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Note by the guy whose site this is, Jackie Wu's son
This writing is posted here with permission from Jackie Wu. I think this is a translation by Jackie Wu of a lecture series on Confucius by a Professor Yee, but I don't think dad sent me a link, and a google search for the title and name given didn't solve that, but, anyways, translations technically count as copyrightable original works, so, uh, sorry about not knowing who exactly to credit with the lecture in Chinese. I've only skimmed this briefly, but it appears to be mostly fluff, and I don't trust anyone who turns half a speech about philosophy into a history of the ancient world. I might read the second half some time. I'm just putting this here because I'm making an online home for my dad's writings that are either mostly or entirely not worth reading, in my opinion.

The framework of love in Confucianism and universal human value

A translation by Jackie Wu of: Loving human relationship in the teachings of Confucius and universal human value.by professor Yee. (The framework of love in Confucianism and universal human value)

We must review our success and our failure in the last 3700 years of Chinese history to understand where we are coming from and where our dreams are for the future. Another thing is we need to establish a market economy based central human value with Chinese characteristics.

Lets also review the human history of the world, which is about 5,000 years as we have unearthed so far. Our researchers have found human history began in Egypt and West Asia about 5,000 years ago. In this 5,000 years how many civilizations have developed in the world ? Approximately 8 to 12, according to international research institutes' finding. Out of the many civilizations, the most important three are first, current western civilization. Current western civilization is the strongest and most influential, to the point no nation in the world today can be completely detached from the current western civilization. For example, our microphone, computer, internet, MacDonald's restaurants and Kentucky restaurant are all products of this current western civilization bought and used all over the world. The second is the Islam civilization which is second in its influence worldwide, covering fifty to sixty countries and influencing practically all nations and all cultures in the world. The third most influential civilization is the Chinese Han civilization which also has its influence worldwide.

Among these three most influential, the Chinese Han civilization was the earliest to attain its worldwide influence. These three civilizations, the current western civilization, the Islam civilization, and the Chinese Han civilization will no doubt lead the framework of future world development. Among these three civilizations, the current western civilization is the strongest, and the Chinese Han civilization is the weakest. This remind me of General Ju describing the period of the three kingdom in Chinese history as the time of life and death struggle. It is therefore very important to understand our Chinese Han civilization in the past, in the present, and in its future potential. To do this, we look back at the areas in common and the areas that are different among these three civilizations.

One area in common in these three civilizations is that all three are worldwide civilizations. What is worldwide civilization is one that is not limited to influencing a local region, a local nation, or a local culture, but is spread to include other regions, other nations, and other cultures. That is why the Chinese Han culture is sometimes referred to as a circle of influences. Included in this circle are countries like Japan, Korea, and Singapore, other countries and other cultures.

The area that is different is the other two cultures have religious faith, whereas the Chinese Han culture does not have religious faith. Islam civilization is particularly clear about its unity of politics and religion. The birth of the Islam culture is the day the kingdom of Arabia was established as a nation based on unity with their religion, which is a monotheistic religion. There are three basic monotheistic religions, namely, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Islam recognizes all the Judaism prophets and Jesus as prophets sent by God, Allah, and the last prophet is prophet Muhammad.

The earliest monotheistic religion is Judaism. Judaism has a major trouble, which is they believe in special privilege. They believe they are God's chosen people, and as such are specially privileged. One of the advantages of believing in special privilege is that when their nation is destroyed, they still survive as an independent culture and a people in other peoples' land. We understand a culture must have its own land, otherwise its people would be scattered. Jewish people can survive as a culture and a people even as their land has been conquered is because of their monotheistic faith and their belief they are God's chosen people. The trouble they create is that they are the chosen people, but the others are not, and therefore their culture cannot become a worldwide influence..

Islam believe privileged grace as well as general grace. They believe Allah loves all people but in particular people who follow Islam. Islam is therefore more open and inclusive than Judaism, and therefore they are able to spread and become a worldwide religion based culture.

Current western culture dropped the privilege and believed in the concept of a all loving God. Without claiming privilege, the current westerner culture can therefore spread all over the world and become a worldwide culture.

