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to Vietnamese Missionaries in Taiwan Home Page1. If Europe has the Commonwealth then East-Asia should have a Common Tao-Field. This is necessary, first to harmonize East-Asian countries, and to preserve their Eastern identity, then to contribute to the world unity as being expected the Honululu conference in 1949.
It seems to possibly infer that why not concentrate on such fields as economics, sciences, or technolygy when they have reached to the highest level, so it doesn't or seem to make sense just to talk about "Tao". This remark shows a lack of observation: Communist countries have especially emphasized on economical development so much as the suprastructure of culture. The facts remain that the economical situation of these nations are always sluggish. This proves that the prosperity of a country depends more on "Tao" than on economy. For example, Japan is about the same size as Vietnam, but the former becomes more and more prosperous, while the latter gets poorer and poorer. The pivotal difference is "Tao", emphasizing the important of culture. The East-Asian countries, therefore, must find for them a common "Tao-Field."
2. This common Tao-Field is possibly based on "Tam Giao" (the three main philosophies) with special attention to "Khong Giao" (Confucianism) because it involves politics. Confucianism has risen to glory in China, but in close examination of its genetic developnent, it is proven that in the past every countries in East Asia has had their part of contribution. Confucianism has risen It is , therefore, quite appropriate to say that this is the common heritage of all the people of East Asia. All countries, therfore, should take part in the task of revitalization where China takes up the role of the eldest brother, next is Japan , then follow Korea, Singapore...younger in line are Vietnam, Kampuchea, Laos, Malaysia, Phillipines, Indonesia, and other Pacific islands.. The eldest brother will take the lead and support the youngers to revive the common Tao-Field. China indeed has taken the initial steps, but still wishes to open her arms to others, and especially needs to Act (Hanh). Act is the ultimate step of Tao. In order for Act to achieve long lasting results worthy of national strategy, it requires a common Tao-Field to be the guiding way.
3. This will be the complete newly fored Tam-Giao. Act (Hanh) will be to create "Chi Tao Truong" (Tao-Field branches), which will be named "Cojup": Con-fraternity of Ju's People (Ju=), or any other (Tao-Field branches), which will be names such as "Tao That". The activities will include not only the learning of Tao, but also other social work such as giving the scholarship to poor students, opening dormitoties close to schools. We then can teach Tao to supplement the unbalanced existing education system which puts too much emphasis on technology and logicism while lacking Tao and love.
1. Many people may wonder why a General Tao-field instead of a Commonwealth such as that of Europe. The analogy is that we must build up strengths in economics, sciences, and technologies to catch up with modern world, meanwhile Tao-field, or cultural activities are deemed old-fashioned. This seems to be the consensus of East-Asian countries. The truth is that the enevitable consequences of corrupted culture are devastation to families and countries. Heidegger has warned that Western civilistation carries on its feet tears and bloodshed wherever it goes. This remark has been realized in Asia for the last half-century with millions dead. Economic level of some countries have gone back to time of wilderness. This outrageous lesson should have startled us to realize the true value of our forefathers's teaching that Virtues are roots, Talents are limbs. In other words, the prosperity of a country largely depends on political philosophy, while land and economy are secondary. The suffering contemporary man is still struggling "and losing his peace, not because he lacks technologies or economics but "TAO" itself. Too much emphasis on economics and lacking "Tao" resulted in chaos. According to "Tam Thien Luong Dia" (Heavens 3, Earth 2), the importance of "Tao" is 3 versus 2 of economics. Effective contribution to national prosperity is to preseve the balance of this 3/2 ratio. The obvious example is the difference between free world and communism dominated countries. Communism takes economics as foundation, believing that "infra struture economics dominate supra-culture". Hence economics take up to 4 parts while culture takes 1. This one part, however, is no longer culture, but propaganda. Nonetheless, communist countries' economics are no better. A few countries with better situations are due to their re-examination of dogmatism, and partial emancipation.
2. We can also take an example in the free world: The neighboring countries Mexico and the US. They both are about same size, with European immigrants as the majority in population. But one is properous while the other is it poor. The difference, then, is not geography but "Tao". Looking at East-Asia, we can sort out the tree stages of difference according to three kinds of "Tao":
1) The poorest countries are communist, led by Vietnam, then North Korea. China, meanwhile, is getting better since they began to return to the original heritage.
