Think about this: Capitalism teaches to compete for natural resources, for market shares, and for human capital. Less is known to the people that we also compete for names. Think about it as branding and marketing strategies. Whoever owns the language, owns knowledge. If you think back in history, when St. Jerome translated the Hebrew bible into Latin, he basically ended the Hebrew world order. Later, the protestant reformer Martin Luther translated the Latin bible into the German language; which of course set into march the German Empire. So language and words do matter. Why is it that in our age brand names like ‘Coca-Cola’ or ‘Microsoft’ enjoy greater legal protection that the entire output of, say, the Indian and Chinese civilizations in 3000 years? If you think about Hindu words that are already known in the West like dharma, karma, yoga, pundit, guru, or avatar, or even Japanese loanwords like kimono, tsunami, sushi, sashimi, oni, kami, and the lot, then we could say that the Hindu and Japanese civilizations are already far ahead of the Chinese one when it comes to make their originality heard in the West. So, in this respect, China –and maybe other civilizations as well- has to catch up. Imagine, this is only the beginning! How much more beautiful and authentic, and sophisticated and accurate, our world would become if we could appreciate all other culture’s key terminologies.
Which of course leads me to the last point of my talk: the Future of Global Language: You see, we need not to stop translation entirely because we want to communicate with foreigners, and that is alright. But when it comes to important terms and key terminologies of the host culture, we should not translate them but rather we should adopt them. Some people say this is madness. We cannot free the words. We can free land, and people, we can free women and children, we can free countries from oppression and from injustices done to them, but we cannot free the words, Mister! Well, I don’t think so. I think that the time is right and that the people in the world are actually ready for non-European terminologies!
This ‘carelessness’ that we did in the past with words and other people’s inventiveness and originality ideas has to stop. The only way, as I see it, to create the global language is really to find a scientific way to adopt as many key terminologies as possible and to unite all the languages’ vocabularies into one. Any one national language is not enough, Ladies and Gentlemen, because Knowledge is a Polyglot.
Directed/Produced by
Peking University, Modern Educational Technology Center
Commissioned by Big Think; © Big Think
What’s the point in learning Chinese if you’ll never be given the opportunity to use it, as most Western schools, universities, publishers, and even The New York Times practice Orwellian Rules of Writing in order to keep their China reports “Chinese-free” — meaning pure, clean, and unpolluted.
The New York Times, a US corporation dressed as global public service, is perhaps the most notorious offender to the world’s diversity of languages, foreign cultures, and non-Western people. All its writers and editors, letting alone outside contributors, are forced to “avoid foreign words” in their “submissions,” especially if it’s about foreign nations, their governments, and their (non-Western) people, wherever they can in order to keep the paper’s sovereignty over the definition of thought. (The NY Times must write from the position of highest authority, like the voice of an overlord and colonial master, which it cannot if the matter is discussed on foreign terms.)
It means that 95% of the world’s (non-US) population is effectively censored and/or their cultures and words omitted. Not all words are created equal, of course. Americans can call the Chinese whatever they want. But, still, what an attitude this is. It amounts to saying to our friends the Chinese (but also the Russians, Iranians, Germans, Indians, etc.): “You may express your ideas, but only by using OUR dictionary. You must use OUR vocabularies — forged in OUR culture, pleasant to OUR eyes!”
RELATED Language Imperialism – ‘Democracy’ in China [The Japan Times]
Even if it’s bordering on cultural and intellectual property theft: “You must translate foreign ideas and concepts into convenient English words and categories that a Westerner could have said and thought up independently from you. We don’t want to hold a candle to non-Western thinkers and inventors you see.”
Orwellian Rules of Writing at The New York Times
Image (above): Most ‘Style Guides’ in the US are still obsessed with purity of language, and advice: “…avoid foreign words. Write in English.”
As any philosopher, politician, historian, or social-scientist (letting alone linguist) will attest to you: Language is power. Stripping billions of people off their cultural key terminologies so that your publication looks pure and thoroughbred isn’t just some journalist’s cruel joke. It is a form of cultural genocide. The New York Times may think New York as a worldly place. It is not. It is full of Americans.
This dead-serious form of language imperialism is of course an age-old and time-tested strategy: “It is knowledge only if we know it” — meaning that unless (and until) a Westerner also said it, and named it, and took credit for its discovery, as far as our media channels and academics are concerned, your foreign ideas, concepts, and categories remain “fair game.” (This discrimination against foreign words, I claim, is worse than racism.)
