The Chinese Mind
Boyé Lafayette de Mente
Understanding Traditional Chinese Beliefs and Their Influence on Contemporary Culture Boyé Lafayette de Mente’s book is an easy-to-read introduction of Chinese thinking by touching upon aspects such as the Chinese past, religious traditions or language, supplemented with numerous comments on their 20th-century history. In most cases the author explains each phenomenon in the light of facilitating business relations, related to the safest point of the Western people– comparing them to the Americans’ mind. After briefly outlining some basic information about China, the author discusses the significance of the Chinese language. We can talk about seven, eight or even ten Chinese languages and several dozen dialects. The most important languages include Putonghua (Mandarin), Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghaiese dialect), Gan, Kejia (Hakka languages), Min (spoken in Fuzhou) and Xiang. The role of language in preserving and spreading Chinese culture All the languages of Chinese are tonal languages, and while the various variants use different vocabularies and pronunciations, they are all written with the same ideographical characters. Therefore, the unity of the country can only be maintained with the written language, which can be understood by even the citizens living in the most remote territories. Mandarin – the dialect spoken in the territories around Beijing – was declared the official language of the country by Mao Zedong after the foundation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Since then all Chinese people have spoken Putonghua besides their own dialect. The characters, or Hanzis in Chinese, were already in use in China three thousand years ago; archeologists have discovered ancient objects bearing more than 4,600 characters. The pictograms of ancient times became more and more stylized, and by 1000 B.C. they had evolved into the ideograms that are known today. The number of ideographs grew into 6,000; however, it is enough to know 3,500-4,000 characters to get on well in China today.
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Chinese characters are transcribed into Latin script with the pinyin system, which has been acquired by over a billion Chinese and makes things much easier for foreigners visiting China. The system, however, does not match the English pronunciation of the letters, so we have to learn the letters corresponding to the sounds. The end of this Part mentions the risks arising from the appearance and proliferation of the English language; Lafayette supposes that owing to the popularization of Western pop culture and the improvement of the youngsters’ English language command, the external influences on the Mandarin weaken its specific Chinese character. We ca talk about an increasing linguistic and cultural gap between the older and the younger generations. The author believes there is a strategy aiming to preserve their language in order to pass on their culture in this way. The basics of traditional Chinese culture This part of the book collects the main characteristics of the Chinese society and discusses topics like the flexibility of ethics in various situations, which is related to China’s legal system in the traditional broad sense. Chinese law specifies only rules and does not provide for the rights of persons, so it cannot offer appropriate protection to the citizens. Traditionally, law was interpreted by the leader, so it showed significant differences at regional level. Besides the ambivalence of situational ethics and the legal system, their communication developed for their prosperity can be characterized with some kind of precaution and dichotomy but no definite ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. They express disagreement in circular sentences, avoiding the topics – foreigners often have difficulty in interpreting the reactions, which makes working relations and business cooperation difficult, too. China has a vertical society – this implies the significance of hierarchy among people, which is probably the most determinant aspect of Confucianism. In the society everyone fulfils a given role; hierarchy ensures the set of rules for living together in harmony
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