2) Next are countries of Theravada Buddhism, such as Laos, Kampuchea, Malaysian, Indonesia: poor in nature.
3) Finally those with "Nho Giao" (Ju) such as Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore. Their economic strengths are growing at fast pace that alarms Westerners. They have not equalled in every fields, but already exceeded in few, as in case of Japan's $ 30 billion trade surplus against the US.
3. What cause these countries to escape from he level of poverty few decades ago and now are catching up with the modern West? The most basic reason, among others, is "Tao" itself. This Tao is the trinity of Buddhism, Taoism, and Ju. Of the three, Ju is of more importance because while Buddhism and Taoism concentrate on "Self-cultivation", Ju also takes on "Planning of the Family", "Governing of the Country", and "Pacification of the World". This doctrine has prevaild for the past 25 centuries, and there is no comparison. The question is why the need for Tao-field" when we already have "Tao"? Because of two reasons: First, we have lost touch with the knowledge of Tao, and some countries have imported foreign ideologies to replace "Tao". Second, Tao has been existing for such a long time that many elements are considered not up-to-date, and need to be reviewed, and represented in a new form, more suitable to the modern time. This enormous task involves great efforts by many people, and takes time. The efforts not just involve scholarly academy, but requires a fresh wind of new thoughts, as the new life branching out from the old roots. The success also depends on the destiny of the countries, and the blessings from heavens. Nevertheless, man must try his best. So far it has been lonely efforts of a single individual. It is about time for governments to join hands. This would help tremendously because, as being mentioned earlier, : "Tao" is vital to the prosperity if a country, and should be considered national strategy. Those are why we are in need of a "Common Genered Tao-Field".
4. The term Tao field is set forth to compare to the European common market. This is only a terminological technique to draw attention to a very great entity, though still conceded, it even might contribute a great deal to the culture of mankind if being brought back to the conscious side and cared for: it is now fallen into oblivion to the degree that nobody thinks of its presence but if being cared for to develop, it might become a reconciliatory factor not only for both antagonistic political blocs but also at a higher level in philosophy that I call Tao field. This is an entity with the participation of both philosophy and religion. Philosophy for its complete reliance on realistic data of no mystical character but still having influence over cosmic mind as religion hence its bearing a particular name known as Tao. When set forth for studying and trying to carry out, it is called Tao learning.
5. That is an entity having much hope suitable for man's present mood being restless and wishing to search for a new way of life. However, on the one hand, in a polyreligious world, no religion is especially selected to put on the eminent position; on the other hand, if only the useless philosophy exists nothing great and sacred is attained, even the cultural unity, it cannot afford to meet the needs. Therefore Ju Tao had to be called upon as what was done by the attendance of the World Conference in Philosophy at Honolulu in 1949 but Ju Tao was greatly degenerated and it now remains as a dull studying subject. This is only a professional science reserved for scholastic academy as any science of the type of ancient history or archeology having no sufficient influence to attract one's entire mind to devote to it, and if the expectation only reaches that, it is unnecessary to campaign for Ju; its international position did exist as far back as two hundred years ago. However, that is only Tao learning, studies to acquire knowledge or understanding and not Tao field for implementation. Tao field has a more positive impact upon life.
6. To become Tao field, it requires Tao learning to reach the philosophy of life, i.e., not only being an intellectualistic philisophy belonging to academy revolving within four walls but must also be a philosophy sticking to life, to wisdom since wisdom is defined as "the supreme art arranging one's life in whatever way to create happiness for everyone". That means any philosopy bringing no happiness for mankind is not philosophy but only ideology. Philosophy must stick to wisdom. If great philosophers as Yao, Shun, Confucius are availlable, we then have living wisdom. However, thousands of years elapsed with billions of people, no other Shun or Confucius appeared, we are obliged to have philosophy, i.e., authentic philosophic studies in wisdom. If reaching it, we then temporarily have a condition for Tao field to achieve.
7. The second condition is a mass of people trying to live with that Tao. Only with the presence of this condition, Tao field could since speaking of field is referring to something active, i.e., a philosophy that is still alive, is being applied in life not only horizontally but also vertically. Vertically when man not only uses reason, sentiment but also cosmic mind, communicable with the overall that is the universe. Horizontally means to completely envelop every corner of living from personal as self-cultivation, household management to public as ruling a nation, pacifying people under the sky: no exit can escape the influence of wisdom or the Tao learning . Only by then it deserves to be called Tao field.
