AuthorChen Jianjun (Australia).
Recently, when I visited Shanghai, I have been thinking about a question that I couldn't think about when I lived in Shanghai: how people are safe in such a large and overcrowded citySafe and soundLiving together detachedly?
Last night, my wife and two children took a taxi to walk half an hour and a half. During this period, the driver just chattered, no swearing, and the wife and baby just felt tired and sleepy, without complaints. There was a dusk dragging his daughter's hand on the street (son and mother are in the hospital), a shopkeeper in front of his store bonsai pots in the garbage stuffed by passers-by, quickly took out and threw directly on the street, an uncle was dissatisfied, the two of them were up, I heard the female shopkeeper shouting: I haven't finished it, how do you know I'm irresponsible?
While holding my daughter's hand and walking to remind her to look at the surrounding street scene, I thought to myself: Why are we Chinese so amazing and can live so harmoniously in such a megacity?In the so-called liberal and democratic countries of the West, there will definitely be drunkards shouting and screaming and homeless people lying flat on the streets. But that's not the case in our Chinese cities. If there's one thing that makes people feel a little uncomfortable, it's that people who are busy trying to make a living are suspected of running red lights and the dangers caused by riding mopeds. However, yesterday's taxi driver told how he resolved the conflict after the collision with the owner of the motorcycle.
The taxi driver didn't want to argue, but just told the moped owner not to pay compensation, and waited for the police to come and clarify the responsibility. He used the word human nature several times when talking about this incident, saying that he was reluctant to quarrel because the owner of the car fell and the car was damaged. So he didn't want to argue. But he also couldn't agree to the driver's demand for compensation, because the responsibility was not on him.
Humanity and responsibility are two words that I heard that touched me very much, and they are also important lessons that I learned when I returned to China this time. Yesterday, the child's mother took the two babies to play, and I took my beloved ** to watch it in the Changning District Folk Library.
* carefully portrays the details and aspects of human nature, such as compassion, friendship, curiosity, dignity, jealousy, competitiveness, vanity, superiority, and so on. These things are obvious to us Chinese and Westerners, but what allows us Chinese to live harmoniously together in a megacity like Shanghai?What is the reason for this incredible tolerance and forgiveness?
In fact, the righteous uncle on the street and the kind-hearted taxi driver have already given the answer-Responsibility and humanity. If you look at the West's ** and China's**, you can realize that the West** is relatively more delicate in psychological description, while the Chinese ** is more subtle and freehand. This is also reflected in the emotional expression and behavior of Chinese in their daily lives. Chinese are reluctant to say their emotional experiences and personal feelings concretely, preferring to say them in more general terms. For example, human nature, for example, responsibility.
There are many more detailed concepts under human nature, and Chinese do not analyze, but only apply them with feelings, and do what they feel at ease, and do not do what makes them uneasy. So, what is a heart?It's conscience. And conscience is the human nature in the Chinese freehand concept. The conscience of the Chinese is a deep national sympathy and empathy forged by thousands of years of historical experience and the benevolent thought of Confucian culture, and is the national crystallization of goodness, not the benevolence based on the assumption that God is the Almighty Lord and Jesus sacrificed himself for man. The conscience spoken of by the Chinese is based on historical experience and the strict logic of Confucianism, is very real and practical, and can withstand the test of life changes. It is a consensus generated by mutual needs, mutual understanding and mutual cooperation between people in the agricultural economic society, which has become an instinct after thousands of years of development and evolution, flowing in the blood of our Chinese. Therefore, we don't need to analyze, it's like our Chinese cooking, we don't need to use a small scale to scale a few grams and a few taels, brush the ground a few times, this kindness has been added to the cauldron of our steaming life.
As for the sense of responsibility, it is the chain that runs through the life of Chinese, bringing the couple, parents, children, ancestors and ancestors together for several generations, breathing together, living together, happiness and suffering together. Walk down the streetYou can see fathers standing in the cold wind on street corners, waiting for someone to hire them temporarily to make ends meet. Some of them smoked cigarettes, some rubbed their hands together, but none of them wept or mourned. They waited as if they were telling jokes, laughing and waiting. What makes these men smile and wait in the cold wind of Shanghai's winter solstice?Responsibility. This sense of responsibility is the other side of conscience.
Yes, the heart of the Chinese nation is like a coin, with a conscience printed on one side;On the other side, there is a sense of responsibility. With these two invincible super-values, the Chinese nation is resilient and unstoppable. Because this is the long history of the Chinese nationMediumof currency。So, despite the large Chinese population and the somewhat crowded cities, people can be tolerant and forgiving with each other!
Written in Shanghai on December 24, 2023.