Chinese Values that Are Relevant Today - Essay Example

Chinese values that are relevant today Values in traditional Chinese culture that is relevant to today’s dialogue among world cultures have been kept in order to establish a mutually tolerable and universally embraceable world. Traditional cultural values relevant to today’s world culture include harmony, righteousness, wisdom, and loyalty. In addition, some include benevolence, courtesy, honesty, and filial piety. The principal value is harmony, which means appropriate and good coordination between things. Harmony incorporates rationale, which is working according to the law and openness, compatibility, as well as propriety, which shows appropriateness. Harmony as a core value advocates harmony, not uniformity. Proper coordination of aspects and bringing them in correct manner allow development of a coordinated state. This proper coordination as seen asymmetry brought to symmetry and imbalance to balance and all this has brought order into the world. Harmony is used in modern society to bring in harmony between human beings and environment; between the people and society; between person mind and the person’s body and between different communities. This value has greatly brought up a universally embraceable world, which is tolerable. Benevolence or kindness is a core value of Confucianism and loved by Chinese since to them “a peaceful family will prosper” (Hsia). It encompasses family ties and blood connection but extends to friends and society. Benevolence produces honesty, loyalty, self-discipline, commitment, and justice among the people. Righteousness as a value refers to fairness. It is beneficial to both the community and individual. According to Chinese sayings “Everybody is responsible for the rise or fall of the country” (Hsia) and “Be the first to show concern and the last to enjoy yourself” (Hsia) it is true that what benefits the individual benefits the society. All must struggle for the good of the country. Courtesy encourages caution and modesty that is respect of law and discouraging wrongdoing. Traditional Chinese cultures on rite of passage on occasions like offering sacrifice to ancestors, sacrifice done by the emperor to heaven, weddings, funerals and polite exchange is a full show of courtesy respecting laws of the land. Wisdom is virtues that enable one differentiate wrong from right. According to Confucius, wisdom understands other people. To love other people you must have a loving heart and to understand others you must have the wisdom to enable them differentiate the good from evil this will help them promote good and control evil in the society. The Chinese leaders who had wisdom lead society to success. Honesty instills integrity, credibility, and trustworthiness. Businesses, which operated, honestly achieved the best. Loyalty to the motherland, family, and friends in terms of offering services faithfully. Protecting country and family is a sign of one’s loyalty. Filial piety is respect,, especially to the elders. In Chinese culture, burial of elders was the duty of the young they believed in nurturing the young and caring for the old (Hsia). All these values have been incorporated in Chinas diplomacy, and since it worked wonders in Chinese society, the whole world must embrace these values to establish a mutually tolerant and universally embraceable world order. Unity in diversity is brought about by harmony. A harmonious person chooses to live harmoniously with others. For peaceful coexistence, one must choose to respect other territories and powers and chose never to interfere in other countries internal affairs. A harmonious person belief in equality and mutual benefit from each other. These principles have been employed by most countries due to the peaceful china. This has enabled many countries coexist peacefully with the neighboring countries. China's belief in harmony, not uniformity has promoted co-prosperity, and peaceful coexistence dissimilarity brings about support and complement. Harmony has standardized international coexistence between countries with the help of dissimilarity thus no conflict of interest. The noninterference in other countries internal affairs is a policy China upholds and has been passed on to other countries. Interfering to a county’s internal affairs may stir up disharmony, which is immoral. Harmony is the building block to international peaceful coexistence. Mutual respect between nations despite the greatness has brought peace between nations since a state, which is greater than others need to respect small states to gain respect in return. The respect will not allow any nation control any state thus peace in the world. China in his virtues views all nations as equal. No nation is to view itself in terms of political system stronger than other nations. China as a country to emulate is ready to solve disputes through dialogue and consultation for peace to prevail. In terms of investment and trade, china has shown mutual respect to smaller nations by investing in small countries and giving financial aid to poor nations. This principle must be emulated by other stronger nations for universally embraceable world order. Not all values of traditional Chinese culture are good some need to criticize and abandoned, which include, Shyness as a virtue in china is emulated to bring about modesty. The Chinese believe that a shy child is harmonious; he/she does not brag in front of other children about the good grades in class thus any conflict between children in school or at home. This value is not good and should be abandoned since the children will remain unsociable which may lead to less interaction between children. This may make the child unwilling to interact with the outer world. The authoritarian parenting style needs to be criticized; parents must not control a child’s life. Using physical punishment does more harm to a child than good. Parents need to be loving and caring not too strict. Children need a bit of their space to develop careers and social life. In Chinese society, parents control the socialization of their children (Hsia). Money-oriented behavior is a virtue that also need to be criticized, the Chinese belief in material things that is they are materialistic in nature. The China mania of fancy apartments, clothes, cars, and equipment is an obsession that needs to be dealt with if not done away with. To be recognized in the Chinese society, wealth is a prerequisite, so the people tend to look for means to get easy and quick money leading to corruption. Through this quest, people in need of wealth tend to involve themselves in gambling, smuggling of counterfeit goods, and even selling of drugs and ivory. This can send an economy to turmoil if not dealt with. Reference Hsia, C. T. 'Classical Chinese Literature: It is Reception Today as a Product of Traditional Culture'. Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, And Reviews (CLEAR) 10.1/2 (2008): 133. Web. Read More