2019 Yanqi Lake Forum Day 2: Chinese culture key to family issues

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Home is a warm shelter, a place where the heart is. But home also means pain to many.

In an age of societal transition, some families are struggling to keep up with fast social development. How do we resolve family issues? How do we build beautiful families? The 5,000-year-old culture of China is key to these issues.

On the second day of the 2019 Yanqi Lake Forum, themed activities around family issues were held and approaches and cases were shared and discussed.

Family construction: Theory and practice

The forum started the morning of Oct 29 with a video of moving stories of six Chinese families, showing how they have turned fraught family relationships to happy ones where Chinese culture played a vital role.

Chinese culture, when applied in business, can facilitate a new business civilization. When used on family construction, it will be an effective solution to many social issues. In recent years, the ZS Institute has been piloting applications of Chinese culture by working with tens of thousands of families. The practices showed family is the smallest form of the nation and the nation is the total of tens of millions of families. As the world is rooted in nations, nations in families and families in people, people are after all governed by the soul. Being the foundation of work, morality determines the scope and character of work.If the quartet is understood and followed, happy families can be built, where good sons and daughters are raised, husband and wife issues can be resolved, and even broken relationships can be restored.

This was stated by Bai Lixin, founder of the ZS Institute, after attending the course Cultural Confidence and National Rejuvenation. On the same morning, Bai delivered a speech titled "Happy Families Can Be Learned" to share a complete solution on family construction. The speech was delivered in five parts — first, identification and analysis of family issues; second, codes to happy families; third, mechanisms for building happy families; fourth, courses on building happy families; and fifth, building happy families starts now.

The ZS Institute drew the following conclusions on current family issues from the speech:

1.A little help brings much return. If someone can return a little for help he received, he is trustworthy. Many times, parents give us so much but we fail to return to them what they deserve.

2.The gross divorce rate in China and divorce/marriage rate are both three times higher than 20 years ago. Unhappy marriages have high social cost. It is a common desire of people to improve family relationships.

3.People are treating marriage less seriously than before. Prenuptial agreements mean marriages are better protected, but also indicate lower confidence in marriage.

4.It is widely believed it is someone else's fault for a failed marriage. But anyone who has truly reflected on this knows they themselves were not as good as they thought.

5.When serious issues emerge in a marriage, people turn to divorce for an easy way out. But the cost of starting anew is much more than fixing existing issues. It is said if you cannot swim, how will changing the swimming pool help?

6.Some parents love themselves more than their children. Spoiling a child shows a lack of parenting confidence. But transferring parenting obligations entirely to schools and society is irresponsible parenting.

7.Love in a wrong way harms. For example, some parents prefer to secure a "well-paid easy job close to home" for their children. As a result, sons and daughters do not have much ambition. Some parents believe fortune comes first and give their ill-gotten gains to their sons and daughters. But an illegal fortune itself is a bomb that can go off at any minute, and ends up hurting the coming generations.

8.Some self-centered parents raise children as "egoists". The more an individual gets, the more worries he has for loss. It is only viable to obtain happiness and complete life through developing the self.

9.Many issues arise from the dark. In a world of light, issues in the dark do not exist. People should expand their own minds and hearts to usher themselves into the world of light. It is vital to address family-related issues.

10.Parenting should be comprehensive. It should be teaching by precept and example, and more importantly, soul- and scenario-based. To enhance minds and hearts, parents give their sons and daughters keys to many treasures. Through their own enlightenment, their sons and daughters are enlightened. It is the biggest love and contribution of all. Therefore, the value of a spiritual education is much weightier than scenario-based education.

Bai's more than 10,000-word speech touched many in the audience, both online and offline. Many shed tears and left likes and comments online, while many more tried hard to hold back tears.

On that day, the ZS Institute officially released its Family Construction White Paper and presented a copy to each participant. The white paper details codes, mechanism, and approaches to happy families, including 150 family-related courses.

Since the very start of the ZS Institute, a volunteer has been dedicated to addressing family issues. She has been in a happy marriage for more than 30 years. In her case, she also devotes herself to resolving issues of thousands of Chinese families. She is a good wife, a successful entrepreneur, and a great teacher. Her name is Liu Fang, also known as "Fang Sister" and "Fangzi Teacher". She shared stories of 157 families she has helped. Others may see 157 as just a number. But to her, these families are with her every minute. She has a saying: "I am on the way, and nothing stops me." In her 60s, she is an elegant woman and passionate about promoting Chinese culture and helping Chinese families. There is nothing in the world that can stop her from realizing her mission.

Mother, a work of Luan Kai dedicated to love for mothers in the world, was performed by a children's chorus.

The nation is home

On the stage of the ZS Institute, we met people from different industries and backgrounds. There were electricians, retired bank officials, principals of private schools, owners of billion-yuan-worth companies, presidents of overseas companies and heads of poverty-stricken areas.

This is the magic of the ZS Institute platform, which brings all kinds of people together without any sense of dissonance, because everyone is a believer, practitioner and volunteer of the Chinese culture.

At the October 29 forum, many volunteered to share their stories on the topic.

