BEIJING, July 29 -- It's heartening to hear that China will translate five classics of Confucianism into nine foreign languages to spread Confucian values.

    This comes at a time when values such as mutual respect and self-restraint are often lacking in daily life and appallingly absent in high-profile cases of greed and confrontation worldwide.

    The five classics: Shijing ("Classic of Poetry"), Shujing ("Classic of History"), Liji ("Classic of Rites"), Yijing ("Classic of Changes"), and Chunqiu ("Spring and Autumn Annals").

    Xinhua news agency reported on Monday that lack of modern translations made it difficult to spread the five classics worldwide. Xinhua called the five books "the origin of Chinese Confucianism."

    Indeed, you probably have heard of Confucius and some of his famous quotations, but Shijing, China's first collection of poems, said to be edited by Confucius, may well be unfamiliar.

    And yet those poems, mainly about pure love and hard work, represented one of the best moral textbooks in the view of Confucius. Read it throughout your life and absorb its meaning, and you may well refrain from various indulgences - material, sexual and intellectual.

    Confucian ethics do not rely on religion to teach people to do good - Confucius believes man simply can do good and seek what is good.

    To be sure, Chinese culture is not all about Confucianism, which basically teaches mutual respect and self-restraint. The Legalist tradition, which emphasizes rule by law (not rule of law), dominated feudal China for thousands of years. Confucianism is more about cultivation of personal character, or at least, it puts character building (xiushen) before everything else, be it managing a family or a state.

    Translating the five books into nine foreign languages will help people far away to understand Confucius as universal teachings. The question arises: if many foreigners don't understand Confucianism, do we Chinese today do better?

    On July 18, I took a taxi to Pudong International airport and the driver joked to me: "Confucianism has influenced both China and Japan, but compared with the Japanese, we seem to be fake Confucianists."

    He was on to something and I knew what he meant. Japanese people are polite to each other at home and in public places, as Confucius teaches, but filial piety and public manners are often missing in China nowadays. Confucius said: "When you go out, treat others as very important people." Japanese bow to each other, but many of us carelessly spit in front of each other.

    At traffic intersections, few Japanese - Americans and many other Westerners for that matter - run red lights, but how about we Chinese? Are we good at mutual respect, self-restraint and yielding the right of way?

    On my flight to Hokkaido for vacation on July 18, I had no difficulty in telling Japanese stewardesses from their Chinese counterparts. The former always beamed with genuine smile, while the latter often forced a smile, if they smiled at all.

    It's not that Confucianism has run out of Chinese blood. I believe Chinese, and most other people on this planet, are born capable of doing good, if not born good.

    The pity is that China witnessed two movements in which Confucianism was thrown away: one in the May 4 Movement in 1919 and another in the "cultural revolution" (1966-1976).

    Wang Yuanhua (1920-2008), a famous thinker and a former minister of the publicity department of Shanghai, said that for all the merits of the May 4 Movement, it was too radical in denouncing Confucian values.

    Radicalism has no place in China today. It's time we embrace Confucianism again - translating the five classics is just a starting point.

    (Source: Shanghai Daily)