China News Agency, Beijing, September 9th, title: Mid-Autumn Festival meets Teachers' Day
Author Yao Zhongqiu Professor, School of International Relations, Renmin University of China
The Mid-Autumn Festival and Teachers' Day are similar in time - in fact, the National Day is also similar; but this year's two coincidences are very rare, and it is said that this "coincidence" has only happened three times this century.
The media editor asked me to talk about some ideas, and I immediately thought of the five words "Heaven and Earth, Prince and Teacher". The Mid-Autumn Festival is about "parents", and Teachers' Day is about "teacher".
In ancient times, most households set up a tablet in the middle hall, and wrote the five words "Heaven and Earth".
The ancestral tablets are generally only invited during sacrifices, but the tablets of heaven and earth are worshipped all year round.
After the establishment of the Republic of China, the monarchy was changed to a republic, and the word "monarch" was replaced by the word "country" accordingly.
When I went to the south a few years ago, I can still see its relics in the central halls of some old houses.
Don't underestimate this tablet, it simply and accurately embodies the basic structure and fundamental spirit of Chinese religion.
My newly published book, "The Chinese Way: Beliefs, Life, and Institutions," discusses this relatively fully by interpreting the classics and comparing Chinese and Western cultures.
As an occasional text, here we only briefly talk about "parent" and "teacher".
First, let’s start with the sky.
According to historical records, among the Five Emperors, Zhuanxu "Jedi Tiantong" and Emperor Yao "Qin Ruo Haotian" established the center of China's religious system - Jingtian.
"Only Heaven is the greatest", the position of Heaven is equivalent to the main god of Western polytheism, but it has no personality.
Confucius said to Zigong a very good description of the nature of the sky: "What does the sky say? The four seasons move, the hundred things arise, what does the sky say?" Such heavens are of course devoid of personality and do not speak - thus quite different from the personified deities of the West.
Heaven does not speak, man must grasp the way of heaven only by "observing the astronomy".
Therefore, the Chinese attach great importance to "the study of heaven". In the era of Emperor Yao, "the calendar resembles the sun, the moon and the stars, and the time is respected to the people."
Reverence for the sky must be born in accordance with the sky, and it must be fulfilled in accordance with the time, and the festival will come from this.
Chinese festivals are generally determined according to the time of day, which is very different from Western festivals.
This is the case with the Mid-Autumn Festival: Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, and Autumn Equinox divide the year into four equal festivals. People first worshipped the moon on the autumn equinox, and later changed it to August 15th.
Fuyang City, Anhui Province held the event "Sacrificing the Moon to Return the Ancient Charm and Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival with Iron Flowers". Photo by Hanmo
The religious spirit of reverence for heaven also endows the Mid-Autumn Festival with the meaning of family reunion.
All things are born, including human beings. Human beings are endlessly born in heaven and earth. This is the most intimate embodiment of heaven.
Therefore, in Chinese culture, furniture has a sublime sacredness.
As the "Book of Filial Piety" says: "The body grows and the skin is received by the parents", a person's life is obtained from the parents; Confucius said: "The child is born for three years, and then free from the embrace of the parents". to survive.
Parents are the creators of their children, not the contractual relationship of mutual calculation, nor the vulgar relationship between feeding and being fed, but the relationship between the source and flow of life in the sense of existential ontology.
Zengzi said: "The body is also the body of the parents." The life of the parents is left on the children, and the three constitute the family.
The lives of family members are connected as one, and they are "kin" people regardless of each other, and they naturally love each other.
A child and his family participated in the ceremony of offering sacrifices to Confucius and praying for blessings in Nanning, Guangxi.
Photo by Yu Xiangquan
Based on the spirit of reverence for heaven, ancient Chinese sages affirmed the point of "kiss" and established it as the most basic ethical norm.
Most Chinese traditional festivals serve this great purpose, creating opportunities and etiquette for family reunion and mutual love. Mid-Autumn Festival is one of them.
The festivals scattered throughout the year always urge us to go home, visit our parents, worship our ancestors, reunite with our brothers and sisters, and love each other with our loved ones.