The Chinese Han culture has no religious faith. This conclusion requires answer to a prior question : what is the definition of a religious faith ? Religious faith is defined as the belief and a firm unwavering faith in a supernatural and superhuman being. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are religious faith under this definition, and believe in a Creator of the universe, who they called God, or Allah. The Chinese Han culture does not recognize a Creator God. They believe Pan-Gu separated heaven from earth, but heaven and earth already existed before Pan-Gu. Lu-Hwa made humans out of mud, but the mud already existed before Li-Hwa. Lu-Hwa did not create the mud. The Chinese Han culture does not have the story of a supreme Creator, a faith in the supreme, or a foundation to base any faith on. Now, does our Chinese Han culture have any belief or not ? Yes, we have. We believe in spirits, in ghost, and in Fun-Shu. We believe in plenty of things.

How many ghosts and spirits we Chinese believe in ? I was at a village where I saw a place of worship and prayers which contain all the sages from Buddhism, Daoism, Zen, and historical as well as folklore heroes, gods, and ancestors. At the end of the display were a red scroll written on it: all the old generations of revolutionists. Believing in many means believing in none. That is why we have a saying: if you believe, it works. That means if it works, you believe. Many believers are there to recommend which one to pray to as their prayers have been answered. You may ask why are there so many ghost and spirits you pray to and worship ? Well, it is because spirits and ghosts have division of work. Some specialize in salvation from suffering, some in conceiving babies, some in passing university entrance exams, .......

One time I met a fellow paid his prayer money and prayed earnestly, but when finished grumbling to say I don't know if I prayed to the right Buddha. Upon which I asked him what was it he was praying for. He said he prayed for his son being able to pass the university entrance exam. I told him the Won-Cheng Buddha he prayed to is the correct one for that is the area he is in charge. He said it is Stanford University in USA his son was applying too, and he is worried if Won-Cheng Buddha knows English. If he doesn't know English, my prayer money would have been wasted I said oh, you should pray to the Virgin Mary. She knows English. He said he knew the Virgin Mary knows English, but does she understand my Chinese ? You see ? Can you really call this faith ? So, this is the characteristic of the Chinese Han civilization : ghosts and spirits, yes, religious faith, no; worships, yes, beliefs, no.

People are starting to label various problems we have in China, like value boys and despise girls, fake infant formula that killed babies, fake designer bags, etc. as a crisis in our belief system. I disagree, because we have never had any belief system to begin with in our culture, where does a crisis in our belief come from ? I would like to ask why we didn't have faith before and yet we didn't have any problems like these before ? And I would like to ask why the other civilizations have religious faith ? What's their purpose ?

I think if we investigate these matters, we will find that what's behind religious faith is centralized value. For example, the centralized values of the current western civilization consist of independence, freedom, justice and equality. It was for the purpose of justice and equality that led to the establishment of Christianity. Christianity believe in original sin. Since we are all sinners, we are all equal in the eyes of God. In other words, the fundamental purpose of having a monotheistic religion is to establish a centralized value. And the reason why our Chinese Han civilization have had no religious faith and yet no problem before is because of the same reason, and that is we have centralized value.

What was our centralized value ? From early Qin and Han Dynasty to new Han is 3 unbreakable human relationship and 5 common human interactions. Before the open up of the Chinese economy it was class struggles. Both of these centralized values were recognized and accepted by both the ruling authority and the people it ruled, as well as all the officials in between. Why is it then now we have these problems. It is because of breakdown of 3 unbreakable human relationship and 5 common human interactions as well as the breakdown of the class structure. Why the 3 unbreakable human relation and 5 common human interaction broke down ? It was because that value system works well and was appropriate for an agricultural economy. Class struggle works well and appropriate in a planned economy. Nowadays, our fundamental economy is a market economy. That is why the old centralized values have broken down and become inappropriate. while the old values have broken down, the new values have not yet been established. That is what caused troubles and difficulties in the minds of the people and in the market place. That is to say, with the opening up of China to a market economy, our economy is more prosperous, people are wealthier, and the country has become much stronger. But we have no more centralized value. This phenomena can be described as "Strong and healthy, looking very confused. Pockets full of money, don't know what to do."

