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http://ibrahim.cn/2011/12/29/the-evolution-of-current-chinese-culture/THE EVOLUTION OF CURRENT CHINESE CULTUREMarketing Ideas&Management Stuffs

In addition to the philosophies above, Chinese culture has been deeply influenced by incoming religions, and, recently, by the culture
of the West. It is important to understand that none of these imports have supplanted the old philosophies: they have just been
stirred into the mixture and been allowed to brew.

Religious Influence

One of common pitfalls in understanding Chinese culture is to confuse the philosophy of Daoism and the religion of Daoism.
The religion of Daoism, created by Zhang Daoling around the first century AD, is sometimes seen by outsiders as “the Chinese
religion.” But it never came to dominate China. Instead, other religions have had influence. Buddhism was introduced from

India, also around the first century AD. Subsequent imports include Islam from Mongolia, Lamaism from Tibet, and, later,
Christianity from the West. Pragmatism being a core part of Chinese culture, most Chinese adhere to a religion mainly for their
personal benefit.So, unlike many other traditions, there are no absolute, certain rules in China to guide the spiritual life. Chinese only believe what they can prove, and this impacts on the moral system – people do bad things without fear of punishment from “God” and take advantage of luck (as every individual believes he or she deserves to be the lucky one).

Western Influence to 1949

When China lost the Opium Wars (1839–1842 and 1856–1860), and the eight-power Allied Forces invaded Beijing and burned the
old Summer Palace in 1900, Chinese intellectuals were shocked and confused. Why had the “Heavenly Dynasty” been defeated
so easily by the “Barbarian Westerner”? They were impressed by the scientific advancement, economic development and industrial
civilization of the West, and concluded that China was still sleeping on its past glory, its mindset still shackled by the old
schools of philosophy. For the first time in its history Chinese intellectuals acknowledged that China needed to learn from two
gentlemen from the West: Mr. D and Mr. S (alias Democracy and Science). Following the end of the Imperial Era in 1911, the New Culture
Movement was launched to stimulate new thinking to help China get out of the morass and establish a modern social and political
system. Initiated by Cai Yuanpei, president of Beijing University, and Hu Shi, the guru of Chinese literature and philosophy, it set
out to adopt Western culture: philosophy, lifestyle, beliefs and values. As Confucian thinking was deeply rooted in the Chinese
language, Cai and Hu also used colloquial language instead of old Chinese written language. Cai studied in Germany, and was influenced
by the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Kant; Hu studied in the USA and was an advocate of John Dewey’s Pragmatism. Other  Chinese intellectuals were inspired by Darwin and the Evolution and Ethics of T. H. Huxley.

On a more popular level, Chinese cities saw a tidal wave of Western culture: English novels, Hollywood movies, French
fashion and night clubs. Chinese classic language and classic philosophy were criticized and their teaching diminished in leading
schools after 1920. Church schools opened in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. English was taught at many Chinese universities, as
were the science subjects: mathematics, logic, and physics. For the first time in Chinese history, Chinese women were permitted
to have education and encouraged to work like men, though Chinese women were still struggling to have freedom to marry
whom they chose.This period ofWestern influence, almost exclusively confined to the cities, came to an end as China itself collapsed into anarchy, then was rescued from this state by Mao.

Soviet Influence

In 1949, Mao established Chinese socialism by adopting Marxism, implementing a unitary ideology of “Social Realism”
and forbidding all other schools of thought. Although China and Russia’s brotherhood broke up in 1958, the Soviet influence
remains in the Chinese social system and in Chinese thinking.

Cultural Revolutionary

Mao was a teacher from a peasant family, who had profound knowledge of Chinese traditional philosophy, literature and history;
he was recognized as a political leader, a strategist, a philosopher, a poet and a calligrapher. Mao didn’t think that China was
ready for Western democracy, but he did believe that the majority of Chinese had suffered enormously thanks to a mindset enforced
by the ruling classes for 2,000 years, and he resolved to break this. The result was his “Cultural Revolution.” Both “Ox-head
devil” and “Snake-body spirit” (traditional and Western schools of thought) were anathematized in an attempt to “free” people’s
minds by unifying their thinking. Mao particularly criticized Confucianism – he actually implemented Mohism in many ways.