On September 8, 2022, Fengshan Village, Liwei Town, Fuzhou, Jiangxi invited good mother-in-law and good neighbor representatives to make moon cakes together, and delivered the Mid-Autumn Moon cakes to the lonely elderly.
Photo by He Jianghua
Children's bodies continue the lives of their parents, and of course they "don't dare to damage them"; parents want their children to "stand in the way", so they attach great importance to their children's education. Among all civilizations in the world, Chinese parents attach the most importance to their children's education, since ancient times.
Parents can teach their children common sense of life, but the "dao" of life and society has to be taught by "teacher".
The role of a teacher in Chinese society is similar to that of pastors and priests in the religious civilization, and is highly respected.
Confucius is regarded as "the most holy teacher" and has been widely worshipped by officials and people since ancient times.
Starting from the Tang Dynasty, Confucian temples were built in various places to worship Confucius, and gradually added his outstanding disciples and the most outstanding great Confucians of later generations, who are the masters of the world.
Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, the Confucian sacrificial ceremony has been the most grand every year in mid-spring and mid-autumn, which is equivalent to Teacher's Day.
In 1985, September 10 was designated as Teacher's Day, which is not far from the first day of the summer calendar in mid-autumn.
A ceremony to worship Confucius was held in Yangzhou, Jiangsu.
Photo by Shen Dongbing
As for the education of teachers, it can be summed up in four words: Respect to Heaven, Loyalty to Sovereign, Filial Piety, and Adult.
The importance of reverence for heaven and filial piety has been explained above.
Loyalty to the monarch is also crucial, because "the monarch is the group", whose function is to be gregarious, organize countless people who are separated from each other into a country, and play a leadership role, so that members avoid the "jungle state" of mutual war, and collectively produce public goods. Goods, so as to prolong life, improve conditions, and live forever.
Looking at the situation of poor and backward countries in the world today, we can understand how important a well-organized country is to the survival and development of its people.
Therefore, loyalty to the monarch is a vital ethical norm in the world - today it is patriotism and maintaining the stability of the social and political order.
When a person knows the norms of respecting heaven, patriotism, and filial piety and practices them, he gradually grows into a person who is morally independent and has the courage to take responsibility.
Here, we can observe and think about it. Do teachers today have such a sense of role?
I believe many people are not satisfied.
This is the big problem we face.
However, the situation has improved significantly in recent years, especially in the context of changes in the world structure and the relative decline of the United States, the halo of Western-style education has become increasingly dim in the world, China's education system is rapidly Sinicized, and teachers in schools will have more and more More and more clear cultural awareness, teaching children to respect God, patriotism, filial piety, and adults.
Zhang Guimei (middle), winner of the "July 1st Medal" and a model of the times, is the principal of Huaping County Women's Senior High School in Lijiang City, Yunnan Province, and the director of Huaping County Children's Welfare Institute.
She has been rooted in the frontier education for more than 40 years, using education to block the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
Photo by Liu Ranyang
According to the current arrangement of statutory festivals, Teachers' Day, Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day are on the front and back legs. This is an accidental result of historical evolution, and it also contains profound cultural significance, reflecting the fundamental norms of Chinese civilization that can last for a long time: kiss, Patriotism, respect for teachers; the three are unified in respect for heaven.
According to this, people's daily life also has a sacred meaning: respecting the teacher and knowing the "Tao", you can "learn to go up"; the family is in the country, the country is long and the civilization is long, the family can be immortal; Filial piety, offering sacrifices to ancestors, and raising offspring, the life of an individual can be immortalized in heaven and earth.
(Finish)
About the Author:
Yao Zhongqiu is a professor at the School of International Relations, Renmin University of China, and director of the Center for Historical and Political Science.
His main research areas are economics, historical politics, and the theory of modern world political systems.
He has published more than ten Western legal and political translations and various Chinese classics and history research works.
His latest publications include "The Way of China: Beliefs, Life and Institutions", "China Moments in World History", and "Great and Long: A History of Chinese Political Civilization".