Therefore, the task before us right now is to reestablish our centralized value. How do we go about doing it ? My personal opinion is to find a universal common human value. The problem is the question whether or not a universal common human value exist. My answer to that question is yes, it exist. It is because we have universal common human nature and desires. That is, regardless of your colour, your country, or your culture, as long as you are a human, you have human nature and desires that are common to each other. For example, love. Is love common to all humans ? Yes. It is because every human being has four fundamental mental needs : be loved, love others, give love, and receive love. So love is a common value among all humans.

I was making a speech at a seminar one day. During the question and answer period I was asked by a lady in the second roll who said she had no problem but her leader had a problem. he was too embarrassed to ask, so I am asking the question for him. I said that's fine, a secretary can ask the question for her boss, no problem. She said you said love is a common human value, my boss disagree. He said some wealthy man had once said his servant will not love his little sister. I answered by saying I am not sure your boss had heard me. I said love is common value among humans. I never said loving his little sister is a common human value. I said love is a common human value. The wealthy man's servant in fact did not love his little sister. I don't love his little sister either. But I can love other little sisters, all right ? I can also not love little sisters but love older brothers, father and mother, grand fathers and grand mothers. Those are all love. Your boss reminded me what I said some time ago that nowadays unless one is a retard, one does not qualify for being a leader.

Love is common human value. School of Confucius teaches family based love in human relationship. School of Mozi teaches non family based love. Christianity teaches universal love. Islam teaches wisdom in love. Buddhism teaches kindness in love. Every religion, every culture, and every school of thought teaches love. Love is common in human nature. Because it is common human nature, love becomes common human value.

School of Confucius has love in three basic structures. First is love of family members. Love of parents is call Zell. Love of siblings is called Tee. Love of family members has two special characteristics, namely appropriate reciprocal and sequential extension. Appropriate reciprocal to loving our parents is our parents loving their children, called Tzee. Love is not unilateral. Love is bilateral and reciprocal. Sequential extension is extending Zell from parents up to grand parents, to great grand parent and so on all the way up to our ancestors, and extending Tzee from children down to grand children, to great grand children, and so on all the way down to all future generations of the same family. As for Tee, it is sequentially extended from immediate siblings out to cousins, to cousins of second degree, to distance cousins of the same family name, to people from the same village, to co-workers, to people of ethnic Chinese minorities, to foreigners, ended up the whole world is full of brotherly love, Tee. That is the intended result of this basic structure of family based love

After Confucius proposed family based love, he got oppositions. The first opposition was from Mozi. Mozi also teaches love. Mozi does not support the family based love, the segregation of love into a self centered categories and hierarchies. Mozi propose equal love for all human beings. Mencius, a fourth generation Confucian defended Confucius position by arguing that equal love for all is not possible and cannot be achieved. Mencius proposed love should originate from the inside of an individual and extend to others what we would concern with and consider for ourselves in a heart to heart manner.

The students of Mozi challenged Mencius : If there is an infant about to fall into a well, would you save him ? Mencius said : certainly. They continued to ask if Mencius would enquire whose infant is it ? Mencius said certainly not. They argue that it is equal love for all, or non family based love then since you would not consider whose infant is it before jumping into the rescue. Mencius explained : you guys don't understand. This is not called equal love for all or non family based love. This is our merciful heart, or merciful human nature. What is merciful human nature ? It is our human nature not willing to see an innocent life got hurt.

Mencius has once told this story : Your sister in law fell into a well. Would you give her a hand to rescue her ? Why did Mencius ask such question ? It is because at that time there is a rule that men and women must not give and receive in close contact. If a man wants to give a woman something, he cannot hand it over to her directly or for her to receive it directly. He can put the thing on the table, and she can then pick it up from the table. Except for husband and wife, a man and a woman cannot hold hands. Mencius said if your sister in law fell into a well and you don't offer your hand to rescue her, you are an animal. If you say to your sister in law : we can't hold hands, so just wait, I'll look for my brother, your husband, to come to rescue you, then you are an animal. But you can't say if I offer my hand to rescue my sister in law, then I love my sister in law the same way I love my wife. So, even when we uphold our different hierarchies in our relationship, human must still have merciful human nature. That is, not willing to see innocent people got hurt.

