Family changes and life experience after the changes, but also to make Lu Xun from a young boy close to the lower class people. His maternal grandmother's family lived in the countryside, which gave him the opportunity to come into contact with and understand the life of peasants. Especially around the time of his grandfather's imprisonment, he had to take refuge with relatives in the countryside and lived there for a long time. There, he became friends with the rural children, playing with them, rowing with them, watching plays with them, and sometimes "stealing" beans from their fields to cook and eat. Between them, there was no mutual discrimination and hatred, but mutual care and love. Lu Xun has been remembering and describing this simple, natural and sincere relationship with the rural children as the best relationship between human beings all his life.
At that time, the average scholar took three paths: one was the path of studying to become an official. Through the imperial examinations, one could be promoted to an official position, one could become rich, one's personal value would be multiplied, and one's family would be envied by the world. This is considered to be the "right way" for the scholar. Those who could not become an official could also go to be a bureaucrat's "staff" for the bureaucrat's advice, running around, accepting the bureaucrat's gifts. Through the power of this bureaucrat, they also have power. This was the second path often taken by the scholars at that time. If the first two paths were not possible, one could still go into business. Although this was frowned upon by the bureaucrats at that time, in the end, one could become rich and not end up at the bottom of the social ladder where one would be insulted and harmed. Lu Xun took another path that was most despised by the people at that time: to enter a "foreign school". In 1898, at the age of 18, Lu Xun, with 8 silver dollars that his loving mother had managed to raise from various sources, went to a "foreign place" to find a "different kind of" education, with the idea of going to a "foreign place". With the aim of finding "people" in "another kind of place", Lu Xun left his hometown and entered the Nanjing Watermaster's School, which was later changed to the Nanjing Road and Mining School. These two schools were established by the foreign affairs faction at that time for the purpose of enriching the country and strengthening the army, and they offered courses in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and other natural sciences, which had never been taught in traditional Chinese education. After school, Lu Xun also read foreign literature and works on social sciences, which greatly expanded his cultural horizons. In particular, Yan Fu's translation of the Englishman Huxley's The Theory of Acts of Heaven had a profound impact on Lu Xun. The Theory of Acts of Heaven, a work introducing Darwin's theory of evolution, made Lu Xun realize that the real world was not harmonious and perfect, but full of fierce competition. To survive and develop, a person, a nation, must have the spirit of self-reliance, autonomy and self-improvement. Can not be willing to be at the mercy of fate, can not be allowed to bully the strong.
Lu Xun's Life and CreationLu Xun was a person with a strong desire for knowledge, and during his studies at the Nanjing Road Mining School, his academic performance was always excellent, which enabled him to obtain the opportunity to study abroad at government expense after graduation.In 1902, he traveled to Japan, and he began to take Japanese language lessons at the Kobo College in Tokyo, and then entered the Sendai School of Medicine. He chose to study medicine in order to save patients like his father who had been victimized by quacks, and to improve the health of the Chinese people, who had been ridiculed as "the sick man of East Asia". It was through Western medicine that Japan realized the value and significance of Western science and technology, and it was through medicine that Lu Xun wanted to enlighten the Chinese people. But his dream did not last long and was crushed by the harsh reality. At that time, Japan was rapidly becoming powerful through the Meiji Restoration, but the power of Japanese militarism was also developing at the same time. In Japan, Lu Xun, as a citizen of a weak country, was often discriminated against by Japanese with militaristic tendencies. In their eyes, all Chinese people are "imbeciles", Lu Xun's anatomy score of 59 points, they suspected that the teacher of anatomy class Fujino Yanjuro leaked the examination questions to him. This made Lu Xun feel the sadness of being a citizen of a weak country. Once, in a slide show before class, Lu Xun saw a Chinese being captured and killed by the Japanese army, while a group of Chinese stood by and watched as if nothing had happened. Lu Xun was greatly stimulated. This made him realize that mental numbness is more terrible than physical weakness. In order to change the tragic fate of the Chinese nation in the modern world of powerful countries, the first thing is to change the spirit of the Chinese people, and the first thing that is good at changing the spirit of the Chinese people is literature and art. Therefore, Lu Xun abandoned medicine and turned to literature, left the Sendai Medical College, and returned to Tokyo to translate foreign literary works, organize literary magazines, publish articles, and engage in literary activities. At that time, what he discussed most with his friends was the question of China's national character: What is the ideal human nature? What is most lacking in China's national character? What is its root cause? Through this kind of thinking, Lu Xun linked his personal experience with the destiny of the entire Chinese nation, laying the basic ideological foundation of his later life as a literary scholar and thinker. At that time, he and his second brother Zhou Zuoren*** translated two volumes of The Collection of Extraterritorial Novels, and he published a series of important essays such as The History of Science, The Essay on Cultural Parochialism, and The Poetic Power of Moro. In these essays, he put forward the important idea that "the founding of a nation" must be preceded by "the founding of a man," and enthusiastically called for the "warriors of the spiritual realm" who "set their minds on resistance and direct their energies toward action. The "warriors of the spirit world".
