Dear Editor,
As the world continues to change at a fast pace, people in the United States should constantly adapt to the changes. The current economic downturn reveals the greed and corruption in the financial industry. Therefore, ethics should become the top issue of American education. Ethics is the main focus of both Chinese literature and philosophy. In fact, Chinese literature pursues peace, wisdom, virtue, beauty and prosperity that can be applied to daily life. The quality of a nation’s literature relies on how the government treats its writers. The Chinese government had sponsored talented writers from 100 B.C. to 1910 A.D. It not only provided schools and libraries to educate them, but also offered them government positions. This unique way to reward writers in world history made Chinese writers create the best literature and philosophy in the world. China has also become the major debtor of the United States.
The close relationship in this small world demands deep mutual understanding. However, the American public’s knowledge of Chinese culture is limited to Bruce Lee’s movies and egg rolls. The courses in Chinese offered in the U.S. universities are limited to conversations such as greetings and asking directions. The media in the United States has sent Chinese-Americans to China to gather material. Due to its lack of background in Chinese culture, its research linking the East to the West culminates in the discovery of the connection between fortune cookies and lottery numbers.
Frankly speaking, China’s strength does not lie in its weaponry, its space technology, the leadership of its politicians or its economic power from exports, but rather in the legacy of moral courage found in the works of Chinese poets, writers and philosophers.
Raising the level of understanding of Chinese culture requires access to good translations. However, there are too few resources and qualified people in this field to meet such an enormous demand. In order to eliminate distrust and misunderstandings due to cultural differences, help fellow Americans adjust to the fast-changing world and preserve America’s leadership of the world community, it is important that the American media have a plan to systematically introduce Chinese culture to the American public.