8. It is obvious that new life requires new creation: a new directive is a must but within the new, there still is something ancient contribution to it. Nevertheless, considering the above two, Eastern Asia or Ju societies seem to be the richest in contribution capability for being quite open in free thought. Then comes culture which is common both for literates and illiterates. This is what does not exits in other cultures where these always are a culture of the ruling class and another one for the ruled class. As to Ju, only one exists in common for both literates and illiterates. One might says illiterates or the public had conceived though as we could realize them through proverbs, maxims, customs. As to literates or intellectuals, they formulated those thoughts into words and books hence the uttermost democracy. Such existence of a fundamental democratic phenomenon is due to the absence of master and slave classes over here. More accurately speaking, such classes did exist but they were never strong enough to establish a separate culture for the ruling class as in other societies where classes were distinct between master and slave basing on the absolute interests of bourgeoisie that create the haves and have-nots known as proletarians. Proletariat did not exist here for egalitarianism was broadly applied among the people and formulated by literates into the public land regime and figuratively called well-field, i.e., the national properties were equally distributed to everyone so as nobody suffered a proletarian's situation to become a slave. This was the institution left by the ancient wisdom, though this was later on not regularly maintained, it was even theoretically considered firmly existed as proven by attached institutions. Especially in VietNam, up to early in the 20th century, public lands were over half, i.e., more than fifty percent of the total acreage was still reserved as the village's common properties and periodically distributed among villagers. Thus Vietnam was really poor, very poor, as said Paul Mus, a French scholar: they were poor communally but no big difference existed as the scene of a handful of well-off people amongst the majority of have nots.
9. In brief, for the two fundamental factors: freedom and egalitarianism; they not only have philosophy but also institution which was somewhat implemented in many places and generations; now it only requires some amendments in accordance with new capabilities supplied by industry and technology. As to this point, there are two parts: (a) theory and (b) demographics. The theoretical part is the resurrection capability of Ju wisdom. We did discuss once in the first world conference in Chinese philosophy in 8/84 at Taichung in which I reminded the fact Confucius was selected as a conductor for the ancient-modern East-West concert by the attendance of the 1949 world conference in philosophy in Honolulu . That impartial selection on the international side as well as the absence of compaigning on the Chinese side proved that a very important capability concealed in Ju Tao was broadly recognized, and we East Asians were only waited to start exploring and developing.
10. Today, I discuss about the second point: demographics. As to this point, I also see a very special point which is the famlilial spirit or the universal fraternity within the bloc existing in nowhere else, and I pick it up as the principal subject for this paper. That is East Asia consisting of not only China but also her neighboring countries mamely Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines; in the East side: Laos, Kampuchea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Pacific islands, farther are Burma and Southern India, etc... in the West side so far so many conutries have been considered as totally different from one another; such countries as Korea, Japan and Vietnam where sometimes Ju Tao was practiced but only considered as borrowing from China in order not to say China forced them to practice while nobody believed Ju was the common sacred heritage of all East Asian countries. The reason why Ju was thought China's own was based on the later stage that I call perfectly readjusted cilvization, and this belonged to China but this was only an auxiliary stage while the embryonic stage was the principal one that I called cultural stage when Ju was the common asset of all , not only belonged to Korea, Japan, Vietnam but also the whole Southeast Asia such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Kampuchea, Laos, Thailand, Burma, etc..., the Pacific islands: Polysesia, Melanesia. The East India peoples as Dravidian, Tamil, Telegu, Kamada, Andhra... were originally belonging to a culture that we might call according to their contents as original Ju (i.e., conforming to no Chinese characters). This is a great fact but it was buried by political influence; it now requires us to explore to put in light: all the above countries was originally belonging to one cultural family. This is a very convenient factor for the cultural reconstruction and the Tao field enlargement.