While studying in Japan, Lu Xun gained a clearer understanding of the development of contemporary world culture, thought more practically about the future and destiny of the Chinese nation, and initially formed his independent worldview and outlook on life. His thoughts and feelings were not only incomprehensible to the majority of Chinese people at that time, but also difficult to get a wide response from the students in Japan. The foreign novels he translated could only sell a few dozen copies, and the literary magazine he organized could not be published due to lack of funds. In 1909, Lu Xun returned from Japan and worked as a teacher at the Hangzhou-Zhejiang Normal School (now the Hangzhou Senior High School) and the Shaoxing Prefectural High School. During this period, Lu Xun's thoughts were extremely bitter, and the 1911 Xinhai Revolution had once given him a momentary boost, but followed by Yuan Shikai's claim to the throne, Zhang Xun's restoration, and other historical dramas, the Xinhai Revolution did not change the stagnant and backward realities of China and its historical destiny of being bulldozed by the Western imperialists. The social chaos, the national disaster, and the misfortune of personal marital life all made Lu Xun feel bitter and depressed. At this time, life is like a cup of bitter wine, drink in the belly, bitter in the heart, want to spit out, want to endure. But precisely because of this, when the May Fourth New Culture Movement took place, his long suppressed thoughts and feelings erupted violently like lava through literary works. At that time, he was already working in the Ministry of Education, and moved to Beijing with the Ministry.
In 1918, Lu Xun published his first vernacular novel, Diary of a Madman, the earliest modern vernacular novel in China, in the magazine New Youth, marking the beginning of a whole new era in the development of the Chinese novel. This novel is a collection of Lu Xun's painful life experiences from his childhood up to that time, and his painful thoughts about the modern destiny of the Chinese nation. Through the mouth of a "madman", Lu Xun denounced the thousands of years of China's feudal and authoritarian history as a history of "cannibalism", and sent a message to the stagnant and backward Chinese society, "Is it right to be like this? " Lu Xun's "Frenzy" is a stern question to the stagnant and backward Chinese society, and he cries out: "Save the children!" It can be said that Lu Xun's Diary of a Madman is a diatribe against the traditional feudal and authoritarian culture, and a manifesto calling for the reconstruction of a new modern Chinese culture. It carries the poignant voice of the humiliated and damaged Chinese nation to the world, proclaiming the will and conviction of the Chinese nation to rise again.
After Diary of a Madman, Lu Xun published a number of short stories, which were later compiled into two collections of short stories, Scream and Indecision, published in 1923 and 1926 respectively.