He effectively recast the old hierarchical structure by lowering the social status of scholars and putting blue-collar workers at the
top. All traditional Chinese books were banned in schools, and the higher education system was shut down completely.
The Rise of The New Entrepreneurs Around 1978, Deng Xiaoping reopened China to the world, focusing on economic development by encouraging people to do business. Higher education was resumed.

There were various responses to this. Some people who did not have the chance of going to university started their own businesses, and are now the backbone of modern Chinese commerce. Others studied abroad, mainly in US and UK, and stayed over: some of them became overseas returnees who made glorious returns to their hometowns twenty years later. Others went to university, graduated and worked for national or local governments; they became officials and govern China today. Still others, the majority who missed out higher education and didn’t become entrepreneurs, ended up working for Chinese SOEs.

After three decades, the first true generation of businesspeople in the new China emerged, most of them in the first of the above
categories. Around the early 1990s, there were a lot of complaints from Western business people about bad experiences with these
people, who were perceived as dishonest. To be fair, many of these entrepreneurs had never been educated properly, academically or
culturally: we see them as ignorant rather than deliberately cheating.Interestingly, most of them sent their children to study abroad in the US and UK.

In the meantime, traditional Chinese education had been largely uprooted. There were few teachers in the universities of China
with a solid background of Chinese literature, history and philosophy. Hence, Chinese education focused on Western science
rather than Chinese art, and demanding disciplines such as mathematics grew in importance. Unfortunately, mathematics, rather
than being valued for its real use, was adopted as a major university entrance criterion and therefore became a barrier to
access to higher education, as it was now essential to qualify in this discipline regardless of the type of degree pursued. Theclassic Chinese books written by Confucius, Lao Zi and other philosophers remained unopened, in the dungeon.

The consequence of eight decades of cultural loss in mainland China was a great deal of confusion. In contrast to the country’s
fast economic growth, the value system in Chinese society started going downhill. The Chinese virtues pursued by predecessors for
thousands years were derided and neglected: materialism became the major pursuit for most people.

The Resurgence of Classic Philosophies

In 2005, President Hu Jintao launched the “Harmonious Society” social movement. This represents the core philosophy of
Confucius. Ironically, Chinese philosophy had been popular in the West for many years: now China itself reawoke to an awareness
of its national treasury. Suddenly, there were numerous lectures, forums and seminars about traditional Chinese philosophy.
Primary schools started to teach classic Chinese philosophical textbooks.

In 2007 Confucianism was officially rehabilitated, and the main campus of the Confucian School was established, for the first time
in the sage’s homeland, in Beijing – a long way after the 140 or more Confucian schools founded in over 50 other countries.
The twenty-first century sees Confucianism surviving as a major ideology in China. Confucianism has even entered the statute books. For
Confucius, filial piety was the first virtue every person needed to have, but this attitude had begun to decline. Recently the local
government in Zhejiang Province established “filial piety to parents” as one of its criteria for promotion of officials, and the
national government has legislated that parents have right to sue their children for not visiting them for a long time. Ironically,
Confucius’s basic morality has to be enforced by law, a practice which he consistently opposed.In January 2011, a statue of Confucius 9.5 meters tall was placed in Tiananmen Square, sharing the political center of China with his opponent (Mao’s portrait is hanging on the gate of the  Forbidden City, and his mausoleum is nearby) . Not for nothing is the philosopher, who has survived feudal dynasties and new era revolutions, called “the Master of Eternity.” Interestingly, the statue of Confucius was removed to the inside of the national museum on April 20, 2011, the time this book was being completed. This act symbolized the complex attitude of the Chinese towards classical schools of thinking.

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