Day 14 - Chinese Philosophy, A surprise ambush

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 9:38 PM

Hello people!

We had OIE lesson as usual in the morning. And today, we are taught about the chinese philosophy.

This topic really interests me alot.

And so, i decided to share what i have learnt during the lesson.

Confucianism(one of the topic covered), influences the chinese life and culture.

(It does not only influences chinese, but also other countries depending on their national life and culture)

And humanity is the core in Confucianism

孔子(Kong Zi), is actually the founder of confucianism.

I shall assumed that most people should have heard about him before.

Confucianism consists of 5 main elements,

仁， 义，礼，智，信

Humanity, Righteousness, Ritual, Knowledge, Intergrity.

In our daily lifes, these should be hold firmly with our principals,

These forms our basic logic of humanity.

Of course there are many other elements that we should also follow,

These includes:

忠，孝，节，廉 etc..

Loyalty, Filial piety, Continency, Honesty and cleaniness etc..

There are many other chinese philosophers being taught in class,

Such as Meng zi, Xun zi, Lao zi, Zhuang zi, Mo zi, Han fei...

Mengzi (孟子)

To him, he believed that human are good in nature. (人之初，性本善)

It is due to society's influence and lack of positive cultivating influence,

that caused the bad moral character.

However, another philosopher,Xun zi (荀子).

Argued that human nature is originally evil because human desires inevitably lead to greed and strife if left untrained.

He believed that goodness can only be accquired,

Hence stressing on the value of education and environment.

Well, to me, I couldn't say anyone of them are wrong.

Both points of view sounds logical to me.

Personally, i would agree more to Mengzi.

We are born into this world with nothing.

No desire, no memory, no nothing.

It's only when we starts to see things clearer, and alot of other factors,

that starts to "shape" our characters.

If the amount of bad influences is more than the good ones,

It is highly possible that one's will have a bad moral character.

We can see such things happens in our daily lifes.

Peer pressure etc.

I would want to mention about Laozi too.(老子)

He is the founder of Taoism.

He is also the one who wrote dao 道德经.

His theory was to let things take their own course,

not not interfere in people's lives.

Where people should be encouraged to return to simplicity, minds are emptied,

wills are weakened. Hence, people will always be without knowledge and without desire.

He hopes that people would lead a natural and simple life.

I would totally agree with him,

as i always let things take their own course..

Whatever is going to happen, i will accept it and face it..

When it's meant to be happen, it will happen..

Quote from Laozi - the snow goose need not bathe to make itself white.

Neither need you do anything but be yourself.

Quote from Kongzi - Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.

After posting such a long post about chinese philosophy,

I hope that my blog readers can learn something from it.

The local students learn about the chinese philosophy during their lesson..

It's really a pity that we were not taught about all the morals in Singapore.

This clearly differentiates us and the local students.

With chinese as the dominating race in china..

They are able to hold and continue to pass down the chinese philosophy...

All the spirits of humanity, morals etc.

While it's quite difficult to carry out such spirits in Singapore.

Being a multi racial country, with many westernised culture influenced,

Sometimes we would get confused of the philosophical traditons of chinese and western.

Enough of chinese philosophy.

Today is Zhen Zhao's 19th birthday.

And we gonna plan a surprise for our birthday boy.

Time check: 5.40pm

All of us were waiting in the restaurant called greenery cafe..

Here's the plan,

All of us are supposed to meet at greenery cafe at 5.30pm.

Shiling helped to fake one group meeting as all of us gathered and prepare ourselves.

When everyone arrived at the restaurant,

shiling will be informed and then her group including the birhtday boy will go to the restaurant.

This is his birthday cake~ Nice right?^^

Time check 6.10pm Birthday boy finally arrived!! And we are all ready to welcome him with happy birthday songs.. GOTCHA OZZ! Here comes the birthday boy!寿星公！ Look at the smile on his face(:

Time to make a wish and blow off the candle~

Cutting the cake(:

Fruits salad.. guess what's that thing beside it.. It's Mayonnaise!! My steak! It's super nice and super cheap(: Prize presentation... we prepared a belated present for diyanah too!

Sweet messages from all of us(:

Zhen Zhao's present! Handsome ! Group E with alicia hock as well as the birthday boy! HAHA..LOOK! we made Zhen na(local students) and zhen zhao to hold hands=D Never ending surprise! The thoughtful local students secretly left presents in zz's room

Here's my message to zhen zhao..

Dear, zhen zhao..Happy 19th birthday!

I still remembered we are not able to celebrate your birthday properly last year,

because you are going for redang trip..

Hope you like the surprises and present we gave you.

Continue to strive hard for your studies,

and good luck for everything(:

With this birthday message,

I shall end my post here..

Take care people!

XOXO,

Agnes.L

Day 13 - Last day of cruise, The Three Gorges Dam

10:44 AM

Healthy people like us should climb the stairs instead.(:

We are going to take bus again to visit three gorges dam

I love morning dews

This is the locks we went through during the cruise The three gorges dam! GROUP PHOTO

Beautiful fountain

Spot the hummingbird! Spot the butterfly! We got KFC, They got HFC Came to this posh restaurant for lunch Some of the food that we ate..fish soup Shredded potato..Commonly found in Wuhan, not common in Singapore. It's super nice..What a pity for singaporean I ate this for almost every meal, but still not sick of it(: Mixed vegetables..Healthy and nice Steamed egg

After eating, we took a 4 hours plus long journey ride back to our hostel. However, we got delayed on our way back..