Following Ji Xianlin's River West, Then East

This past summer holiday, I finally read a 2006 book in Chinese written by the grand, old man of Chinese cultural linguistics, Professor Ji Xianlin (1911-2009). The title of his book crystallizes his view that culture and civilization are like a river that flows east for 30 years and then west for the next 30.

His main theme is that even though the tide of economic dominance and intellectual thinking has been western since the Industrial Revolution, the tide has already started turning East. By extension, he is warning this generation of Chinese intellectuals, who are infatuated with western technology and science, not to forget their Chinese cultural and intellectual roots.

(In Shandong Province, a primary school teacher instructs children in a Chinese calligraphy class/IC)

At a time when the world is preoccupied with the possible decline of the West and the rise of the East, and especially a potential Clash of Civilizations, an intellectual giant's thinking on Chinese culture – a thinker whose thoughts are relatively unknown in the West – is particularly relevant.