Lu Xun's novels are small in number but very significant. Only in Lu Xun's case did Chinese novels focus their attention on the broader subject area of the lowest strata of society, depicting the daily life and spiritual conditions of the people at the bottom of these strata. This is inseparable from Lu Xun's creative purpose. Lu Xun said, "I take my material mostly from the unfortunate people of a sick society, meaning to expose the sickness and suffering and draw attention to the need for healing." (The Collection of Southern Accent and Northern Accent - How I Made a Novel) This creative purpose of expressing life and improving life made him depict mainly the most common tragic destinies of the most ordinary people, such as Kong Yijie, Hua Laobian, Shan Siqiangzi, Q, Chen Shicheng, Xianglin Sister-in-law, and Aigu. These people live at the bottom of the society and need the sympathy and compassion, care and love of the people around them, but in the Chinese society at that time, which lacked sincere love, people gave them insults and discrimination, indifference and coldness. Is such a society a normal society? Is such a human relationship a reasonable human relationship? What saddens us most is that they live in a loveless world and are y tormented by life, ah but they also lack sincere sympathy for each other, and they adopt an indifferent and even appreciative attitude towards the tragic fate of their own kind, and vent their pent-up resentment and indignation when they are oppressed and bullied by bullying those who are weaker than they are. In "Kong Yijie", there are short-shirted customers who maliciously mock Kong Yijie; in "The True Story of Ah Q", other people bully Ah Q, and Ah Q bullies a small nun who is weaker than himself; in "Blessing", the villagers in Luzhen treat the tragedy of Xianglin's sister-in-law as an amusing story to be appreciated....... All of this makes people feel a bone-chilling chill. What a cold and heartless world this is! What a twisted life! Lu Xun's attitude toward them is "to mourn their misfortune and be angry with them". Lu Xun loved them, but hoped that they would come to their senses, that they would become self-reliant, autonomous and self-reliant, and that they would be able to stand up for themselves and strive for their own happy future.
Besides the images of characters at the bottom of society, Lu Xun also portrayed some newly awakened intellectuals. These intellectuals had the demand for progress, the good will to improve the society, and the sincere feelings and love for people and themselves, but the society at that time could not tolerate them. The "madman" cursed the phenomenon of cannibalism and hoped that everyone could become a "non-cannibalistic person", a "real person", and people around him regarded him as a madman and wanted to get rid of him (The Diary of a Madman). Diary of a Madman"); Xia Yu sacrifices himself for the society, and the tea drinkers say that he is "crazy", while Hua Laobian uses his blood to cure his son's disease ("Medicine"); Wei Lianshu cares about the Chinese society, but the society persecutes him, and when he no longer cares about the Chinese society, the people around him come to applaud him ("Lonely Man"). Lu Weifu in "In the Drinking House", Zijun and Juan Sheng in "The Hurt Locker", all of them had pursued and struggled for the society and themselves, but in the stagnant and backward Chinese society, they experienced a tragic fate. Lu Xun sympathized with these intellectuals, that is, he sympathized with the Chinese society and cared about the destiny of the Chinese nation, because in the society at that time, only these intellectuals were still struggling and fighting for the progress of the society.
Lu Xun held a deep hatred for two types of people in the society, those powerful people and hypocrites. Ding Juren in "Kong Yi Ji", Master Zhao in "The True Story of Ah Q", Master Lu Si in "Blessing", Guo Lao Wa in "Chang Ming Lantern", and the Seven Lords in "Divorce", etc., are some of the images of such powerful people. They were powerful in the Chinese society at that time, but they had no sincere concern for the fate of others and not the slightest enthusiasm for the progress of the society. All they cared about was their own power and status, selfish, hypocritical and cold, hindering the progress and improvement of the society. The four mings in <
Lu Xun's novels are written about the ordinary lives of ordinary people, with no bizarre stories, no fascinating plots, but full of endless artistic charm. Where does this charm come from? It is from his meticulous description of people, life and the inner subtle psychological portrayal of people. This requires a high level of artistic skill. When reading Lu Xun's novels, there is always a "joy of discovery". The pictures are ordinary pictures, the characters are ordinary characters, but we can always notice the features we usually cannot notice in such ordinary pictures and ordinary characters, and we can perceive the psychological activities of the characters we usually cannot perceive. It is because of this kind of meticulous description and psychological portrayal that the artistic charm of Lu Xun's novels has the characteristic of getting better and better over time. In our youth, we are not y involved in the world and have no more personal experience of life. Lu Xun's novels enter our sensory world as a whole, but it is impossible for us to feel all the rich connotations lurking in the characters and images we feel, and with the increase of our social experience and the deepening of our life experience, the connotations of the characters and images will be born from them continuously. In order to reveal the different meanings of different life images and the destinies of different characters, Lu Xun's novels have a varied structure, with almost one style for each, and one writing style for each. The Diary of a Madman is different from The True Story of Ah Q, Kong Yi Ji is different from White Light, The Hometown is different from Blessing, and The Lonely Ones is different from The Hurt Locker. Not only is the structural style different, but the tone and rhythm are also different. Kong Yi Ji is so simple and cold, while The Hurt Locker is so winding and deep. Lu Xun's novels are novels as well as poems, with a deep meaning, cold outside and hot inside, and his ability to use the national language has reached the point of perfection.