11. K'ung Fu-tzu was still considered as the founder of Ju Tao, it was so wrongly thought that Ju Tao was called Confucianism by most people, and toward the Occident only K'ung Fu-tzu was known under a phonetized name of Confucius while almost everyone knew nothing about Ju Tao. However, a thorough study revealed that Confucius did not found Ju Tao, and was also not the entire Ju Tao: he was only the last representative of original Ju. He clearly declared he did not invent anything but only related the ancients' Tao. It is recommended not to think that he modestly stated since he told the truth: a mere quick check about four books and five classics would show that Ju's basic teachings were referred to the ancients so that besides the old Tao there was no teaching else. The book of history often says: "bat do co huan vu ha ky huan: not from ancient teachings, where did such teachings come from?" (Tat Menh chapter, paragragh 11).
If checking to see who were those ancients then the first two we meet will be Yao and Shun. The thirtieth paragraph of the book of the Mean (Chung Yung) says: "Trong Ni ta that ngheu Thuim. Hien chung Van Vo. Thuong luat thien thoi, ha tap thuy tho" (Trong Ni Confucius' name-related Tao of his ancestors who were Yao and Shun, and the charter of king Wen and king yu: above attention was paid to Heaven's time; below local customs were heeded). Who were Yao and Shun? They were Eastern I-men. (Mencius IVb paragraph 1). As to this statement, most of scholars does not explain "Shun was an Eastern I-man" for fear of dishonoring him so they had to distort their explanation stating "Shun lived close to the eastern I barbarians" with the intention to say he was a Chinese. This is anachronism: how could China then exist to nominate Shun a Chinese. The same for Yao, he could not be a Chinese as yet, so if not being an I-man, he would be a Dich-man. It is to remember Chinese considered as a people just came into existence since the Chou or at the farthermost the Shang. As to the Hsia, if it were counted, that would be forceful. Prior to that, there was no distinction between Chinese and I. This happening did not take place until the Chou on.
12. Was there anyone else before Yao and Shun? There were three huang (emperors) Fu Hsi, Nu-wa and Shen Nung. Fu Hsi was known as the author of I Ching. Nu-Wa established hierogamy that most books did not understand and called it marriage. Shen Nung was the founder of agriculture. These were not historical characters but only cultural heroes or more accurately archetypal images of an embryonic culture whose foundation was the most basic for Ju later; one might call it the archetypal figure of the three-power theory: heaven, earth, and man.
As the three were called Three Huang, I would like to call the teachings of this period of time Huang Ju. Huang Ju appeared before five classics and was recorded in Four types of books orally transmitted as "three tombs, five conons, eight cords, and nine mounds". This is the Ju archetypal ground-work that might be called the frame for every later generation which could only add external ornaments and no more fundamentals since these were concealed in those few numbers 3, 5, 8, and 9. This is the part that later King called Great Tao in the preface of the book of History. As to the part of both Yao and Shun that might be called I Ju, he named it Permanent Tao. He wrote, "The books of Fu Hsi, Shen-Nung and Huang-Ti were three Tombs called Great Tao. The books of Thieu Hao, Chuyen Huc, Cao Tan, Duong Nhu were Five Canons, called Permanent Tao: (Viet Philosophy p.108). Great Tao consinsts of two number sets 2-3 or Yin Yang, Ho: Yin Yang number 2, Ho (Harmony) number 3. This is the utmost base so it is called basic number in Appended Judgments, "Heaven, three; earth, two are basic numbers" (Thuyet quai 1). Later on, there was additionally (if such existence did not really exist) number 9 whence the apparition of River Map & Book of Lo where such concealment was ready, i.e., number 9 was hidden in both numbers 2 & 3.
Recommended to annul the name Confucianism to have it replaced by Ju since a speaking about K'ung is at the same time of individual character and only representing a type of distorted Ju, and not the original Ju which belonged to many generations of common ancestors of the big family. Though not being used for learning any more, the ancient classics are still considered as the big family heritage; even the great novels such as the four great wonder books, they are also considered as common assets from many generations of people and not the private properties of anybody: Those people such as La Quan Trung for Three Kingdoms or Thi Nai Am for Memoirs of the journey to the West only carried out the last refixing job and not solely invented it. That is Confucius's way of relating and not creating, and in reality, all these books are broadly read just the same as video tapes which were recently welcomed in almost the entire area. That is a symbol proof for the big cultural family with common heritage tacitly accepted by everyone.