Mencius told another story. One time Mencius was in the court of emperor Chi. He asked the emperor if this actually happened when someone was pulling a cow in front of him and he asked what the man was trying to do. The man replied that he was going to kill the cow and use its blood to rub on the new bell as it was customary to do so before we use the bell. The emperor saw the cow was trembling and shedding tears, so he said to the man: forget it, let the cow go. Then the emperor's second in command asked, if you let the cow go, what can we use to rub on the new bell ? Emperor Chi ordered to use a goat instead. Emperor confirmed that it is a true account. Mencius then asked what did the people say about the emperor. Emperor Chi said the people were saying the emperor was too cheap to slaughter a cow, so he slaughtered a goat instead. But they were wrong because I am not so poor as to be not able to afford the price of a cow. Mencius told the emperor : your problem was you did not see the goat trembled and cried. If you did, you would have spared the goat and ordered a dog instead. And if you had seen the dog trembled and cried, you would have ordered a chicken instead. That would have been the end of it because the chicken does not tremble and cry. It means you can adopt my policies and be a good emperor. Because of you having a merciful heart even towards animals, you would certainly be merciful to humans, and you would not kill any innocent one of your subject or let any of your innocent subject suffer. Emperor Chi thought about it a bit and said : no, that cannot be done because I have a small problem. I love treasures. Mencius said : that's not a problem. You love treasure and your subjects love treasures, so you can work together and accumulate lots of treasures. Emperor Chi said : but I have another small problem. I love women. He kept making excuses so that he ended up not adopting the policies of Mencius. Mencius did not succeed in getting emperor Chi to adopt his policies, but we can see how important Mencius felt about the need to have a merciful heart.

So that is the second component of love in the School of Confucius: a merciful heart, or merciful human nature. The first is family based love. The third is enabling others to have what you desire for yourself, and don't do unto others what you don't desire others do unto you. Enabling others is active love. Not burden others with what you don't desire is passive love. Now, which is more important ? Passive love is more important.

Today I am willing to share with you a way of thinking. Under any circumstances, if there is a choice between an active agenda and a passive agenda. certainly, the passive agenda is more important. For example, in city planning. My suggestion is passive planning. What is passive planning. In city planning, an active planning is to plan what to do. A passive planning is to plan what not to do. What not to do is a lot more important than what to do.

Passive love is more important than active love. It is because if you actively wanted to love someone, you may not be able to do so. You may want to empower or enable others to achieve what you desire, but can you actually succeed ? What if you don't even have what it takes to achieve what you desire for yourself ? The answer is not everyone can do active love. But with passive love, don't do unto others what you don't desire done unto you, everyone can do. It is just a matter of your willingness to do it. I don't desire being beaten up, so I don't beat up others. I don't desire being scolded, so I don't scold others. I don't desire to be cheated, so I don't cheat others. Anyone can do these. It's just a matter of whether or not one chooses to do them.

With these three components of love : family love, merciful heart, active and passive love, completes the Confucian framework of love. This framework has gradually become an internationally recognized common human value. At the United Nation, it is crafted "Do not unto other what you don't desire done unto you" for our reminder.

At this time, I also want to mention another scholar, Jong Ji. Jong Ji carried Confucius love even further and implied Wu Wei, don't impose on others what you desired. Jong Ji told us this : Horses have hoof to walk on snow, hair to keep warm, lived on the field and eat green grass when hungry, drink from the streams, gallop here and there when stomach is full, very happy and free. Then come a man named Bo Lok. Bo Lok is extremely bad. Bo Lok believed he can select horses. He can select the ones that can be tamed to serve men. He put shoehorns on their hoof, mouth piece and rein on them, and forced them to obey his commands. So what if this horse win the gold medal at the Olympics ? It's not happy as before.

