Reflection on Chinese Confucian Analects

Introduction

Primary, Confucianism in China is considered more of an ethical and a social philosophy than it is aligned with religion. Its establishment was founded on traditional cultural foundations in pursuit of creating a society of transcendent deals, straight moral values, and an ideal society. Confucianism is based on the sense that cultural identity, as well as the ethical understanding, are the critical pillars that build up a community. The main reason why Master Kong founded Confucianism between 551 and 479 BCE is that he pursed to establish or somewhat revive a different type of culture that was previously unnamed. Through this system, ancestral nature and their spirits were considered essential principles that stabilized and united the society.

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Contemporary, Analects has approximately forty translators that are entirely in English. As such, adding a new translation to the existing forty is undoubtedly engulfed with the challenge of presenting exciting and new information regarding the text particularly because it has to sacrifice part of the faithfulness within the text when changing it to the original text. Lee and Tsui (2018) explain that Analects of Confucius achieves an impressive translation that provides the readers with a diverse perspective essential for critically comprehending all the information recorded in the Confucius including information relating to Greek philosophies, passage annotations as well as precise manifestations of the excellent capabilities.

Interpretation of cultural artifacts examines tools and qualitative methods that are essential in the analyses of the complex Chinese culture and the cultural background aligned with them. There are three levels through which cultural artifacts can be explained including the ground level of evident aspects, followed by immediate reasoning and lastly the in-depth cultural influential factors (Lai, 2016). The analysis of the artifacts reconnoiters the different cultural factors and how each relates to the other. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to establish systematic and structuralized methods that are useful in helping the understanding of traditional artifacts that in numerous ways may accomplish inspirations for contemporary designs of products.

Contemporary, there are numerous Chinese people and other people who have interests in the Chinese culture who have developed a mutual interest in using the Chinese traditions and cultures for purposes of influencing innovation. The purpose of developing such innovations aligned to the Chinese culture is to establish products that are widely appropriate to consumers in China in addition to attracting other foreigners who have adopted unique and extensive interests with the Culture of China (Lai, 2016). Below is an image of a baseball hat that has been developed to match particular features of the Beijing Railway station. The hat has an empirical creation and decoration similar to the rooftop of the railway. Such is an example of one way through which cultural aspects are innovatively added to augment consumption of products.

China, however, has a great history, on this basis, it becomes more challenging and difficult for organizations to produce products particularly those that have a tight schedule since the long history of the Chinese culture demands extensive and comprehensive research that may consume a lot of time. In this regard, lack of creative and appropriate methodologies and convolutions of the culture extensively prevents organizations from investing in cultural evaluations and researches. Additionally, Lee and Tsui (2018) argue that lack of enough knowledge related to culture has prevented some of the Western states not to support Chinese cultural research in their Chinese market. This research, however, establishes tools and effective methods that can be effectively used to construe in-depth significances of cultural artifacts especially artifacts that are unique to particular cultural backgrounds and those cultures that can be great inspirations to the current designs of products.

Based on the fact that majority of Chinese artifacts embodies coats of symbolic meaning, the analysis of these cultures requires a comprehensive understanding of not only the in-depth cultural values aligned to the artifacts but also evident aspects and the influence of these evident features on the culture (Puett, 2018). The selected artifact for evaluation and interpretation, in this case, is the Temple of Heaven where the paper purposes to evaluate the symbolic denotations of the artifact. The figure below represents the selected cultural artifact; The Temple of Heaven.

As earlier explained, there are three ways forwarded by Sung et al. (2017) that can be used to explain a cultural artifact. These ways include evident attributes of the artifact, in-depth analysis, and reasoning aligned to the object and important aspects of the culture. Sung et al. (2017) Argues that evident attributes researches evaluate the cultural features that can be easily identified through the particular artifact. On the other hand, Lee and Tsui (2018) xplains that the deeper reasoning considers the diverse aspects of decisions that mainly controls the standards of the use and designs for the artifacts founded on the user status or symbolic signals of good influences. Sung et al. (2017) also argue that the influential aspects mostly includes ideological, social, geographical, technological and economic aspects of the historical period through which the artifact was established. These factors form the philosophical foundations upon which the formulation of thinking patterns and reasoning showing how things are consumed and how people live are developed.

Confucianism also describes the great philosophical Chinese traditions. The term Daoism corresponds to the English name of the Dao family that was a traditional family during the Han dynasty. The philosophy as presented by Laozi mainly describes the diverse religious movements that existed during the Han Dynasty in the 100 CE. In this respect, Daoism involves practices and thoughts that are widely perceived as religious and philosophical or having a moderate correlation of both religion and philosophy (Zhang and Rosen, 2018). As presented in the Laozi, Confucianism is mainly concerned with comprehending different aspects of nature, dichotomies, ordering the morality of life as well as regulating the society's diet and consciousness.

Poems of Li Bo dramatically draws literary concepts from Confucian. Li Bo was not a creator, and an innovator so much of what he compiled in his literary writings are mainly borrowed ideas. For instance, he has used his writings to express when the Chinese traditions sprout as well as discussed the Hans dynasty (Sung et al., 2017). These two concepts are extensively mentioned through Confucian. He uses these two concepts in his poem as a way of differentiating western cultures and Chinese cultures. In this state, he personifies nature elements another idea that is applied in Confucian.

Tao Quian's Peach Blossom Spring was conceptualized during a period when there was increasingly political instability, and the nation was significantly divided and disunited. It gains its meaning from a story of a fisherman who haphazardly went through a river that was within a forest. The forest composed of blossomed peach trees. However, upon approaching the end of the river, it is then that the river source changed into a cavern. While the river was initially narrow, he managed to squeeze through the river's passage and finally reached the destined village carrying different people of different ages as well as animals. While the villagers go surprised, they were friendly and kind to him. The story refers merely to an unexpected place that is fantastic coupled with intense beauty.

He leaves the utopia because of financial constraints as well as the sexual impotence that forces him to leave the lover as he would not offer her any form of a decent life. He cannot find it again because he withdraws from all the affairs of the world and decides to live his life in solitude.

As an ancient Chinese novel that was published around the 16th century, it extends an account of the Tang dynasty that is a legendary pilgrimage of a Monk who traveled to India in pursuit of acquiring sacred texts of the Buddha. The novel presents diverse meanings mainly related to sins, greed, promiscuity, and hedonism. The novel provides significant insights that majority of the calamities witnessed in the world are primarily engineered by the Buddha who is described as fate in this case.

The story describes the origin of the Monkey King who is known as Sun Wu-Ku. He executes a significant role in the novel. For instance, since the monkey is conscious about life, he ensures that life is protected through magical immortality. Journey to the West showcases Buddhism as a religion made up of six Bandits who are representatives of the six body senses of an individual. On the other hand, six auras represent envy, sins of pride, lust, and avarice.

References

Lai, K. (2016). Learning from Chinese philosophies: Ethics of interdependent and contextualized self. Routledge.

Lee, B., & Tsui, A. (2018). THE INFLUENCE OF THE TRADITIONAL CHINESE VALUE OF HARMONY ON AN INTERNATIONAL CHINESE IT ORGANIZATION. Journal of China

Puett, M. (2018). The Analects: An Illustrated Edition. Princeton University Press.

Sung, H. Y., Hwang, G. J., Lin, C. J., & Hong, T. W. (2017). Experiencing the Analects of Confucius: An experiential game-based learning approach to promoting students' motivation and conception of learning. Computers & Education, 110, 143-153.

Zhang, Y., & Rosen, S. (2018). Confucian philosophy and contemporary Chinese societal attitudes toward people with disabilities and inclusive education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1-11.