13. By the way, if someone would like to ask: Confucius did not invent but only related, and moreover what he related was a distorted Ju; therefore could he deserve to be a saint as usually attributed to him by the people? I think he deserved it greatly since on the Tao land there was nobody deserving to be called a sole inventer, including Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Socrate, Plato, Aristotle..., everyone "related" but each did his own way enough to guarantee it a genius's product; only great saints could perform such a job. They had to experience 5 learning stages as set forth in Chung Yung (the book of the Mean): (1) broad erudition, (2) careful inquisition, (3) attentive meditation, (4) distinct discrimination, and (5) better execution. For these contemporary two centuries of Juism, both China and the Occident had no one deserving the name of relater. Almost everyone could experience two and a half steps: broad erudition; careful inquistion, and half of attentive medition (only meditation exists and not yet attentive). Nevertheless Confucius had gone through those five steps: he was really a great man; though our present checkup reveals his holistic knowledge is still short in come area; considering in accordance with his time, he had helped anthropocracy stand firm despite every plan of distortion of the Imperial Court, he was therfore counted as a rare figure. Smith was somewhat rational when he said, "confucius is China's greatest gift of mankind" (Confucius by D. Howard Smith, p.194), and W. Durant, a historian and philosopher, had to write: Somewhere at the end of his book "Lessons of History" "Is there any progress at all in philosophy since Confucius?" because about incisiveness and brilliance many others were better than Confucius such as Plato, Buddha, Chuang Tzu, Lao Tzu,...even Mencius and Tuan Tu, they were found by many people to do much better than Lun Yu. However, speaking about equilibrium, easy attainment of Tao, no one could overpass Confucius. It is thought this is also the idea of the 1949 Honolulu conference when confucius was selected as conductor to manage the East-West harmonized unity. As to the Ju Tao, though distorted, it was recognized by international scholars to be better than the Occidental philosophy in some points such as holistic and organic (Need II, p.291). Therefore, though suffering a bad reputation as distorted Ju, it only had about 30 percent nomadic matter mixed as compared to original Ju.
Later on there were several resurrections of antiquities as previously done by Han Du of the T'ang dynasty or Co Viem Vo of the Ching dynasty but their efforts only reached back to Han Ju; as to Chou Ju, I Ju, and all the more Huang Ju, no attention was paid to them. Alas, these were the very embryonic stages of the authentic Ju that needs to be exploited. And this is what I would like to briefly discuss here.
19. The reason why the ancients did not yet divide Ju into stages as above consists of two points: (1) lack of objective conditions, i.e., information and data provided by new humanistic sciences such as archeology, ancient history, folklore, structuralism, itc..., (2) since the ancients accepted Ju for composing poems and enjoying life, i.e., acceptance lacking of scientific criteria consisting of those inside and outside critics. Therefore no studies were conducted in accordance with the genetical way for both Ju and Chinese histroy. That is what could only be achieved in modern time but the modern way, in turn, omits the living part, the implementation one, so it also becomes imperfect as the ancient learning: perhaps its loss is even much greater. That is what we will rediscuss later. Here I would like to summarize a few new discoveries that upset every information so far transmitted about the origin of Ju. Let us talk about history; almost everyone used China's pictures as far back as the Chin and Han dynasties for every previous dynasty including Hsia, Shang and even Yao, Shun, and Three Huang: any time speaking of China, whatever time it was, even when there was nothing to be called China of the size as big as China of today, and her inhabitants were different from their surrounding peoples not only in politics, civilization but also in culture and race. That was really a confused global pictures quite far from reality. In ordrer to be close to the truth, pictures should be searched in accordance with the genetic order. Only by so doing Huang Ju, I ju, and Chou Ju could be seen. No China existed before the Chou dynasty: both Hsia and Shang, and even Chou; each of them, in the beginning was one among tens of thousands of tribes. Say nothing about the Hsia, even the Shang, almost every capital was then a mere "big hamlet" and the king himself spent as much as half of his time in chasing his games. Kwang-chih Chang had certainly reason when contending the character Vuong had relationship with the charater Vang whose meaning is "the one who comes to many places" (II,p.553) and not the one whom the other has to come to as follows in