RELATED Knowledge is a Polyglot [Big Think]
Anyway, here’s a taste of blatant NY Times language imperialism (see this link). It is in the form of a China op-ed (already his second) by China professor Daniel A. Bell who in order to get published in The New York Times prostrates himself not only to “Teaching Western Values,” but also more so to “Teaching China the correct English terms” for all their Chinese thoughts on cultural and ideological matters.
I am all for the inclusion of foreign cultures, not their omission in our media. Foreign names, brands, and inventions must be allowed [and will be allowed some day, I’m sure of it] to show and to compete in US publications. Today, most foreign words are still banned. And almost 7 billion people whose languages are not English are silenced.
Image credit: Stuart Monk/Shutterstock.com
Thorsten J. Pattberg, Ph.D., is a German writer and cultural critic. He is the author of The East-West Dichotomy. You may contact him here: pattberg’at’pku.edu.cn
Note: This article about censorship at The New York Times had been posted on New York’s BIG THINK on April 20th, 2015, and was censored a day later:
Orwellian Rules of Writing at The New York Times 2
‘Orwellian Rules of Writing at The New York Times’ might just have hit a nerve.
MOST scholars believe themselves to be a benign force, one that is able to aim but cannot harm. Strictly speaking, there is no physical causation between their creativity and somebody else’s losses. That’s why in America we formally have strict arms control, but no such thing as thought control, with the foreseeable consequence that every kind of intellectual rubbish, extremity, or idiocy is produced and/or committed in our society.
The great achievements of any high culture should rest, of course, on the broad shoulders of academia. The so-called scholarly classes or “the PhDs,” literally doctors for the love of wisdom, are believed to be the gatekeepers of knowledge. Well, let me dwell a bit on what scholars are doing these days, and for whom, and what for.
Without respect for relationships, there was no tolerance for others, inhibited consideration, and no commitment to oneness and interconnectedness. A culture without sages was a sad place.
Zhuangzi once said: “Delight in sageness is helpful to ingenious contrivances; delight in knowledge contributes to fault-finding.”
NEW HAVEN – Social media is currently hyping a soon-to-be published book by America’s notorious ‘Tiger Mom’, Amy Chua, author of The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and her husband Jed Rubenfeld. Both are Yale law professors.
The new book The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America, ready for global distribution in February this year by Penguin, is preceded by a massive PR-campaign aimed at plucking some of America's most sensitive nerves: eugenics, racism, cultural superiority, and sheer nonsense.
As the South China Morning Post reported, Mr. Cai allegedly embezzled “hundreds of millions of yuan.” He wasn’t a lone wolf. A senior secretary, Hu Juan, came under investigation too. Hu was close to the former president of Renmin University, Ji Baocheng. Mr. Cai apparently left a note in which he accused Ji Baocheng of fraud. Mr. Ji had been tipped off for corruption before, back in 2010, but was not investigated.
2. Have a great idea. You need a plan, a system, a manifesto, a mission. Write it down. It can be a book, an unpublished manuscript, an essay, a drawing, a diary, a couple of poems, a draft for a constitution, or just a few lines of your thought. Something! Think about Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. Your idea will become the genius sitting on your shoulder and attending your actions; it's your guiding spirit, your talisman, and your protector. Having it will forever distract the critic's eye away from your over-the-top personality toward that genius.
HONG KONG – In April 2013, Germany’s most influential weekly news magazine, Der Spiegel, featured a provocative article entitled:
“I don’t believe that democracy is the best way.”
Those words belong to Daniel A. Bell, a Canadian professor of political theory at China’s prestigious Tsinghua University.
BEIJING - I hear stories like this a lot from colleagues: “I got this great idea and then my boss stole it from me.” “Really, how did he do that?” I replied, “did he perform neurosurgery on your skull and removed your idea from your brain?" We all know he didn't; in fact most people volunteer and give away their most precious thoughts for free. They don't have to.