While writing Scream and Indecision, Lu Xun also wrote a collection of essays, Chaohua Xiushu, and a collection of prose poems, Weeds. The former was published in 1928 and the latter in 1927. If the novels in Scream and Indecision are Lu Xun's grim portrayal of the realities of social life, intended to wake up the sleeping nation, the prose in Chaohua and Xiushu is Lu Xun's warm recollections, his affectionate remembrance of the people and things that have nourished his life. His childhood nanny, his mother, Mr. Fujino, who gave him sincere care in a discriminatory environment, his old friend, Fan Ainong, who had a rough life and was arrogant and uninhibited, the "Hundred Grass Gardens" which gave him unlimited fun, the folk plays and folk entertainment which attracted his curiosity... ...All these are the things that reveal bright colors and warmth on the background of this sinister world, and it is they that nourish Lu Xun's life. These essays, combining lyricism, narration, and argument, sometimes like a calm harbor, sometimes like a rolling sea, sometimes like a turbulent and rushing river, and sometimes like a meandering brook, in a thousand different forms, reflect the artistic achievement of Lu Xun's prose writing. Different from the clear and detailed prose in "The Morning Flower and the Evening Gleanings", the prose poems in "Wild Grass" are in a bewildering trance and a strange and phantasmagorical mood, like a mass of emotional clouds, rotating in the air and changing into all kinds of unexpected shapes. Lu Xun's inner bitterness is transformed into a dream, into a super-worldly imagination, making Weeds a marvelous piece of Chinese modernist literature. Lu Xun once told someone, "All my philosophy is in Weeds." Lu Xun's innermost emotional experience and the most subtle philosophical realization are conveyed through this peculiar artistic means. Lu Xun's artistic creativity is amazing.
Lu Xun's spirit of creativity and creativity should be the first of his miscellaneous essays. "Miscellaneous essays" have been around for a long time, and similar examples can be found in foreign prose, but it was only in the history of modern Chinese culture and in the hands of Lu Xun that the genre of "miscellaneous essays" demonstrated its unique artistic charm and great ideological potential. Lu Xun's miscellaneous essays can be said to be an "epic" of modern Chinese culture, which not only recorded Lu Xun's life's combat performance, but also recorded the history of Chinese thought and culture in Lu Xun's time. Ancient Chinese culture was not like Western culture, which was under the domination of a religious culture, Christianity, in the Middle Ages. As long as it was free from the bondage and confinement of this religious culture, the modern culture of the West had the power to develop. Ancient Chinese culture is made up of different cultures *** with the same composition, in the development and evolution of thousands of years, all kinds of culture are mixed together, when the modern Chinese intellectuals want to create a new culture adapted to the development of China's modern, new ideas, encountered from a variety of different strata, a variety of different characters, from a variety of different perspectives, in a variety of different ways of slandering and attacking. Lu Xun's miscellaneous writings were naturally formed in this kind of ideological and cultural struggle without fixed fronts or arguments. From May 4 onwards, Lu Xun began to use the form of miscellaneous essays to fight against different kinds of arguments against the new culture, but at that time he was still unconscious of it. Later, when some people began to ridicule him as a "miscellaneous writer", he realized more clearly the power of "miscellaneous writings" and began to consciously engage in the creation of miscellaneous writings. Lu Xun said that miscellaneous essays are "sensory nerves", which can "give immediate reaction or resistance to harmful things", thus