Subject: Re: [edu-team] foriegn language newcomers sessions

From: James Seng <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2003 12:05:10 +0800

avri wrote:
> I am not sure that Korea is as Confucius oriented.  They seem to have 
> made a very strong attempt to remove that from their culture a few 
> centuries back.  Perhaps that is why they consider themselves the 
> Italians of the orient.  They do, really.

If you talk to a Chinese, they will tell you that Confucius influence 
has been purged during the Culture Revolution. But whether we admit it 
or not in public, what we do and behave counts most.

In fact, Korean kept more of the Confucius influence then then Chinese.
Ever wonder that "teachers" in Korean are very highly regarded in Asia 
(as compared to NA)? Well, that comes from Confucius teaching.

Read "Confucius Analect" (there is an English translation), read it and 
then see how much of its principle you see in *all* Asian culture.

> While I certainly do _not_ hold myself up as any sort of Asian expert, 
> we do have to be careful about making generalizations about all Asians. 
>  Kind of like assuming all North Americans are the same.  Canadians and 
> Mexicans hate that.

Of course, generalization is dangerous and there are always exceptions. 
But there are some generalization which helps: If someone ask me if 
Korean drinks, I will reply "like fish".

Is that generalization, yes but it helps to bring across some message.

> Um.  John is no longer the IAB chair and hasn't been for a while (though 
> sometimes it is hard to tell).  Leslie is.  And she does not have a 
> beard.  Perhaps this is why she was missed.
> :-)

I mean when he is the IAB chair. Incidently, he still does command a lot 
of respect in Asia, partly because of the beard.

-James Seng

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2003 10:59:38 -0700

> then see how much of its principle you see in *all* Asian culture.

I've actually read it. The version I read had a lot of commentary about 
which parts were later additions and were really skewed from the core 
books. It was odd to realize that Confucius (as pictured in the analects) 
was really a frustrated reformer idealist who never got permission to put 
his ideas into practice!

                       Harald