Jong Ji told many stories like this. One time he told the story of an Emperor who come across a beautiful sea bird, may be a phoenix. The emperor was so fond of the bird and decided to treat it like a VIP by offering the bird a big meal made of nice meat, exotic fruits, and wine, accompanied by orchestra music. It scared the bird to death, literarily. Jong Ji was trying to tell us what we think is good and desirable may not be considered as good and desirable by others we tried to give to. That is why we should not impose it on others or force others to accept. To do that would be wrong.

Let me use my own words to describe the concept of love in Confucianism : if we can practice family love, if we have a merciful heart, and if we can NOT DO to others what we desire and not do to others what we don't desire, then we can become a loving person, and in our society where each individual can become a loving person, our society will then become a loving society, and our world would be filled with love, and our future would become perfect.

That concludes my presentation. Thank you everyone. We will continue with Q&A period.

Q1. Teacher, now that our 3 unbreakable human relationships and 5 usual human interactions we used to belief in have broken down and we lost our faith or belief system, is our belief lost forever, or is it undergoing changes nowadays ?

A. You have not heard me correctly. Our Chinese Han civilization has never had any faith or belief, but we have centralized value.

Q2 The way we like to live today seems to be all western civilization, considering all the materialistic lifestyle, all the science, mathematics, medicine, are all western civilization. Our civilization is accumulated through our practice. When can our Chinese Han civilization be strong enough to take over and replace the western civilization ?

A. First of all we need to distinguish the difference between these two concepts. One is culture, and the other is civilization. Culture is made up of practice or ways of living. It does not need a centralized value. A civilization must have its centralized value.

Secondly, we cannot say the world civilization now is western civilization. We can only say western civilization is currently having the strongest influence in the world. The other civilizations like Islam civilization, Slave civilization, Japanese civilization, still exist. The western civilization is not ruling the world. So there is no concern about take over or replace the western civilization. Thank you for your question.

Q3. I like to know your opinion on the current problems of commercialization of academic knowledge, and scholars turning into stars.

A. The question can be answered. But first I must ask how do you define commercialization of academic knowledge and turning scholars into stars, (pause). See, you can't define them. It shows that these phenomena fundamentally have not been established. If they have been established you should be able to define them.

Now I answer your question. On the problem of commercialization of academic knowledge, my answer is : I don't know. When you can define this phenomena, I will tell you my opinion. So the first problem I put aside for now, On the problem of scholars turning into stars ? This question I was frequently asked by the medias. One time I was asked this question in a city by some media. I told them they must first of all define what they mean by turning into stars. The media in this city was really good, and right-a-way gave me a definition : Four aspects, 1. well known, 2. high media exposure, 3. plenty of fans, and 4. not easy to get an interview. Now, that's really asking a question. Otherwise you would just have given me a hypothetical concept and asked me for my opinion. What opinion can I possibly give ?

On these four aspect of the question, I answered : my personal opinion is that our national leaders have already been turned into stars. !. Well known. 2. High media exposure in every joined news headlines. 3. Plenty of fans. President Hu has a name for his fans called President Hu's "eight treasure rice". 4. Not easy to get an interview. Then I asked them : Oh, please tell me what is your opinion on our national leaders turned into stars. They can only admit that their question was a fake question.

Q4. You have said out of the three most influential civilizations, our civilization is the only one without a faith. Can you tell us will our civilization have a faith in the future ? And if so, what is the tendency and what are the conditions ? Thank you.

A. my personal opinion is that I don't agree our civilization needs to have a faith. What we are facing is not a belief crisis. We are not lacking in beliefs. What we are lacking is a bottom line. What is the advantage of having a faith ? The advantage is faith allow us to lift our standards up. Someone truly have a faith cleanses himself and gradually gets closer to god. To get closer to god, the faithful's spiritual wellbeing become more moral and cleaner from corruption. That's the benefit of having a faith. But this thing is not a necessity. Faith is a luxury.