20. Even the Chou dynasty, they were the same at the start, i.e., being one among the powerful tribes in the West, and always being driven back by the other tribes. Later on defeated, they had to move to Lo-yang where never could they raise up as powerful as one of the big five kingdoms; it then remained for them a false authority that satellite countries used to threaten one another or as some sort of buffer state or arbitrator not being mich respected by them. The real power was then totally in the hands of Te Hoan Cong , Tan Van Cong and Trinh, Wu, Yueh, chu, Ch'in... As to culture, the Chou proved to be much lower than the Shang but due to their blood mixture with the Turks and their close living to nomadic culture, they introduced to the Shang's I culture some nomadic factors basing on military force; these were totally outer factors adding nothing to the Juistic nature; actually some outer addition meant formulation but this did harm to the Ju's inner essence. The addition of outer rationalization meant to make up terms, to write in books every hearsay from the previous generations in unwrittern form, still vague with symbol, number, institution, and custom, and very little wording, probably a number of proverbs and maxims. Anyhow an addition of words was an advance step that we will call civilization or word establishment vs. Huang Ju's virtue establishment and I Ju's merit establishment. Therefore, the Chinese civilization did not come into existence until under the Chou dynasty while from the Shang backward, in the whole area known as China, a homogeny spread everywhere for having the same antique culture with no distinchen between Chinese and I; if any, this was only a few customs with some political germ; e.g., the Shang's flag had the (white) tiger emblem while that of the satelites, the dragon. The book of Poetry says, "The fluttering dragon flags" (Poetry, J. Legge, p.591). Concerning the harm did to Ju, this men at the freedom restriction; e.g. instead of having marriage the way of alternate songs, this was replaced by the mandarin position of High intermediary to control marriage, and this was called the King's virtualization: every other marriage was considered as lewdness, barbarianism as almost in every satellite.
21. Who were satellited? First, they were all those people who contacted the Chou then later on the Sinicized I people, i.e. those who used some particular customs of the Imperial Court such as ample sleeve, right buttoning , and at first, most of them ate wheat... With time these constituted the Chinese characteristics. As to I, there were two meanings: (a) separate I in every locality and was then especially designation in Lai I, Huai I, Dieu I... speaking in common, they were East I; (b) as to the more common meaning I designated those not yet being Chinese or not being Chinese and were usually called Four I or Nine I. How big was their population? At the start, it was 99 percent consisting of the entire aboriginals living in China, spreading down to the Pacific Islands later on this population reduced parallel to the growth of the Chinese people from 98 to 0 percent on the mainland of China. This was speaking on politics while on culture, until the 20th centurey, as much as 70 percent was still right on the soils of China, and they constituted what scholar Granet called the China of country, i.e., their living pattern did not much differ from that of the Mung, Thai, L L in North Vietnam (VIII 16-17) or even the Melanesians.
22. According to the latest discoveries recapitulated in the 1980 World Conference in China at Berkeley, CA, USA, and published into the book with the title "The Origins of Chinese Civilization" (II 150), it was impossible to find out enough imprints for racial distinction between Chinese and non Chinese so we can rely on the cultural imprints where it was said the Hsia was under the I influence (II 459) which also exerted much more over the Shang . Again speaking about the Shang, though they might not be I, they were overrun by I, already accepted I's culture and were sopported by I. Thus they were already I since only culture was counted here, Shang and Hsia should be called I Shang and I Hsia (II 498). Shang was only one among the I states. According to these discoveries, the very I had invented Ju. Here, it was recommended to understand I with its broad meaning consisting of the entire aboriginals throughout the East Asia area. Besides I, there was nobody else: Chinese did not exist yet. Considered as a people, Chinese only existed in potentiality, i.e., they were I people encountering more chance to become civilized ahead of time. In order to know who are the I descendants who did not receive the Chinese influence later, one should search for them among Viets, Austroasiaties, Mon-Khmers, Thais... Those were the people who lived in Wu Yueh, Ching Lin-kiang of the Huai river area having relationship with Wu Yueh (II p.459). When Tzu Lo asked Confucius about the quality of being courageous, the latter asked back: what courage do you talk about? Of the south or of the north? From the north viewpoint courage on the death in the battle is considered as light as a swan's feather while from the south, it lies on the tenth paragraph of the book of the Mean , Chung Yung : "indulence, patence to educate in not paying back to harm. That is the south courage. The caurage man must reside in it". "In that sentence, one can distincly see the nomadic spirit of the north is belligerent while that of the south is both agricultural and pacific. Nomad spirit is military courage while in agriculture it is brightly one. One asks: where is the limit to separate south from north in the sentence? This is not a geographical limit but a cultural one: thus, the nomadic north is such as Horde, Kim , Mongol, etc... while the south consists of Chinese and the southern Four I. If it requires to specify who are the intermediaries, they are Northern Chinese, Korean, Japanese (II 300).
