Thursday, December 6, 2012

At the End of My Internship...

Hello everyone! With the last Chinese translation I handed to professor Valussi, I just finished this semester's history internship! Thank you all for participate the whole process with me and hopefully everyone learned something a little bit more about Chinese culture, Taoism, or Xiao Tianshi. 

During this semester, we went over the history of Chinese Taoism and modern Taoist scholars like Xiao Tianshi and Fu Jinquan who contributed their life into preserve and transmit Taoist treasures. We also went over some materials I translated directly from Xiao Tianshi's books "Tao Zang Jiang Hua" and some basic concepts about Taoism like Tao, Ying-yang and alchemy.  After we went over all these materials,  I believe everybody now have a simple and clear concept about how people tried their best to protect old Chinese culture during the most senior chaos in Chinese history and because of their incredible work, old Chinese culture can be survived and reveal their amazing fascination into today people's eyes. 

For me, the process of translation is also a process of re-understanding. Although I am a native speaker of Chinese and I grew up under traditional Chinese family, I still found out how little I knew about Taoism and other old Chinese culture. The deeper I knew about Taoism and Xiao Tianshi, the deeper I understood the charm of Taoism and what made Xiao Tianshi so eager to preserve Taoist books from  Western culture's invasion. Xiao Tianshi's behavior also makes me believe how big impact could one little man do and how we should retain his desire and practice it into transmit Chinese culture to our next generation.

At last, I strongly believe Xiao Tianshi's work and spirit brought out a question for all living Chinese to consider. How should we judge and compare the value between Chinese and Western culture? Does the Western culture means advance and we should totally abandon our own old culture? For me, I don't believe some people said that only if we forget the entire Chinese culture so that China could start to modernize itself. I also don't believe Westernize is the only way to help Chinese become more civilize and stronger. What I believe is Chinese culture has deeply rooted into every single Chinese from thousands years ago, abolish Chinese culture will only create social confusion and cultural lost, and copy direct from Western culture may also cause localization problem. Save the good things; get rid of the bad things; find a way to merge two different culture together maybe the best solution for nowadays China. Extract from our own culture,import from other culture,create a new culture from the marrow of both culture shall lead China a new direction to modernization!

At the end of last, I wish everybody will survive all their finals and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

1 comment:

  1. Looking for a job? Tired of your job search or sick of your current job? Then break-out from the pack, and launch your career in Shanghai, China! Global Intern Exchange offers corporate internship positions in both large multi-national corporations and smaller enterprises, all in the heart of booming Shanghai. Our international internship package includes: guaranteed internship, internship matched to your career interest and education, Mandarin Chinese lessons, city transportation provided, sight-seeing tourism, and access to career networking events. Go to our website and apply for admission today.
    China internship

    ReplyDelete