I have developed a number of insights into the Chinese language and culture over my lifetime. I would like to share some of these with interested people around the world. I hope to encourage a better understanding of China and the Chinese people and language, as well as to provide insights that enable a better understanding of their relationship with the culture and achievements of English speaking peoples.
This blog will be divided into 3 areas.
1) I am translating The Art of War, by Sunzi. There are many other translations available, but I think that my translation also has much to offer. The Art of War has been popular for more than 2 millennia, and is more popular today than ever before. In modern times, it has been shown to be useful in much more than just warfare. This translation will enable English speakers, including those with no understanding at all of Chinese, to feel themselves to be extremely close to the original Chinese meaning.
2) Chinese characters are pictographs. They are pictures, and combinations of pictures, that offer tremendous insights into the culture that developed them. We will learn to recognize the picture within the pictographs, and in the process learn an easy way to understand and recall numerous Chinese characters and at the same time develop a deeper understanding of Chinese culture. Students of Chinese or Japanese and anyone interested in Chinese or Japanese culture may find this to be extremely useful.
3) I hope to introduce the West to the principles of the Dao, and to their value in increasing our understanding of Western science. Many people in the West have become exposed to the notion of the Dao over the past few decades, but in a context that does not encourage recognition of the Dao’s true importance and power. Much of the focus on the Dao in the West is oriented only toward mysticism. Just as astrology has its basis in the science of astronomy, the Dao is based on concrete and profound principles. My personal interest is in the importance of the Dao as a profound model of nature that is analogous to Western science and religion. I believe that I have much to contribute to increasing understanding of the similarities and differences between the Chinese model of the Dao and Western models of nature. English speaking cultures have developed 2 seemingly completely different and incompatible models of nature, science and religion. In China, there is only one model of nature, the unified model that is the Dao. Increasing our context of consideration to include the Chinese model of nature will enable us to profoundly increase our understanding of the fundamental Western models of nature.
I will try to make one post per topic each week, although in the beginning I will launch these topics separately, one at a time. I will begin with a translation of The Art of War, soon after which I will begin a discussion of Chinese characters, after which I will continue with an introduction to the concepts of the Dao.