By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
While the Four Books and Five Classics (四書五經), a collection of Confucian writings dating back to 300 BC, are considered examples of good literature, it is inappropriate to make them mandatory texts in schools because building a Taiwanese identity and Taiwanese literature is even more important, academics said in a forum yesterday.
Discussing the de-sinicization of four Asian countries — Japan, South Korea, Mongolia and Vietnam — at a forum organized by the Taiwan Association of University Professors (TAUP), panelists made side comments on President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) recent re-election campaign ad in support of efforts to promote the reading of Chinese classics among children.
The television ad, released on Monday last week, highlighted Ma’s commitment to promoting Chinese culture.
“Reading the books is not bad, but making it mandatory by state authorities is wrong. It’s the Chinese way of doing things. If you want to talk about de-sinicization, that would be the first thing we should de-sinicize,” said Lee Yeng-chyh (李永熾), a history professor at National Taiwan University.
Lee, who specializes in Japanese history, said Japan “absorbed” what it perceived as good in Chinese culture — rather than de-sinicize — and empowered its own culture.
However, he said, Japan abandoned Confucianism, which uses Confucian moral standards as the backbone of society, and opted to follow the example of Western European democracy and civilization.
Influenced by China for centuries and later colonized by France, Vietnam decided it would establish its own writing system, literature and culture, said Chiung Wi-vun (蔣為文), a professor of Taiwanese literature at National Cheng Kung University.
Though Vietnam has been strongly influenced by Chinese culture, it lists Chinese literature as “foreign literature” in its national curriculum, he said.
Taiwan is at the same crossroads that Vietnam once was at, Chiung said, adding that he has called for improving education in Taiwanese language, literature and history, listing Taiwanese as a mandatory language course in schools and enacting a language equality act as ways to build up a strong Taiwanese culture and identity.
Meanwhile, Rick Chu (朱立熙), chief executive officer of the Korean Studies Academy, said South Korea did not carry out de-sinicization on a national level, although the country did change the official Chinese translation of the name of its capital Seoul in 2005 amid escalated tension between South Korea and China.
“Instead of de-sinicization, I would say [South] Korea did everything it could to encourage its people to be proud of its own culture, language and history,” Chu said.
Taiwanese have long been influenced by Chinese culture to the extent that people think it would be unwise or impossible to de-sinicize, TAUP president Chang Yen-hsien (張炎憲) said.
“The experience of the four Asian countries could serve as examples for us. Building one’s own culture and identity is never easy. It takes hard work, wisdom and time,” he said.