opening up a winding path for the development of new culture and new ideas in the thorns and thistles of the old culture and old ideas, and enabling them to exist, develop and grow. exist, develop and grow. Lu Xun wrote 15 collections of miscellaneous essays, including Grave, Hot Wind, Huagai Collection, Huagai Collection Sequel, Three Idle Collections, Two Hearted Collections, Collection of Southern Accents and Northern Accents, Pseudo-Freedom Book, Quasi-Wind and Moon Talks, and Lace Literature, And Jie Ting Miscellaneous Writings, And Jie Ting Miscellaneous Writings Two Collections, and And Jie Ting Miscellaneous Writings Final Collections, etc. In the 15 collections of miscellaneous writings, Lu Xun extended his pen to different cultural phenomena, different characters of different classes, including ruthlessness and cruelty, and he also wrote a lot of articles and articles. In these 15 collections of miscellaneous essays, Lu Xun extends his pen to various cultural phenomena, various classes of different characters, among which there are merciless disclosure, angry accusation, sharp criticism, bitter satire, witty humor, meticulous analysis, decisive assertion, passionate expression, painful cry, cordial encouragement, warm praise, and the pen gallops across the board and the words fly, and the forms are diverse and varied. It completely breaks the boundaries of the "gentle and generous" aesthetic style of ancient Chinese prose, more freely and boldly expresses the feelings and emotional experiences of modern people, and opens up a broader road for the development of Chinese prose. The status of Lu Xun's essays in the history of modern Chinese literature is not to be dismissed.
Lu Xun also completed a collection of novels, New Compilation of Stories (published in 1936), in his later years. This collection of novels was based on ancient Chinese myths, legends and historical facts, but it did not stick to the original stories, but added Lu Xun's own understanding and imagination, and in some cases adopted the writing technique of blending the ancient and the modern, so as to make the ancient people and the modern people have a direct dialog. The purpose of Lu Xun's writing is to enable us to return the ancient characters to a vivid and real face through the feeling and understanding of the real characters, and to feel and understand the real face of some real characters more y through the feeling and understanding of the ancient characters. Through the novels in New Tales, Lu Xun actually reconstructed China's cultural history, revealed the basis of the existence and development of the Chinese nation, and also reshaped the images of those historical figures who were sanctified by the Chinese feudal literati. In Lu Xun's conception, the fundamental spirit of the Chinese nation is not embodied by those ancient sages and emperors, but by Nuwa, who created the Chinese nation and is the source and symbol of its vitality; "Running to the Moon" is about the tragedy of an ancient hero, Yi, who saved mankind by shooting off the nine suns. nine suns and saved mankind, but those selfish and narrow-minded people of the world did not want to inherit and carry forward his heroic spirit, but only wanted to use him to realize their own selfish and narrow-minded purposes, and he was assassinated by his own students and deserted by his wife; "Casting the Sword" expresses the theme of the revenge of the oppressed on the oppressor; "Rising the Waters" and "Non-attack" glorify the politicians and thinkers in ancient China who practiced what they preached, and both Yu and Mo Zhai are the Yu and Mozhai are the backbone of the Chinese nation. Confucius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Bo Yi, and Shu Qi are also historical figures that Lu Xun's writing has made into somewhat ridiculous but still lovely living characters. Lu Xun's "New Tales" expresses serious themes in an absurd way, creating a completely new way of writing historical novels.