Image credit: ChameleonsEye/Shut
"The Greeks only understand theories, but the Chinese are the people who own the technologies." -- Josafa Barbaro, 1474
"Only the Chinese have two eyes, all other mortals are blind." -- Christian Wolff, 1721
2) Crackdown on Activists, Dissidents, and Democrats
3) From Workshop to Consumer Society
4) Territorial Conflicts
5) The Zhongguo Meng (Chinese Dream)
At the core of this notion is the West’s (almost) universal disregard for foreign cultural property and originality, as demonstrated in this piece by the Western syndication of “philosophy” and its shady and shameless propaganda methods. Western academics, publishers, and journalists have fabricated an Orwellian ‘World History’ in which Western-only (now exclusively English) terms are eligible. Everything else must be translated, or perish.
This coercion and blackmail of Chinese thought has been going on for centuries, unchecked, uncontested, with the result that today’s ‘China Studies’ and by extension China and the Chinese people in the Western mind have become literally ‘Chinese-free’. This is going to change, says Pattberg, but slowly: That’s because language imperialists hold most positions of power, are well funded, and are determined to guard their dubious (often biblical and philosophical) translations, their academic, political, or journalistic legacy and their colonial sense of entitlement. It’s basically like confronting an organized religion or very dangerous cult of China experts.
The only thing language imperialists don’t have is probably this: an easy future. Just like racism, language imperialism is going lose its justification and its legitimacy eventually; in favor of a more just, authentic, and more correct depiction of foreign cultures. The liberalization of Chinese and other foreign terminologies has only just begun.
Dr. Thorsten J. Pattberg (裴德思 Pei Desi) is a German writer, linguist, and cultural critic. Dr. Pattberg has written and published extensively about Global language, Competition for terminologies, and the End of translation. He is also active in promoting Confucianism, in particular Chinese terminologies, on a global scale.
Linkedin:
https://cn.linkedin.com/in/thorstenpattberg
You've Heard About It:
http://thorstenpattberg.blogspot.jp/
RELATED READING: Free Asia-Pacific from Western hold (China Daily)
“Historians persistently warn against misleading biblical and philosophical Western translations of non-Western concepts, but few people outside the profession have heard about their critique. Meanwhile, Western language imperialists pick "Cultural China" into pieces word by word. Most of today’s Western China Studies is fraudulent, incorrect, and misleading.” –Asia Times, July 24, 2012
Language Imperialism in Western Scholarship, Media, and Schools - by Thorsten Pattberg
Institutions and persons mentioned by name (for or against the notion):
Frontiers of Philosophy in China, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, George Orwell, Slavoj Zizek, Benjamin Schwartz, Ji Xianlin, Tu Weiming, Gu Zhengkun, Roger T. Ames, Cambridge University, Harvard University, Warp Weft Way, Peking University Department of Philosophy, Council of Research in Values and Philosophy, The East-West Dichotomy
Book titles and images shown (for or against the notion):
Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy by Bryan W. van Norden
Chinese Philosophy: A Selective and Analytic Approach by Joseph S. Wu
Encyclopedia in Chinese Philosophy by Antonio S. Cua
Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy: Han Dynasty in the 20th Century by Justin Tiwald
Chinese Philosophy by Peter Nancorrow
Creativity and Taoism by Chung-yuan Chang
Heaven and Earth Are Not Humane: The Problem of Evil in Classical Chinese Philosophy by Franklin Perkins
The Way and Its Power: Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought by Arthur Waley
On Philosophy in China by Hyun Hochsmann
The Beginnings of Philosophy in China by Richard Gotshalk
Chinese Philosophy by Wen Haiming
Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy by Bryan W. van Norden
Philosophy on Bamboo: Text and The Production of Meaning in Early China by Dirk Meyer
Understanding Confucian Philosophy: Classical and Sung-Ming by Shu-Hsien Liu
An Intellectual History of China, Vol 1, Knowledge, Thought, and Belief before the Seventh Century CE by Zhaoguang Ge
Chinese Thought in a Global Context: A Dialogue Between Chinese & Western Philosophical Approaches by Karl-Heinz Pohl
Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China by Arthur Waley
Yinyang: Cosmology, Lineage, and Ritual by Robin R. Wang
Chinese Thought: From Confucius to Mao Tse-Tung by Herrlee G. Creel
Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power by Yan Xuetong
Dictionary of Chinese Symbols: Hidden Symbols in Chinese Life and Thought by Wolfram Eberhard
A Short History of Chinese Philosophy: A Systematic Account of Chinese Thought From Its Origins to the Present Day by Fung Yu-Lan
