Essay on Chinese Characters and Chinese Culture

History is a master of rough lines, outlining the process of globalization while ignoring the fact that people have paid a great price for this development and progress; fortunately, history is also a master of contradictions, and the trend of today's world is not unidirectional.

China's strength lies in its culture. Chinese culture has been severely tested in the last two centuries and has been and is being reborn. Since modern times, Chinese culture has not only exposed its closed, ignorant, backward and beaten side, but also shown its resilience, inclusiveness, absorption, introspection, adaptability and self-renewal.

China's goal should be to build a cultural power while centering on economic construction. Culture is the foundation on which the Chinese nation rests, it is the image of China, and it is the basis for solving many troublesome problems and realizing sustainable development, peaceful rise and national integration. Chinese culture is the pride and ****source of all Chinese people. Chinese culture is one of the most important comparative and complementary systems to the strong cultures in the world today, and Chinese culture is a precious treasure of human civilization. Without Chinese culture, human culture would be so crippled!

Here, I would like to focus on some of my personal feelings and experiences about the relationship between Chinese characters (commonly known as Mandarin overseas) and our humanistic cultural traditions and status quo.

For most peoples, their unique language and characters are the cornerstone of their culture. In particular, Chinese characters, which have the largest number of speakers, the longest tradition, and the most unique phonology, grammar, and script, are our lifeblood, our soul, and our foundation.

Chinese is a root language, a Sino-Tibetan language. My novel The Eyes of the Night was translated into English, German, Russian and many other Indo-European languages. All the translators have asked me one question: Is "eye" singular or plural, "eye" or "eyes"?

I can't answer this question because the Chinese language is character-based, and "eye" is a character with its own independence, and its singular and plural are determined by how it is used in conjunction with other characters. The Chinese character "眼" gives me a higher degree of generality and flexibility than "eye" or "eyes": it can represent the eyes of the protagonist, it can symbolize the darkness of the night, or it can symbolize the presence of the night, or it can symbolize the presence of the night, or it can symbolize the presence of the night. It can symbolize the dark contingent of the night, some divine metaphysical rather than this-shore metaphysical nitrile that cannot be distinguished from the singular or the plural, and it can point to the lonely light bulb written about in the text.

The Chinese language fosters such a retrospective, cascading approach to thought. The eye is the origin, and it is the consideration of one eye or more eyes that is the second issue -- that is the quantitative perception about the eye. The eye is derived from the concepts of eye, eyeball, eyeball, eye, eye power, vision, and then transposed or played as mind's eye, wise eye, open eye, heaven's eye, nail's eye, hit the eye (discharge), eye of the eye, and other meanings.

The same is true for verbs and gerunds, as well as the Chinese word "to be". In Chinese, the word "to be" is both "to be" and "am", as well as "was" and "were", including "havebeen". It's "to be" and "am" and "was" and "were", including "havebeen", "has been" and "used to be".

The same is true for word formation, with the concept of cow, and then divided into cow cow cow bull, buffalo buffalo yak bison, milk beef butter cowhide cow horn. This is the same as, for example, in English, cattle - cow, calf - calf, beef - beef, veal - veal -veal, cow - cow, bull or 0X - bull, buffalo - buffalo, milk -- milk, butter -- butter ...... are very different. These cow-related words, in Chinese, are based on the character for cow as the essence and outline, while the rest of the words are derived from the word for "eye". The rest of the words are derived from the word "item". It is difficult to see this kind of cow-origin in the English language.

So the traditional Chinese canon focuses on the most fundamental concepts, most of which are also word-based: such as philosophy, heaven, earth, dry, kun, have, have no, yin, yang, Tao, reason, ware, one, yuan, true, no, Thai ...... ethics in the benevolence, righteousness, morality, morality, etiquette, and, and, cooperation, sincerity, faith, honesty, shame, courage! ...... The theme of opera then speaks of loyalty, filial piety, temperance, and righteousness, and reading poetry (sutra) speaks of Xing, Guan, Qun, and Grievance. Then there are nature, doctrine, theory, principle ...... With benevolence, we ask for benevolent government; with the Tao, we recognize that the legitimacy of ruling lies in the Tao, and distinguish between the king's way and the hegemony and the law of the Tao and the natural law and the Tao of the sunset death can be carried out; with righteousness, we advocate the value of sacrificing one's life for righteousness, and with the doctrine of "it doesn't matter, as long as the doctrine is true", "chopping off the head doesn't matter, as long as the doctrine is true". It doesn't matter, as long as the doctrine is true", with the principle, there is absolutely "do not take the principle of trade" ...... These words, concepts, propositions, not only has the expression meaning, value meaning, philosophical significance, but also the significance of the ultimate faith and These words, concepts, and propositions not only have expressive, value, and philosophical meanings, but also meanings of ultimate faith and aesthetic meanings. The Chinese language focuses on the rationality and orthodoxy of words and concepts, and would rather risk the danger of insufficient empirical evidence or Ying Shu Yan said, but to achieve a high level and break through, to achieve steadfastness and follow through. In China, there is often a problem of proper name. Exegesis has taken up too much time and energy of Chinese scholars through the ages, yet it is unavoidable. Many terms translated from foreign languages have been interpreted by the Chinese as Chinese, and Chinese culture has often become the first step towards Chineseization. This has created many misinterpretations and troubles, but also many creations and opportunities, enriching human language and thought. What works here is the Chinese word-based holism, essentialism, concept worship and deduction (e.g., from sincerity to ruling the country and leveling the world), which is very different from the Western positivism and pragmatism, rationalism and god- or human-centeredness.