BEIJING, 9 May 2007 — Confucius famously considered a good woman to be an illiterate woman. The ancient sage might want to eat his words: More than 2 1/2 millenniums after his death, he’s back in vogue, thanks in no small part to a Chinese woman with a Ph.D. Confucius, meet Yu Dan.
But make it quick. The professor is so busy these days she barely has time to see her baby daughter. Since the publication of her enormously popular book on the teachings of Confucius late last year, Yu has been racing from college lectures to book signings, TV appearances and public speaking engagements. The public can’t seem to get enough of this overnight sensation who has turned dusty old Confucius into a Chinese version of “Chicken Soup for the Soul.’’
“I never expected this,” the smartly dressed 42-year-old said in a hurried interview from the back of the black Audi taking her from her Beijing home to the airport.
“In the 21st century, our value system is changing; people are faced with a lot of confusion and choices. The classics are not just fossils. They are a value system that can help us find answers to modern-day problems.’’
For more than 2,500 years, the Confucian doctrines of filial piety, moral righteousness and hierarchical relationships were the guiding principles of life and government in China and most of East Asia. Then the Communists came to power and Chairman Mao’s red guards ransacked temples dedicated to the wise man and declared Confucianism counter revolutionary.
Today, China is charging into modernity with dizzying economic growth and breathtaking social change. But many believe the world’s most populous nation has lost its moral and spiritual anchor. Enter the homespun wisdom of Kong Fuzi, or Master Kong, as Confucius is known in China — interpreted by a woman.
“I’m amazed,’’ said Hong Huang, a cultural commentator and publisher of fashion magazines in Beijing. “Her success has a lot to do with the fact that modern China has an identity crisis and spiritual crisis. The only value system we have today is money. Everybody is looking for the Chinese meaning of life.’’
Her book, “Yu Dan’s Insights on the Analects,’’ is based on her personal reflections after reading Confucius’ collected teachings.
The Analects are written in classical Chinese and are nearly as incomprehensible as Latin is to the average English speaker. But Yu’s book is conversational and full of modern-day applications.
When Confucius talks about the qualities of a good ruler, for instance, Yu connects it to the life of the average man. In the analects, Confucius asks his students about their aspirations.
Instead of praising the most ambitious for wanting to run a big country with a vast army, he sides with one who merely wants to enjoy a fine spring day with friends.
According to Yu, everyone has dreams but too many people are so busy working they have no time to figure out what they really want out of life. “Just because you have a successful career does not necessarily mean you have made your dreams come true,’’ she writes.
To illustrate, she tells the story of three field mice preparing for winter. One gathered food, one built shelter and the third did nothing but play. Winter came and there was plenty to eat but nothing to do inside the hideaway. That was when the third mouse made himself valuable by telling stories from his days of fun and games.
Yu’s book has sold more than 3 million copies in four months, making modern Chinese publishing history and beating out the country’s other top seller, the Harry Potter series. Bootleg videos of her speeches, an unfortunate sign of popularity here, are prominently displayed next to American hits such as “Desperate Housewives’’ and “The Devil Wears Prada.’’
Yu recently completed an 18-city tour during which she autographed a whopping 39,000 copies of her book, twice sitting down for stretches of 10 hours. “I saw so many people waiting in line,’’ she said. “Once it was really windy. Another time it was snowing and past midnight. I kept going out of conscience, even if I felt like passing out. They were there not for me. They were there for Confucius.’’
Confucius is indeed enjoying a huge revival — and is even endorsed by the Communist Party that once tried to crush him.
“Maybe 99 percent of Chinese people today never read his writings, but Confucian values are steeped in our culture,’’ said Miao Di, a professor at Communication University of China. “The worst example might be his views on women, which is believed to be the basis for our patriarchal society, where male chauvinism prevails despite recent improvements on gender inequality.’’
Even before the Communists came to power in 1949, Chinese intellectuals in the early part of century had begun to question his teachings, blaming them for keeping China from moving forward by embracing more Western notions of science and democracy.
Confucius-bashing reached a peak during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1977, when schools banned the Analects and mobs tortured scholars for teaching the book which for centuries had served as textbook 101 for the Chinese literati.
Today, even President Hu Jintao is preaching “Harmonious Society,’’ based on the Confucian values of unity, morality and respect for authority.
The Communist Party’s own legitimacy is at stake as it tries to tame the dark side of the economic miracle that has let to a dangerous rich-poor divide, rampant corruption and rising social unrest. Rehabilitating Confucianism allows the government to show it cares about resolving these social conflicts in a benevolent way without giving up too much ground in terms of political freedom and institutional reforms.
Beijing also has found the sage’s good name useful in foreign policy initiatives designed to soften the perception of a rising China threat.
The country has set up Confucius Institutes in more than 50 countries and regions to promote Chinese language and culture, much like the Alliance Francaise of France and Goethe Institute of Germany.
But none of this official worship compares to the grass-roots Confucian fever ignited by Yu.
Her book is actually a compilation of a seven-day lecture she gave last fall on CCTV, China’s official state-run network. The scheduling of her show couldn’t have been better — lunch hours during a weeklong national holiday when most Chinese are home eating meals in front of the TV.
In the beginning, the choice of a little-known media studies professor from Beijing Normal University who studied ancient Chinese literature as an undergraduate was considered a risky proposition.
“Not many people knew who she was. We worried she didn’t have enough star power to attract a wide audience,’’ said Song Zhijun, one of her editors at the China Publishing House. But the media-savvy college professor knew what she was doing. She spiced her talk with stories about interpersonal relationships, self-awareness and the pursuit of happiness.
Yu’s TV performance was so refreshing her book became a kind of self-help bible on how to become a better human being. The country’s swelling prisons were among the first to hire her as a speaker.
Business owners bought her books in bulk to distribute to employees. One county government ordered more than 10,000 copies and made it required reading for each official, according to Zhu Anshun, another of Yu’s editors.
“We live in a world with a lot of headaches, and she provides some answers,’’ said Gong Fan, a 26-year-old graduate student at Beijing Normal University who was waiting outside Yu’s classroom with a couple of friends hoping for autographs.
Yu admits that not everything about Confucius is relevant today, but she doesn’t think it’s fair to dwell on the negative.
“There is a lot of prejudice against Confucius for too conservative or backward,’’ Yu said. “He teaches love and tolerance, for example, and don’t force others to do what you would not want to do yourself, how to develop harmonious interpersonal relationships. Are these ideas really that out of date? Are these not useful to our lives today?’’