Our problem now is we have no bottom line. Our tradition has a problem in that we don't have a top line and we don't have a bottom line. That is why I am firmly against traditional moral standard of "grandiose wishful thinking". I'd ask what are we trying to do ? We don't have a top line and we don't have a bottom line. We did good deeds so good that it is inconceivable. The Japanese had committed such terrible crime against us and we forfeit any war compensation. So good we are. Too good. Without a top line and without a bottom line, we can do any good deeds, we can also do any bad deeds. I tell you : do not believe you can sacrifice yourself to benefit others. Badly handled, you can hurt others and not save yourself. We need to cap a top line and guard a bottom line, and then we can find our position in between the two lines where we can realistically live our lives.

The Chinese people nowadays are concerned about our moral bearing. That is the right thing to be concerned with. But I can clearly tell you, the moral high note we used to sing for sure would not work. We must not sing the moral high note. It is like the saying : empty talks make no mistake, solid deeds build a nation. How does solid deeds build a nation ? By establishing a bottom line. In the past, did our business people sell fakes ? They did. They water down the liquor. But they don't put poison in the drinks. These crooked business people have bottom lines. The worst they would do is add water to the liquor they sell. We are now behaving without a bottom line. That is why now it is not a question of establishing a faith, but is a question of establishing a bottom line.

How do we go about establishing a bottom line ? We must establish the legal right of every citizen. Each humans is a human. Each human has his or her basic rights. First of all is the right to survival. Then is the right to freedom, and then is the right to happiness. These are basic human rights. These basic rights will ensure seeking to benefit and avoiding to harm. From this point we can say each person is selfish. We recognize the reasonableness and the legality of being selfish.

The way I see it, there is no distinction between selfishness and selflessness. There is only two different kinds of selfishness : wise selfishness and stupid selfishness. What is wise selfishness ? Wise selfishness is to benefit oneself through benefitting others. This is called wise selfishness. I help others in the process of helping myself. I help others by providing high quality products in exchange for reasonable compensation I am entitled to, and made myself wealthy. That is wise selfishness. What is stupid selfishness. That is to harm others and not benefit oneself. That is stupid selfishness. Within these two conducts, there is only one action that is not moral. That is hurt others to benefit oneself. Why is hurting others to benefit oneself is immoral ? It is because if everyone goes about hurt others to benefit oneself, Then all the people would not get benefited. That is the reason why we consider morality. To understand why we need moral and what is the foundation or bottom line of our moral is what we need to consider. This is way more important than empty talks and singing moral high notes. Thank you.

Q5. You are an expect in education. Can you give us educators some guidance as to what we can do to cultivate our young students ?

A. I am not an expert in education. And I don't like the the term "expert". To call me an expert is to scold me. You are an expert. To educate our young students, the most important is to teach them what is our bottom line. In my life time, There exist things I would not do even if you are to take my life. Those formed my bottom line. After that we can teach them love. In our tradition we have good school of thoughts on love. Confucianism is one. The concept of family love, merciful heart, active and passive ways to love are very good educational material. This aspect of Confucianism I agree and support. But I do not agree and support the entire thoughts of Confucianism. In the merciful heart is a bottom line. We learned we are by nature merciful to small animals. This bought about our bottom line of no cruelty to animals. Our youth needs to learn not to sing the moral high note and empty talks but to stick with not violating their bottom line while pursuing success in their lives.

Q6. You talked about love, but what about hate ? What are some of the things we should hate ?

A. You have asked a very challenging question. It is true without hate there is no love. Confucius taught us love. His follower, Mencius, taught us Yee. Mencius saw problem in how to solve the issue of hate, since love exist only if hate also exist. What is Yee according to Mencius ? Shameful heart or natural human nature to feel shame, hating ourselves and hating others. He said, Merciful heart is in each and every human. Shameful heart also is in each and every human. Respectful heart is in each and every human. A heart to distinguish right and wrong is also in every human. Being merciful is Yin. Ability to feel shame is Yee. Respectfulness is Li, Distinguishing right and wrong is wisdom. Later scholars added trustworthiness to make up the 5 common human interaction, Wu Chan.

Now, we look at how Yee is related to Shameful heart. Shame is made up of two parts, hating oneself and hating others. Mencius brought up Yee and our shameful heart to compensate for what is lacking in love taught by Confucius. I can't answer your question today for it puzzled me too, and I need to give it more thoughts. On the one hand you are right there is no love without hate. But for us doing public discussions, we cannot promote hate. Thank you for your question.