Lu Xun's creativity of thought and art was astonishing, and he created his own brand-new creations in all types of short stories, essays, prose poems, historical novels, and miscellaneous essays. This made him the greatest Chinese literary figure of the 20th century and a world literary master. His life was a life of struggle for the survival and development of the Chinese nation. He used his pen to hold social justice, resist the powerful, protect the youth, and cultivate the new force. In the early stage, he enthusiastically supported the just struggle of young students, exposing the criminal acts of Duan Qirui's government in suppressing the student movement and creating the "March 18th" tragedy, and wrote a series of shocking articles such as "Remembering Liu Hezhen"; in the late stage, he opposed the bloody suppression of the Kuomintang government on the *** proletarians and the progressive youths, and joined the Left Writers' Union and the Chinese Civil Rights League. Left-Wing Writers' Union and the China Civil Rights Protection League, and wrote a series of articles full of righteousness and courage, such as "For the Memory of Forgetting". "Lu Xun's bones are the hardest of all; he does not have the slightest slavishness or fawning bone, which is the most valuable character of colonial and semi-colonial people." (Mao Zedong: "On New Democracy")
On October 19, 1936, Lu Xun died in Shanghai. Thousands of ordinary people automatically came to see him off, and a flag with the words "Spirit of the Nation" was placed over his coffin.
Lu Xun's Quotations
Lu Xun's Old Poems:
1. (Lu Xun - self-deprecating)
2. (Lu Xun - Self-titled Portrait)
3. My mind is so vast that I can hear the thunder in a silent place. (Lu Xun - Untitled)
4. The blood of the Middle Kingdom fertilizes the grass, and the cold condenses the earth to produce spring flowers. (Lu Xun - Untitled)
5. I can't bear to see my friends become new ghosts, and I am furious to seek small poems from the sword. (Lu Xun)
6, merciless may not be true hero, how to pity the son is not a husband. (Lu Xun)
7. The brothers are there after a long time, so we can meet each other and laugh away our enmity. (Lu Xun)
8, there is no love like the old days, blossom and fall by the two. (Lu Xun - Mourning Yang Quan)
Lu Xun famous quotes:
1, time is like water in a sponge, as long as you are willing to squeeze, there is always.
2. If you only read books, you will become a bookcase.
3. I am like a cow, eating grass, milk.
4. I wish all young Chinese people would get rid of the cold air and just go upward without listening to the words of those who are self-absorbed.
5, in fact, there is no road on the ground, walking more people, will become a road.
6, where there is a genius, I am the work of others drinking coffee are used in the work.
7, only the soul of the nation is valuable, only it carries forward, China has real progress.
8, calm, courageous, discriminating, not selfish.
9, the more difficult, the more to do. Reform, is always no smooth sailing.
10, our immediate task is: one to survive, two to feed, three to develop.
11, must dare to face up to, which can be expected to dare to think, dare to say, dare to do, dare to be.
12, once broad-minded to retro, is broad-minded to maintain the status quo, has not been broad-minded to innovate, largely so, largely!
13, human beings are always not lonely, thinking that life is progressive, is born.
14, as long as never so, is the baby ......
15, the fact is a ruthless thing, it can smash empty words to pieces.
16, ink written lies, never cover the blood written facts.
17, in fact, the pioneer would have been easy to become a stumbling block.
18. There is no freedom if you want to be free, and you have to go through some dangers if you want to be free. The only two ways are these two.
19. If you want to do everything, then nothing can be done.
20. Time is life. Unwarranted consumption of other people's time, in fact, is tantamount to murder.
21, do a thing, no matter how big or small, if there is no perseverance, is very bad.
22. If the dead are not buried in the hearts of the living, they are really dead.
23. He who is quick to be fierce is quick to be calm, and even quick to be disillusioned.
24. It is always more difficult to transform oneself than to forbid others.
25. As long as you can cultivate a flower, you might as well do the rotting grass that will rot.
26、When I am silent, I feel full; I will open my mouth and feel empty at the same time.
27. The past life is dead. I have great joy in this death, because by it I know that it once lived.
28. The life that died has decayed. I have great joy in this decay, for by this I know that it is not empty.
29. But I am frank and glad. I will laugh and I will sing.
30I love my weeds, but I hate the ground which is adorned with them.
