CITY GUIDE >Culture and Events
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CITY GUIDE >Culture and Events
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Good vs evil
By Guo Shuhan (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-11 11:03
In the eyes of Professor Hans Kueng, Chinese culture is the "longest surviving high culture in the world". The professor's Chinese name, fittingly, is Kong Hansi - the surname Kong being the same as that of China's seminal thinker Confucius and "Hansi" translating, literally, as "Chinese thinking". This longtime observer of Chinese culture can recite with great ease most lines from the Analects of Confucius. "At 15 my heart was set on learning; at 30 I stood firm; at 40 I had no more doubts; at 50 I knew the mandate of heaven; at 60 my ear was obedient; at 70 I could follow my heart's desire without transgressing the norm." Adds the 81-year-old Swiss: "At 80, I become humble." Kueng, a retired professor of Christian philosophy and president of the Global Ethic Foundation, established in 1995 in Tubingen, Germany, is regarded as one of the most powerful public intellectuals with a keen eye for contemporary human life. Far from being a critical theologian, Kueng is actually a practical, cross-culture dialogist who truly admires the quintessence of various religions, says his former doctoral student, Yang Xusheng, doctor of philosophy from University of Tubingen, and now a professor with the School of Liberal Arts of Renmin University of China. In Beijing recently for the Second World Conference of Sinology, the octogenarian looked much younger than his age and has maintained a busy schedule ever since retiring from the University of Tubingen, 13 years ago. Skiing in the Alps just last year, his physical endurance seems perfectly matched with his intellectual stamina. Kueng's spiritual relationship with Chinese philosophy goes back to his university days half a century ago. He was inspired, in particular, by the translations of Chinese classics by Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) who came to China as a missionary. Ricci and other Jesuits' introduction of Chinese culture influenced German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and other European thinkers. |