Readings in Han Chinese Thought by Mark Csikszentmihalyi
A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation by Chad Hansen
The World of Thought in Ancient China by Benjamin I. Schwartz
Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy by Stephen C. Angle
Sagehood: The Contemporary Significance of Neo-Confucian Philosophy by Stephen C. Angle
Human Rights and Chinese Thought: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry by Stephen C. Angle
A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy by Wing-Tsit Chan
Oriental Philosophy: A Westerner’s Guide to Eastern Thought by Stuart C. Hackett
The Central Philosophy of Tibet by Robert A. F. Thurman
Confucian and Neo-Confucian Philosophy by Chung-ying Cheng
Dao Companion to Neo-Confucian Philosophy by John Makeham
Embodied Moral Psychology and Confucian Philosophy by Bongrae Seok
The Confucian Creation of Heaven: Philosophy and the Defense of Ritual Mastery by Robert Eno
Confucian Reflections: Ancient Wisdom For Modern Times by Philip J. Ivanhoe
An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy by Karyn L. Lai
Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times by Joseph Chan
Confucian Philosophy: Innovations and Transformations by Chung-ying Cheng and Justin Tiwald
A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future by Jiang Qing
An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy: From Ancient Philosophy to Chinese Buddhism by Jeeloo Liu
A History of Chinese of Chinese Philosophy, Vol 1, The Period of the Philosophers by Fung Yu-lan
The Way of the World: Readings in Chinese Philosophy by Thomas Cleary
Key Concepts in Chinese Philosophy by Zhang Dainian
Philosophy, Philology, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century China by Li Fu
Dialogue of Philosophies, Religions and Civilizations in the Era of Globalization, ed. By Zhao Dunhua
Book titles and image on Good Writing shown:
Media Writing: Print, Broadcast, and Public Relations by W. Richard Whitaker
An English Grammar with Exercises, Notes, and Questions by Rev. W. Allen
The Grammar of Empire in Eighteen-Century British Writing by Janet Sorensen
An Arrangement of English Grammar with… by David Davidson
The Principles of English Grammar by William Lennie
Effective Internal Communication by Lyn Smith
The Little Book on Oral Argument by Alan L. Dworsky
Speaking to Good Effect: An Introduction by Douglas G. Lawrie
Writing Remedies: Practical Exercises for Technical Writing by Edmond H. Weiss
The Wall Street Journal: Guide to Business Style and Usage by Paul R. Martin
The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers, The University of Chicago
Writing with Style: Conversations on the Art of Writing by John R. Trimble
The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E. B. White
The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage: The Official Style Guide Used by the Writers and Editors of the World’s Most Authoritative Newspaper by Allan M. Siegal and William G. Connolly
The Economist Style Guide: The Bestselling Guide to English Usage, The Economist
Effective Writings Skills for Public Relations by John Foster
A History of English Language by Richard Hogg and David Denison
Eighteenth-Century English: Ideology and Change by Raymond Hickey
Political Book titles and images shown:
China’s Security State: Philosophy, Evolution, and Politics by Xuezhi Guo
Politics and the English Language, George Orwell
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington
On China by Henry Kissinger
The End of History and The Last Man by Francis Fukuyama
God’s Empire: Religion and Colonialism in the British World by Hilary M. Carey
George Eliot and the British Empire, by Nancy Henry
A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the Union of 1707 by John Robertson
Understanding the British Empire by Ronald Hyam
Race and Empire in British Politics by Paul B. Rich
The Ideological Origins of the British Empire by David Armitage
1984 by George Orwell
Concepts mentioned:
rujiao, daojiao, fojiao, jiao, xue, jia, zhexue, shengren, tetsugaku
Key words: Western language imperialism, philosophy is a syndicate, new imperialism, cultural property theft, end of translation, Rules for Writing, Goebbels Law, lingualism
Dr. Thorsten J. Pattberg is a German political writer, essayist, and cultural critic.
Website:
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/ab...
The Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2...
Read at The Diplomat:
http://thediplomat.com/2014/07/chinas...
Dr. Thorsten J. Pattberg is a German political writer, essayist, and cultural critic.
For more information go to: http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com
It has been uploaded here solely for analytic and educational purpose and no copyright infringement is intended.
Read at Asia Times:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CH...
Dragons and Pandas Blog, Big Think:
http://bigthink.com/users/thorsten-pa...