31. When I am dust, you will see me smile!
32. If you do not explode in silence, you will perish in silence.
The Story of Confucius
Zi Lu once asked Confucius, "I have heard that a proposition is very good, should I not carry it out at once?" Confucius said, "There are fathers and brothers who are more experienced and experienced than you, you should ask them for advice before you do so, where can you do it right away?" But Ran You likewise asked Confucius, "I have heard that a proposition is good, should I not carry it out at once?" But Confucius replied, "Of course it should be carried out at once." When Gong Xi Hua saw that the same question was answered differently and could not figure it out, he went to ask Confucius, who said, "Ran Qiu is afraid of things, so we should encourage him to be brave; Zhong Yu is rash, so we should urge him to be prudent."
Ran You once told Confucius, "It's not that I don't like what you're saying, it's that I don't have enough power to put it into practice." Confucius said, "If you don't have enough strength, it's okay if you stop halfway; but you don't want to go at all!" This was the case of Ran You. Zi Lu was not, Zi Lu was a pain in the ass, Confucius once said that he could break a case in a few words. Once Confucius said jokingly, "If my ideal cannot be realized in China, I will have to go overseas in a small boat, and probably the first one who will follow me will be Zhong Yu." Zi Lu took it seriously and rejoiced. Confucius, however, rebuked him, saying, "You are braver than I am, but there is nothing more to be desired!" Such was Zi Lu's temper. What Confucius said to them was right on the mark.
Confucius was equally pertinent in his criticism of his other disciples. Yen Yuan was his most favorite disciple, but because Yen Yuan was too submissive to him, he said, "Yen Hui is not the one who helps me, because he accepts everything I say across the board!" Another example is that Confucius was in favor of all-round development; if one-sided development were to take place, he thought that it would be like a utensil limited to a certain kind of usefulness, and so he said, "Learned and cultivated men must not be like utensils." But then Zi Gong had the tendency to get stuck in one-sidedness, so he criticized Zi Gong, saying, "You are just an implement!" Zigong asked, "What kind of apparatus?" Confucius said, "Fortunately, it's an implement used in sacrifices." It means that Zigong seems to be a decent utensil from individual occasions, but does not pay attention to the full development.
Confucius focused on inspiration, and he was good at choosing opportunities to give reminders that people could easily accept. He said, "If a man does not seek knowledge with indignation, I will not enlighten him; if a man does not come to the point where he is struggling to understand and feeling difficult, I will not guide him to a deeper level. For example, if a four-square table is here, and if I tell him that one corner of the table is square, but he is not at all attentive, and cannot realize that those remaining three corners are also square, I will not give him any more nonsense."
Confucius again tended to make people go further than their original ideas. Zigong once asked, "What about this man, whom people generally like?" Confucius said, "That's not enough." Zigong asked again, "Well, what about this person whom people in general do not like?" Confucius said, "That is not enough either. It is only enough if all good people like him and all bad people dislike him."
Confucius also often taught his disciples by his own modest example. He once said, "I was not born knowing anything, but I just like the experience accumulated by the ancient people, and pursue it very diligently and unrelaxedly is all." And again, "When three men walk together, there is permitted to be one of my teachers among them." And again, "What do I know? I know nothing. When people come to me and ask me, I am also empty. But I must make clear the questions that people ask, and I do my best to help him ponder."
On one occasion, when Zi Lu asked Confucius what happens to people after they die, Confucius said, "What do you care what you do after you die when the problems of living have not been solved?" Zi Lu asked again, "How should I treat the ghosts and gods?" Confucius said, "We haven't treated people well yet, what do we talk about treating ghosts and gods?" This is how Confucius valued practical problems and disliked empty arguments. Confucius also seldom talked about weirdness, force, chaos, ghosts and gods. Confucius would not allow any reasoning about being a human being that was too high and not practical. Zigong once said, "What I do not want others to do to me, I do not want to do to others." Confucius then said, "Chi ah, this is not what you can do now!"