Li Jinzhong is an electrician from Inner Mongolia. He has been married for more than 20 years and used to regularly quarrel with his wife. But as the couple began to learn Chinese culture, started finding their inner selves, discovering themselves and purifying their souls, their relationship became as strong as first love. Not only did they strengthen their own family, they also started to help customers and neighbors learn Chinese culture and build happy families together. As a result, the couple's shop turned very popular and became a model 3.0 Store.

Jiang Xipei, chairman of Far East Holding Group, and his wife Chen Xiaofen still love each other deeply. Jiang's clothes are all purchased by his wife. The couple squeezes toothpaste for each other every morning. Now Far East Holding Group has grown into a company worth 50 billion yuan. Jiang always remembers his father's words, "Pouring tea for others means pouring tea for yourself and offering others a seat means offering yourself a seat." Jiang and his wife together lead the whole family to learn and practice Chinese culture, discover themselves and purify their souls, further "passing on the culture to the family" on the basis of "governing the family by virtue" and leading the whole family to build their spiritual side. From a small family to a big family, then the whole country, they are influencing and leading more people to build spiritual outlook and happy families, thereby making substantial contributions to the society.

When it comes to expanding people's minds, the hotline number of the ZS Institute has been busy since becoming operational at the end of August. Many call the number to hear the gentle but firm voice of the chief operator, Chen Shuyuan, a retired bank clerk from Jilin province in Northeast China. Within 71 days, she convinced nearly 2,000 colleagues to subscribe to the official WeChat account of the ZS Institute or download the app through the hotline number. 662 off-site classes holding study meetings bought more than 10,000 copies of "Cultural Confidence and National Rejuvenation", and nearly 100 business leaders were invited to attend the forum. All these actions aim to help more people calling the hotline discover themselves, purify their souls and build their families through learning the Chinese culture.

Chinese enterprises and products aren't the only things traveling abroad under the Belt and Road Initiative — China's family culture is also on the move. Yang Yongzhi, an entrepreneur, founded Vietnam Photovoltaic Technology Co., Ltd, a company worth 10 billion yuan in Vietnam, providing Vietnamese people the opportunity to become rich through hard work. However, he did not forget to spread Chinese culture, bringing three-hour family construction workshops to Vietnamese people and benefiting locals. Is it difficult to connect people's hearts? Through practice, Yang Yongzhi proved "although the countries are different, there is no difference between people's minds".

The founder of an internet company has also witnessed the great power of Chinese culture. Xiao Shanglve is the founder of Yunji Company. Yunji is a NASDAQ-listed e-commerce company in the United States. Currently, it has tens of millions of members, with most of them 25-55-year-old mothers. Since the founding of the company four years ago, Xiao has always thought about how to help these mothers have more time for the family and make more money. But it was at a learning conference held in Hangzhou in August that he really understood the deep desire of Yunji mothers. He said, "Now I finally understand the nature of business and what 3.0 Corporations are. 3.0 Corporations should benefit the souls of customers." In fact, the business development of Yunji and family construction of moms are one and the same.

Qiao Qingjv, a professor from the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, delivered a key speech titled "Consistency between Marxism and Chinese Culture" on Oct 29. In the historical course of 5,000 years, the Chinese nation has not only inherited and developed its own excellent culture, but also learned and absorbed the essence of cultures of countries around the world. Marxism, originating from Germany, has also taken root, sprouted, bloomed and borne fruit in China. Why can Marxism develop in China? What is the relationship between Marxism and the Chinese culture? Qiao's analysis deeply convinced the online and offline audiences: first, the idea of serving the people is consistent with the sages' spirit of saving the people; second, materialistic dialectics is consistent with the traditional Chinese dialectics of the Scripture of Ethics and the Book of Changes; third, the ideology of communism and community of shared future for mankind is consistent with the social ideal that "everyone belongs to one family in a united world".

The evening of Oct 29 was dominated by young people. Students from famous universities at home and abroad, including Harvard University, New York University, Babson College and Chinese University of Hong Kong, appeared on the stage of Yanqi Lake and shared their stories of spiritual growth.

In the roundtable forum for people with special needs, two entrepreneurs — Jiang Xipei, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Far East Holding Group, and Yao Zhongliang, chairman of Baixiang Food Group — held a dialogue with three representatives for people with special needs, Wang Shaojun, founder of Henan Disabled People's Training and Employment Incubation Base and vice-president of Henan Association of Enterprises for Disabled People, Sun Naicheng, co-founder and team leader of China Dream Limb Team, and Pang Yanliang, vice-chairman of Disabled People's Federation in Cangzhou, Hebei province. At the roundtable, the platform for co-building, sharing, entrepreneurship and employment of people with special needs was officially launched, providing a bright path for 85 million people with special needs in China to learn Chinese culture, build spiritual world, realize a leap in life and achieve success in their careers.

On the second day of the Forum, many guests shared their opinions covering a wide range of topics. All were inseparable from the core idea of Chinese culture, "self-cultivation, family harmony, country management and world peace". From self-cultivation to family construction, to corporate governance, as well as exchanges and mutual learning with the people around the world, they are one and the same, with the same goals: To build spiritual qualities, and then build happy families and successful careers. All is about the soul.