Q7. In your speech you have explained how the love framework in Confucianism can be used as our centralized value, but you have not gone into how we can bring that about into our culture. Hope your answer to this question can also help us understand it better.

A. Another highly challenging question. Very sorry I really am not able to answer your question today. I am only one person with very limited resources. All I can do is to voice it at the appropriate time like today, and to put it in my books. I can only do this much. As to how to make it become the universal common human value, is absolutely not I as an individual can answer. Thank you.

Q8 what is your view on the duality in morality. We understand we may have common moral value, but within the framework we still can have opposing conflicts. For example, abortion has the conflict of pro life and pro choice..

A. It is true we have lots of questions and conflicts we can't solve, like the abortion issue. Two ideas, each one by itself looks correct, but when put together they become in conflict. This is unavoidable, and we have plenty of these issues that we may never find a solution. For me, I am a pessimist. My view is : not only we can't provide answers to every question, we can't do much to solve problems to begin with. For example, advancement in technology. New technologies brought us comfort and convenience, but new technologies does not give us more time or make us happier. Yet we can't stop our technologies to continue to develop and advance.

What makes life interesting are these unsolvable problems which challenge us to investigate, and that's the purpose of life. If we have instant solution to every problem, life would be meaningless. We must be thankful for the fact that we must all die one day. We have limited time. If we are immortal, there is no point for us to do anything. We don't study, we don't eat because there is no point in doing these thing since we won't die anyways.

We are interested in investigating but not really interested in finding a solution. If fact we have been teaching our kids all the standard solutions and require them to answer them in their college entrance exams. Our exams are turning our kids into robots unable to explore on their own. If we don't leave rooms for our kids to explore and create. Our culture will not be a creative culture. Thank you.

Q9. You mentioned college entrance exam. That is something we cannot avoid. So we can only adapt. It has been said that freedom is not allowing us to do what we are willing to do, but is what allow us to not do what we are not willing to do. What is your thought on that ?

A. Yes. You are allowed to choose not to write the college entrance exam. There is no law in our nation stating that writing college entrance exam is a mandatory duty of a Chinese citizen. You were correct to say true freedom is not that you can do whatever you are willing to do, but true freedom is that you can not do what you are not willing to do. But I must add one point. You must bear the responsibility of your choice. Freedom is ability to choose. If you cannot choose, it means you have no freedom. Because freedom must include choice, the ability to choose to not do something is more important than the ability to choose to do something. What I must stress is choice implies responsibility. To make a choice one must first consider if one has the ability to bear the responsibility. Without the ability to bear the responsibility, one cannot make the choice.

I'll tell you this story as this is the last question I'd answer today. In a kindergarten, a 4 year old boy kissed a 3 year old girls. The 3 year old girl said to the 4 year old boy : handsome, you know what this means ? the little boy said, I know. Don't worry. I will bear the responsibility. The little girl asked : you have the ability to bear the responsibility ? The little boy answered : Of course. We are not 1 or 2 years old kids.

What is the moral of this story ? Freedom means choices, choosing means responsibility. In our pursue of freedom, before we make our choices, we must ask ourselves if we can bear the responsibility of our choice. If you can't bear the responsibility of the consequences resulting from your choice, I suggest you give up freedom. They can't bear the responsibility. That is why a lot of people who were given freedom choose to give up their freedom.

To make chooses is in itself a painful task. When there is really no choice they actually feel sure of themselves. And that is why planned economies are still the preferred economies to a lot of people. You can feel more content in a planned economy because everyone is the same. When you are in a market economy, lots of choices, plenty of attractions, you find it very painful, very, very painful, because you have to choose. When you have lots of freedom, it means you have to bear lots of responsibility.

Since our country opened up to a market economy, we sure have experienced huge amount of growth in our living standard and our freedom, much, much better than before. But I must make it clear to everyone : freedom comes with a price, freedom carries with it responsibilities. Thank you, everyone..