23. South relationship was discovered greater and greater day after day as far back as the paleolithic time , e.g., the relationships were found between the Java and Viet peoples (Tham Hai) and those of the Peking hominoid (X 67) so long ago the invention of the culture known as Ju was guessed to be initiated by them. The very origin of Ju is being in quest. Though the exact site is not known yet, that center might be guessed to scatter in many places. It is recommended not to reduce it into anywhere. Nevertheless the last remarkable center is in South China consisting of the three provinces: Kwang-tung, Kwang-si, and Yunnan where there are many sites related to Dai Bon Khanh of Taiwan, and Hoa Binh of Vietnam spreading up to Lungshan, Kiangsu, Shantung. Therefore there was a Theory stating the Chinese culture started from there then spread into two branches: one going up westward to Tibetan area then down to Shensi at the Yangshao site; the other in the east was Lungshan with Ching Lin-kiang (II p. 125).
24. The above hypothesis is in accord with the discovery of Pangu's tomb that is transmitted to exist somewhere in the Kwangtung forest highland area (III 2). According to this transmittal, Kwangtung, Lwangsi, and North Vietnam must be considered as one of the ancient cultural centers. By the way I would like to talk about the observations concerning Pangu of researchers as V.K. Tinh, Wang Kuo-wei, Quach Mac Nhuoc who pointed out that almost every legendary tale about the most ancient kings was only found record into late books afterward, i.e., since the fourth century B.C.: the older the later in apparition (I. 283). Pangu was newly introduced in the 3rd century during the Three Kingdoms' time in the "Tam Ngu Luoc Ky" (Three Five Brief Memoirs) book by Tu Chinh (III p.2). As to Three Huang, never Fu-hsi and Nu-wu were?
Mentioned in ancient books such as the Book of Hisotry (Shu Ching), the Annals Recorded On Bamboo Pieces (Truc Thu Ky Nien) etc.., neither in bronzes nor in divination bones. That is the proof that these have just been newly taken from I of the Huai river for a later introduction.
Shen-Nung, too, was not mentioned until Mencius' time. As to Huang Ti, he only appeared in the 3rd century B.C. Wang Kuo-wei was of opinion that the Chinese culture should have its origin found in the Northeast area (Shontung) and not in the Northwest one (Shensi) as so far transmitted. Then the three Hsia, Shang, and Chou dynasties were transmitted and considered as the first Chinese dynasties succeeded to each other in vertical order: the first ceded the throne to the second and so on. Kwang-chih Chang revealed the truth was not so: these were only three among many antagonisitic political groups disputing influence between themselves... as to culture, they all practiced the same as I: to worship the earth god and the magic tree. Matriarchy was still observed both by Hsia and shang. Hsia Yu lived in his wife's home at Ci Ke according to the "mother's dwelling" custom (II p.496) so the Chou conquered the Shang was the very victory of Western I over Eastern I (II 498).
25. Race is not debated here for I am of the same thought as scholar W. Meacham observing: "never racial imprints are sufficiently found to distinguish Chinese between themselves; there is also no subracial distinction as between Cantonese and Fukienese (II 150), Trieu Chau and Viet." This is also the common observation of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). This organization did establish a committee consisting of many anthropologists and thorough studies could reach the following conclusion: there are only three big races on earth: Negroid, Mongoloid, and Caucasoid with an auxiliary race: Australoid; moreover there is no other race else; if any, this only present in indoctrinators (IV p.XIII). So speaking because human breed crossing was both extremely numerous and old; even the aboriginals of the American Continent, they had their skull analysis consisting of sufficient Mongoloid, Melanesian, Negroid, and Caucasoid factors (II 299). Nevertheless, their immigration dated as far back as 20,000 years B.C. Fortunately the racial problem is not very advantageous for our objective whose character completely belongs to culture and aims at the pracitcal philosophy of life.
