Tien-his Cheng

China Moulded by Confucius - the Chinese Way in a Western Light Tien-his Cheng

CHINA moulded by CONFUCIUS- THE CHINESE WAY IN WESTERN LIGHT by CHENG TIEN-HSI. FOREWORD: IT is no small measure of consolation to be able to feel that one's time is not idly spent, when others are ' doing their bit* in a tor mented world. It is with this feeling that I look back on my few years' quiet existence in Geneva during the Second World War; for, profiting by an existence without the usual daily routine, I have been able to put in a concrete shape a few reflections that have cropped up during a long period of years. My sojourn in the West has covered a good part of my life, and I always cherish a happy memory of it both in things I have learned and in persons I have met. For years I have deemed it an agreeable duty to try in my small way to introduce into my country what I have learned abroad, and thus to contribute, as best I can, directly and indirectly to a better under standing between the East and the West. But understanding requires mutuality, and so I feel it also my duty to try to bring in return to the West some of the ideas and ideals that my country and my countrymen have treasured for centuries. In this attempt I need hardly say that I express my views and thoughts simply as a private individual, wholly independent of any public capacity that I may possess or have possessed. One thing, however, I may say. While the treasures of a country, in the form of works of art like those which a few years ago I had the honour, as Special Commissioner of my Government, to bring over for exhibition in London, and which have attracted world-wide attention, can be seen by the eye, those, in the form of wisdom of the sages like those which will be unfolded in this book, such as what is said about ' noiseless music, formless manners, and badgeless mourning', appeal rather to the soul.