<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'><font size="2">The next five postings ends my writing of a daily column for the Saipan Tribune. So you get the five. The usual caveat: curious, you're welcome; not, see you at the bend!</font>
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<div><font size="2">Jaime<br>
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<div style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: helvetica, arial; color: black;">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Jaime R Vergara <pinoypanda2031@aol.com><br>
To: editor <editor@saipantribune.com><br>
Sent: Fri, Aug 22, 2014 2:53 pm<br>
Subject: August 25<br>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b>Hang Gong Hang Tian
Da Xue</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">My <i>Lei Feng </i>(an
ordinary male volunteer who died young is China's exemplar in volunteer work)
while teaching at the Hang Gong Hang Tian Da Xue was spent on weekends with Shou
Wang school for children.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i>Tian </i>is "sky"
that gives us "Aerospace", and <i>Da
Xue </i>is "big school", i.e., a university, thus, Shenyang Aerospace
U. Other than the fact that the school
name is lent to the subway stop a block away from the main gate, to delve into the
school's character is probably best read from calligraphy emblazoned near the
front gate. The phrase is <i>De Neng Bin Jin Yong Yi Xiang Yuan.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i> </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Individually, they denote for <i>de</i> = virtue, <i>neng</i> =
competence, <i>bin</i> = together, <i>jin</i> = advance, <i>yong</i> = courage, <i>yi</i> =
resolute, <i>xiang</i> = soar, and <i>yuan</i> = forever. My take is prosaic: "Resolutely advance
together with competence and virtue soaring forever." I suspect that the aesthetic
precedes consideration of the authentic; beauty trumps reality in the understanding
of the phrase. The calligraphy rather than
the spoken <i>Putunghua </i>is more helpful
to the Chinese reader.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Big words to describe processes around educational aims in
the East include the influence attributed to <i>Kong Fu Tzu,</i> aka, Confucius, and the Mao-think that redefined it. In the West, the renaissance and enlightenment
eras girds the great walls of its learning.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Since the Han of 206 BCE transcended the preceding Qin's
adherence to strict rules (often referred to as legalism), the thoughts of Kung
Fu Tzu dominated the rhetoric of governance, simply because the activity of
rationalization followed the path of stability rather than the unsettling of the
<i>pugua</i> paradigm, a pillar in
governance "with Chinese characteristics." </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Two thousand years of dynastic turmoil is often analyzed
through a ruling dynasty's adherence to the "mandate of heaven" that legitimized
a reigning family's status to rule justly and earned the fealty of the learned
and privileged class that in turn guided the affairs of the <i>hoi polloi.</i> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">The lower class correspondingly stayed faithful but
subservient to the upper class that supported ruling families until a change is
deemed necessary, not of the system itself but on the ruling family. In all these, the model of relationships from
top to bottom, and bottom to top, is that of the "family", heavily virtue-laden
as a clan.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">The merit system in China judged one's familiarity with
calligraphic representations of Confucian thoughts and history; the civil
service exam that choose government roles had for a long time been the gauged
on one's acquaintance with the corpus of Confucian thoughts until Mao came
along and noticed that academia held the gates to the Communist Party and
proceeded to chasten the halls of academy through exposure to agrarian posting
and learning. Self-taught, the Cultural
Revolution spawned the informal <i>Dong Nong
Bing Da Xue </i>(Worker-Farmer-Soldier University) that upended the stability,
equanimity, and tranquility of many urban dwellers and the <i>illuminati</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">The renaissance in Europe 1400 CE was a return to classical
forms in literature and art, harking back to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle,
influencing the secular thought patterns of the west, and adhered to by
Judeo-Christian-Muslim theologies. It
hankered back to Greco-Roman civilization.
The constant was a transcendent Will of Deity emanating from the
mysterious YHWH of Jerusalem, Olympus' Zeus and the Forum's Deus. Thrones and miter were determined by articulated
coherence of theologies invoking sacred writ. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">The enlightenment of the 1700 CE came as shock to the system
as evolution suggested that discernable cosmic intelligence referred to as deity
is but personified human rationality that one aligned to or stand-up against in
proud but resolute defiance. Chaos was the
order of creation, manifested notably in the changes brought about by the American
and French revolutions. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">China's 1912 revolution challenged Confucian order, awakened
national sentiments against colonizing Europe and Imperial Japan, but retained the
stranglehold of its decrepit civil service.
The revolution in Russia erupted in 1917 that birthed a revolutionary who
thought of contradictions; Mao-think got quoted in red books later. In 1949, change took the front seat while
Confucian stability sat at the back.
Deng Xiaoping found a way of keeping stability in the yin-yang of chaos
and order, and in pushing industrialization, introduced "nuclear"
family as a live option and the individual as democracy's necessary component.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Continuity is big in Chinese thought; chastened Confucius is
back. Much of China's educational thrust
remains on getting "certificated" in society though no longer on the
mandate of heaven as it is on the skill to assemble gadgets in the factory
line.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">When "certificated" U grads prefer to hawk shoes
on the sidewalk's night market rather than wear office attire, it is time to
revisit formal pedagogy. I have seven
years to inject my contribution from inside the ramparts of its great wall. </div>
<br>
<div style="clear:both"><i>j'aime la vie</i><br>
<a href="mailto:pinoypanda2031@aol.com">pinoypanda2031@aol.com</a><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
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