26. In short there exist no Chinese considered as a special race, event the racial name, it is not available; the proof is: every title designating China is completely borrowed from I Yueh or being an adjective. The term Hsia came from the legendary tale about Mr. Yu crossing the river and going down to the south area known as Hsia or the aborigignals living there also had the name of Hsia such as a few groups of Cham in Vietnam which still bear that name. Actually the Yellow river crossing did not happen until King Ban Canh so the talk about Hsia is only hope; the surer part is due to the fact that people of the later generation attribute their intention to Mr. Hsia Yu. The chapter "Yu's tribute" is only a legendary tale, a play, a dancing song, and having no history at all. The term Hua is also a quality term to show the fame added later by the Chou. As to the name Chung Kuo, it is only a political term designation a country in the middle, a first standing country. Han and T'ang are really the dynastic names. The most conspicuous is the word China translated from the character Ch'in (III-110). Ch'in was selected because course, everywhere in the Orient and Occident of Today, the universal education is set forth for everybody but thorough studies reveal such education is totally the one planned for daily life job's success while the learning to become a man is either definitely abolished with no more discussion from anybody as in free societies or erased to leave room for Communist's dialectic materialism; that is worse, therefore both sides lead mankind into the materialistic way having no more spiritual mind to balance the material expulsion leaning.
31. It is that very inclination which creates the danger for mankind of todays. However those experts specialized in Ju philosophy, i.e., some sort of Tao monk being most successful in the past, also completely forgot the spiritual mind factor as did the materialistic side: where could the world look for a salvage? It requires every philosophy to join wisdom, i.e., to join the spirtual mind life; especially the Ju philosophy for its important character is able to join both spiritual mind and working life. Now if the part of spiritual mind and physical experiment is definitely annulled and it only remains a sole and cold academic learning: a conspicuous loss of the best quintessence of ours which is originally considered as the leading part of the national spirit in order to be fallen into the situation of the Occidental philosophers who are usually considered by everyone as intellectual invalids whom the authority has to care for at its expense. In the near future The Asian Journal of Philosophy should attract as many as hundreds of thousands of readers to be in its right tune. If not direct, a version should be available for the public. I hope this very conference be considered as the first step in the return to the Oriental spirit. It is expected the conference organizers will assume more responsibilities contacting various national educations, and officials of all the countries in the area in common, especially their liaison with different governments, and every power; it is hoped every government should lend a hand to the job. Only by so doing, Asia could recover its previous position as well as contribute its share to the whole mankind on earth. Such achievement means the attainment of what concealed in the Ju Tao that the conference has the duty to restore it otherwise a continuation of this conference with an entire rationalistic dimension as every conference in rationalistic philosophy will prove that our own identity has been lost.
32. Due to the above reasons, I wish to not only talk to the attendance of this conference but also to send this paper to every Asian scholars. And moreover to every East Asian and Central Asian people, and to all government of China, and of Japan. The latter two are two big brothers of the bloc so far it has been evident China is the eldest brother with a big population and the usual role as the civilization movement vanguard. As a member of the big household, I would like to voice everyone's aspiration to see the eldest brother quickly returns to his leader's role and no longer stays at his eclipsed position of a disciple as he now is. This is a sincere wish. As to the Japanese government, we consider as the elder brother of the family who has fortunately acquired almost everything good of the Euro-American technological science. It is now time to return to help our big family to synthesize the Euro-American science with Oriental virtue. The two are kindly requested to behave as big brothers in the big family to help their small brothers advance in order to transform the whole erea into a prosperity bloc being mobilized by the universal fraternity spirit consisting of cooperative societies with the mutual help spirit instead of the competitive brain to take by force which has been poisoning the human relationship of today. This should be the third bloc that mankind is expecting i.e., mankind is looking for the presence of some power that rejects from the international relationship the plot intending to take by force; thus every country considers each other as aggressor object but how should Tao field now act for every country to give up their aggressor's intention and has the new spirit replace it to enjoy a fraternal coalition: mutual love is observed in international relation between countries. According to the past as well as the old traditional East Asian doctrine, there is much hope in the establishment of one of such centers.
(C) Copyright. Last updated April 5, 1997 by VietMissio
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