Stupid father and son
This story "The Gift of the Rich Man" is an article selected from the Song Dynasty scholar Su Shi's On Ai Zi.
Rich people also have it, and the family is tired. His second son is stupid, but his father doesn't teach him. Ai Zi called it Father's Day: "Your son is beautiful, but he knows nothing about the world. How will he live at home tomorrow? " The father was angry: "My son is sensitive and versatile. Is there anyone who doesn't know the world? " Ai Ziri: "You don't have to try him, just ask your son' Where did he eat the rice'. If I knew, I should be guilty of rumors. " A father called his son and asked him. His son smiled and said, "I don't know this!" I always carry it in a cloth bag. " His father suddenly changed his face: "The son is stupid! Isn't Pimi Tanaka's? " Ai Ziri: "If it weren't for his father, he wouldn't have a son."
2. Is Guwen dead? Up to now, we have hardly seen China's books for three generations. People in China can't understand China's own ancestors, which is a very strange phenomenon among nations all over the world.
When we say that China people can't read China's books, we don't mean that we can't read novels or newspapers, no. This is because we can't read these subsets of classics and history that represent China culture in China.
Why can't you read a subset of Confucian classics? In addition to these historical subsets, we think it is profound, and there is one more thing. This difficulty makes us very depressed. Where is the difficulty? If we can't read classical Chinese, we can't read a subset of classics and history. Now, China people can't read classical Chinese.
So you said that classical Chinese is difficult to read, and I can't read classical Chinese, so I can understand it. Now let's discuss this problem. Is classical Chinese difficult to read? We have the impression that classical Chinese is difficult to read, which was also told us by those intellectuals during the May 4th Movement in the early years of the Republic of China.
These intellectuals during the May 4th Movement were very strange: first they opposed China culture and western culture, and then they opposed modernity and tradition. They said that we must abandon tradition in modernization. We find it strange: why can Japan realize modernization without giving up its tradition? Only China people must give up tradition to modernize? You gave up tradition, where is your modernization? So this is an opposing view.
Then he applied this opposing idea to language education. He told us that it is very important for you to learn the vernacular. The vernacular is very important and meaningful, which we admit.
However, he said: if you want to learn the vernacular, you must knock down the ancient prose! Hu Shizhi once wrote a short article to teach us this truth. I will recite this article. His article is entitled "Ancient prose is dead". He said, "The ancient prose is dead! Guwen is dead! Has been dead for more than two thousand years! His dutiful son and grandson dare not mourn for him, so they dare not report his death. Now I, Hu Shizhi, stand up and announce that Guwen is dead! Guwen is dead! If you want to celebrate, celebrate! Cry if you want! " Should I give up ancient Chinese if I want to learn vernacular Chinese? One more thing, is ancient Chinese difficult to learn? We must solve this problem first. Today, we can teach our children to read ancient Chinese, and even teach them to read classics.
First of all, let's analyze, what is ancient prose? What is vernacular? The ancients were talking in the vernacular, so when we were watching the play, they were singing and reading poems. The lyrics are all in ancient Chinese, but there are also white words. What is a white mouth? It's their common speech, and their common speech is vernacular, so the ancients also spoke vernacular like us. However, when we speak alone, there is only a three-inch distance between thinking and speaking, so we can say whatever we want, so our speech is not so strict and standard.
Therefore, if you want to spread your lifelong learning experience, you must sort out your own ideas and do it very accurately; And don't be so wordy, like my speech now, you can't see it even if you organize it into an article, so you should simplify your thinking; Third, since you want others to see it and it will last for a long time, you must beautify it. Therefore, our usual thoughts are not spoken directly, but sorted, refined, condensed and then recorded, which becomes a written language called classical Chinese.
If I only record the mouth shape, I will write the mouth shape by hand, which is called vernacular Chinese. Therefore, the ancients should write articles seriously, so he wrote classical Chinese and wrote vernacular Chinese when playing games.
For example, if he wants to write a letter home, he will write it in vernacular; What's more, he writes novels and vernacular. What is a novel? It's just small talk, small talk, dirty work, called novels.
In the pre-Qin period, there were so-called 100 schools of thought and 10 schools of thought. Why nine schools and ten schools? There were nine bad schools, but one of the ten schools was called a novelist. Because novelists can't get in, the ten schools are actually reserved for bad schools, so novels are dirty. These literati are writing novels, novels are his games, and games are written in vernacular.
Then don't you think it's good to use vernacular Chinese? Isn't it good to spread it widely in vernacular? People who think like this now should add some historical knowledge, so you won't think like this. What do you mean? If we record our thoughts in the vernacular, our language will change after 300 or 500 years, so you can't understand our words, so the vernacular can't spread for a long time, can't spread for a long time, and can't spread far.
Let's give an example. There was a man who read Qu Yuan's work Li Sao. The more he reads, the harder it becomes. The more difficult it is to read Li Sao, the angrier he gets. He threw the book on the ground and scolded me, saying, "I can't read it because the book I wrote is too difficult." I deserve you to jump into the river! " In fact, we misunderstood Qu Yuan, who also read many books. When he wrote an article in classical Chinese, we all read it fluently. When Qu Yuan wrote with Chu Ci, he wanted to write a lively and romantic article, plus a little of his vernacular. He wrote in the vernacular for hundreds of years, one or two thousand years, and we didn't know what he was talking about. Spread thousands of miles away, we can't understand what he is saying; Not only you and I don't understand it, but even the annotator can't note it, so some languages have become eternal mysteries. Why? Vernacular! Now the Four Books and Five Classics are even older than Li Sao, and we can all read them. As long as you know classical Chinese, you can go up and down for three thousand years.
Because all the articles in the past 3,000 years have been written in the same set of classical Chinese, with classical Chinese, China's language can remain stable with little change, and it can also make our vernacular more elegant and richer in content. For example, let's say, "I came to Singapore to give a speech today, and everyone responded well." I had a great time. "
The word "Huan" is written in classical Chinese, so there is not much difference between classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese, but now China's thoughts have been brainwashed by the May 4th Movement. We now believe that classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese are very different; Also, we think: vernacular Chinese is easy to learn, but classical Chinese is difficult to learn.