397
The result of the Confucian education is supposed to be the formation of a highly virtuous character....The chief energy of those who have taught it has been expended in the endeavour to give it practical effect on the individual, the family, and the nation.1
In regard to the depopulation at Shek Pik, it is curious how this was repeated at Tong Fuk, another old village four miles to the east, where the 198 persons recorded at the Colony Census of 1911 were survivors of the much larger population of some 700 persons claimed before the onset of disease sometime in the second half of the 19th century. Interviewed in 1971, the elders had been most emphatic about this, on the basis of information handed down by their fathers' generation... 'There was not a single empty or ruined house [before the epidemics struck],' or so they claimed. Later on, in the 1910s, when my oldest informants were then in their teens, the situation worsened again, with two persons dying every day. 'No sooner had we taken out one body for burial, than we had to start all over again.' As at Shek Pik, altered, meaning adverse, fung-shui was blamed for these disasters. 'For we Cantonese, fung-shui is vital,' stressed one of their number.
The caption to Plate 25, the rebuilt Tianhou Temple at Chiwan, Shenzhen, can be extended here. I omitted to mention the famous well, prominent in the foreground, with adjoining plaque,
As mentioned in the related text, the temple's long history and cultural importance had not saved it from destruction. By the end of the ten-year period of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) only the foundations survived, and what remained of its historic buildings had been reduced in height and roofed over to provide barrack accommodation for a unit of the People's Liberation Army, still in occupation at the time of my first visit in 1983. The temple's fine stone and wood carvings had gone, along with the many donated fittings and repair tablets that would have been kept within its walls. However, one tradition had survived the decades of Communist ideology.
'This was both the theory and the aim. However, Edkins concluded that despite the intention, 'it has not made them (the Chinese) a moral people. Many of the social virtues are extensively practised among them, but they exhibit to the observer a lamentable want of moral strength. Commercial integrity and speaking the truth are far less common among them than in Christian countries. The standard of principle among them is kept low by the habits of the people.'
397
The result of the Confucian education is supposed to be the formation of a highly virtuous character....The chief energy of those who have taught it has been expended in the endeavour to give it practical effect on the individual, the family, and the nation.1
In regard to the depopulation at Shek Pik, it is curious how this was repeated at Tong Fuk, another old village four miles to the east, where the 198 persons recorded at the Colony Census of 1911 were survivors of the much larger population of some 700 persons claimed before the onset of disease sometime in the second half of the 19th century. Interviewed in 1971, the elders had been most emphatic about this, on the basis of information handed down by their fathers' generation... 'There was not a single empty or ruined house [before the epidemics struck],' or so they claimed, Later on, in the 1910s, when my oldest informants were then in their teens, the situation worsened again, with two persons dying every day. 'No sooner had we taken out one body for burial, than we had to start all over again.' As at Shek Pik, altered, meaning adverse, fung-shui was blamed for these disasters. 'For we Cantonese, fung-shui is vital,' stressed one of their number.
The caption to Plate 25, the rebuilt Tianhou Temple at Chiwan, Shenzhen, can be extended here. I omitted to mention the famous well, prominent in the foreground, with adjoining plaque,
As mentioned in the related text, the temple's long history and cultural importance had not saved it from destruction. By the end of the ten year period of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) only the foundations survived, and what remained of its historic buildings had been reduced in height and roofed over to provide barrack accommodation for a unit of the People's Liberation Army, still in occupation at the time of my first visit in 1983. The temple's fine stone and wood carvings had gone, along with the many donated fittings and repair tablets that would have been kept within its walls. However, one tradition had survived the decades of Communist ideology. There had
'This was both the theory and the aim. However, Edkins concluded that despite the intention, 'it has not made them (the Chinese] a moral people. Many of the social virtues are extensively practiced among them, but they exhibit to the observer a lamentable want of moral strength. Commercial integrity and speaking the truth are far less common among them than in Christian countries. The standard of principle among them is kept low by the habits of the people."
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.