About the author:
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/ab...
It has been uploaded here solely for analytic and educational purpose and no copyright infringement is intended.
Read essay at Asia Times:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CH...
Dragons and Pandas Blog, Big Think:
http://bigthink.com/users/thorsten-pa...
About the author:
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/ab...
This video has been uploaded here solely for analytic and educational purpose and no copyright infringement is intended.
About the author:
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/ab...
You've Heard About It:
http://thorstenpattberg.blogspot.jp/
He has written and published extensively about Global language, Competition for terminologies, and the End of translation. He is also active in promoting Confucianism, in particular Chinese terminologies, on a global scale.
Websites:
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com
http://thorstenpattberg.blogspot.jp/
http://bigthink.com/blogs/dragons-and...
Read at Big Think:
http://bigthink.com/dragons-and-panda...
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/worldethics
Website:
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/ab...
Read the full text at Big Think:
http://bigthink.com/dragons-and-panda...
Go to Thorsten J. Pattberg's Website:
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/
Or follow him on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/worldethics
Or read his blog:
http://thorstenpattberg.blogspot.jp/
This take-no-prisoners polemic was first syndicated by The Korea Times on May 1, 2014. It was written during a two-days thunderstorm and heavy rainfall in Tokyo, so I tried to convey that atmosphere in this video.
Go to The Korea Times:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/...
If there's a war on language, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is the English one against all others!
It has been shown -over and over again- how European translations of all things Asian have directly misinterpreted those other civilizations, and robbed the Asians of their originality, their inventiveness, and their intellectual property rights. This great destruction of foreign words follows the history of the Europeans like genocide, colonialism, and orientalism. [...]
See article 'China's War on English' by Dexter Roberts:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/...
Read War Against 'The War On English' at Big Think:
http://bigthink.com/dragons-and-panda...
Watch Video 'Knowledge is a Polyglot' by T Pattberg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPDKQ...
Website:
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/ab...
Twitter: @worldethics
Research Interests: Translation Studies, Globalization, Chinese Language and Culture, Chinese Textual Culture, Occidentalism, Orientalism, Anti-Americanism, English as a global language, Linguistic Imperialism in Postcolonial Era and Language Planning and Policy, Language Imperialism, Lingualism, Language Imperialism In the Classroom, Thorsten Pattberg, and War on English
Read this article at Big Think:
http://bigthink.com/dragons-and-pandas/seriously-many-ivy-league-students-have-no-soul
About the author:
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/about-the-author/
In China, racism, nationalism, and xenophobia are still rampant; but so is the excessive worship of everything Western - brands, products, and people. That's because, in the eyes of many Chinese, Western people represent money, power, and privilege -all those things that China once possessed but were taken away by Western powers during the age of imperialism. Chinese who overtly try to westernize are often called 'fake bananas' (outside yellow inside white), while white people who eat Asian food and internalized the Chinese language are often labelled 'Western eggs' (outside white inside yellow).
Last, since China is constantly patronized, belittled, or demonized by Western media (because it is the West's ideological enemy and economic and political competitor), those "Western Eggs" who mingle too much with Chinese people are often shunned by Western bosses and the expat society who may perceive them as spies and troublemakers.
All those problems are real in China, and they might be affecting your employment, search for housing, co-operation, and your personal relationships.
About the author:
http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/ab...
Go to article at Big Think:
http://bigthink.com/dragons-and-panda...
Thankfully, Legge decided against the translation of Tao. He transliterated it. Legge writes: “The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao.” The acclaimed sinologist does the right thing –adopting a foreign term- in the same spirit as Indologists adopted countless Sanskrit terms (such as Buddha, karma, yoga, etc.). Legge didn’t have to. He could have called Tao “the Way” or “the Path.”
Notable Taoist conceptions such as Bianhua or Hundun, however, were immediately rewritten as “change” and “chaos,” without elaborating, say, on why Tao was Tao, but Bianhua was change. It is easy to dismiss the importance of words, translation, or even just the spelling as arbitrary if you are a tourist or imperialist. But if a scholar does it, he must have put some serious thought to it. Advocates of capitalism, the free market, and democracy might argue that “we Europeans can call the Chinese whatever we want,” and that, ultimately, the consumers will decide what’s terrific and what stinks. Others reply that the state universities must try to influence the market of ideas, just like everyone else.