Today I am going to find some joy in writing about Chinese culture in my simple language. Bear with me, coz I am also a learner and I indeed know little about this subject. Anyhow, this is, but my attempt.
The Chinese Middle Way （中国人的中庸之道）
The Chinese believe in too much is as no good as too little. This is, literally, translated into the Middle Way, also translated as the Golden Mean, in Chinese language, Zhong1 yong1 zhi1 dao4,中庸之道. The middle way has shaped the Chinese life in all of their aspects and it is rooted in the thinking of almost all the Chinese people. And, throughout history, till the contemporary age, governors also adopt this ideology to manage their countries in China. All in all, the middle way is an unseparated part of people’s life in China and it finds its deep roots in the Chinese culture and history.
Zhong Yong, the Doctrine of Golden Mean, was first established in literature by the book of Zhong Yong《中庸》during the Warring States. The book’s author is Zi Si 子思, who lived in between of B.C. 483 – B.C. 402. He was the grandson of Confucius.
In this short essay by me, we don’t go back to the ancient books to translate sentence by sentence what’s written in the books. Rather, interestingly, we talk about how the people in China have found influences in their everyday’s lives with this philosophy.
Overdoing one thing is as no good as under-doing one thing. Most Chinese believe in a medium amount of everything, that goes to no extreme. Of course, as with everything else, there are always exceptions. This goes to one’s pursuit of wealth, the state of happiness and sorrowfulness, the conditions of one’s friendships with others, the beliefs of one ideology or doctrine, etc. and etc.
Having too much, is, the same as if having too little, will, in a way, find its setbacks. Take our emotions for instance, when we have too much happinesses or sorrows, they hurt our emotional well beings. Even too much happinesses don’t do you good in real life. So, for the ordinary Chinese, they prefer