Berlin Travel Notes Reflecting on Power Structures and Historical Differences

Some time ago, Matters Operations Editor Juan asked Mr. Zhou Baosong to contact me and invited me to write an article about overseas diaspora living experience. Due to the cumbersomeness of everything and the lack of writing space in my heart, I have been unable to write for a long time. I would like to apologize to Juan. Fortunately, she is very considerate and tolerant, and gave me enough creative time and space. I have always kept this matter in mind, and on the other hand, I feel that I have accumulated a lot of experience during this period, and it is time to write and pretend to be this article.

In the blink of an eye, I have lived in Germany for more than half a year. As I mentioned in the previous article, my life during this period was, as Hemingway wrote, a moving feast for me. It's just that under this feast, there are also buried differences in power structures that have been deeply rooted for a long time. They are not revealed in rude or obvious forms, but as long as you are aware enough, you can still perceive them. The feast is still going on, and I have formed friendships with many people, which I cherish. But on the one hand, I deeply feel that it is not easy for individuals to transcend the differences in historical structures and world orders. Most of my thinking over the past few months has focused on this. The winter in Germany has lasted for half a year, and it is already mid-April, and the weather is still very cold. Karma overlaps, converges, and a lot of thinking happens naturally. I decided to travel to a farther city. But the miracle is that during this journey, I felt some thoughts that had been echoing in my mind for a long time finally came to the ground. So, on the train home, I started writing with my computer, which had less than half a battery left.

1.

During the Easter break, I visited Berlin. Berlin is a city of artists, writers and independent creators. The city has an abundance of independent bookstores, coffee shops, exhibitions and cultural events. Creators gathered in this cold and somewhat gray city, forming a unique atmosphere. During our days in Berlin, we lingered in bookstores, museums, cafes and restaurants with local flavors. Although it is the capital of Germany, the English bookstores here are surprisingly rich, and the selection is also surprising. The bookstore She Said only sells works by women and queer authors; the bookstore Buchhandlung Walther König next to the Humboldt University Divinity School also has a large selection of English books. Dussmann das Kulturkaufhaus is a large bookstore with a very rich collection of many philosophical books.

On the last day in Berlin, it was raining heavily. There's nothing better than visiting a museum on a cold, rainy day. We went to the Asian art exhibition at the Ethnologisches Museums in the Berlin State Museums. Museums, galleries and art exhibitions in Europe are very rich, but my interest has not been strong. This visit was different. Looking at works of art with a philosophical background, the feeling is completely different. If one does not understand the history and philosophy behind art, it is difficult to comprehend the true meaning that the work wants to express, and it is also difficult to be aware of the transcendence that the work of art wants to achieve.

Many Westerners are curious or arrogant when they come into contact with the "other" culture. This is of course related to their lack of knowledge of the history and philosophy of a time and a place, and it is also the fact that the political and historical structure of the past century has a great impact on their position in the world. Shaping of position. But this pavilion in Berlin is different. The attitude of the curator of this pavilion is that, "I really jumped down, stepped on the same land as you, smelled the same air as you, trying to penetrate the form and shell of the phenomenon, try my best to Reaching the core of a culture". After the visit, I went to the store to buy a book about the exhibition, only to know that these works were donated by a German sinologist. Many years ago, I took a class on Chinese culture and traditions taught by historian Nathan Woolley in Glasgow. That was the first time I looked at ancient China through a non-contemporary Chinese perspective. Like the Chinese young people on the road to knowledge, I am only interested in Western culture, and I have only a half-knowledge of ancient China, so I turn a blind eye. Since then, I have come into contact with ancient Chinese history written by overseas sinologists, but my understanding of ancient China still remains in appearance and form. It was not until I came into contact with Buddhist philosophy and used this as an entry point that I finally penetrated into a wider and distant world. This is a state that only meditation, poetry and art can reach. It is melodious outside the body, trying to achieve unity with the reality of the universe in the human body. This kind of ambition, pattern or pursuit was never uncommon among ancient Chinese. But I was never a supporter of patriarchy, authoritarian rule, and Confucian politics. Be mindful, too, when choosing an aspect of culture.

My best friend and I re-watched Chen Danqing's "Parts". I heard him talk about "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", and listened to him talk about "the eye of observation, which cannot be learned or taught", "It's good to know that you don't know yourself at the age of eighteen", "Only eighteen-year-olds draw like this ——Show off your skills, the master can do subtraction.” It’s really good. Wang Ximeng seemed to know that his destiny would end in his twenties, so he put his talents to good use at the age of eighteen. He was afraid that he would not be able to use it. He was afraid of wasting his talent, as if this talent was like a flash in the pan, blooming, and then disappearing. So was his fate. I have always believed that people are self-aware of their own destiny. Young geniuses, full of talent, bloom and display in the early years of life, but their lives may not last long. People in the world always lament that their fate is not good, and God is jealous of talents, but I believe that many of them don't care that their lives are short-lived. For them, the most important thing in life is to bloom. To have been here, to have lived, is enough.

We went on to discuss the Chinese context, and my friend used a word called "decline". This is of course determined by historical reality. The Chinese context has been broken for too long. When I first tried to have a general understanding of Buddhist thought, I still had to go back to the intellectuals of the Republic of China or rely on the works of overseas Buddhist scholars, but in the end, I still had to go deep into the first-hand sources and study Indian and Japanese thought at the same time .

It must be so.

2.

Living in Europe, I am more of a natural person than a social person. Although I also bear some social identity - people are social, people can never be completely out of society. But my personal state, rather than seeking a suitable identity in society and assuming a specific social meaning, is more like a free person who is independent from the world and freely explores knowledge and the spiritual world. Writing here reminds me of reading Fichte a few days ago. The mission of scholars is social, because scholars represent a social identity, which bears specific responsibilities and meanings, and people have similar imaginations and expectations for this identity. In recent years, with the encroachment of science and technology on the field of humanities and the sharp depreciation of degrees, the meaning of "scholar" has gradually been dispelled. Knowledge workers with doctoral degrees may seldom think about the progress of human intelligence and civic education. , and can no longer assume such an important social role and responsibility.

Living elsewhere is already a natural experience for me. It is difficult for me to have the concept of "hometown", and I cannot feel that I am being separated. Socially, you are less offended living here, with few people interfering or judging your private life and decisions. But given the current historical underdog of one's own culture, it's never easy for one person to get to the core of another's thinking, especially when they don't already share many ideas. For example, it may be difficult for a Portuguese to understand what kind of landscape a politically frustrated poet of the Song Dynasty wants to express his love for. Perhaps what they can understand is a kind of seclusion and escape, but they may not be able to capture the far-reaching behind it. metaphysical world. The attitudes of European artists and Chinese artists to approaching and explaining nature are also different. Not to mention, this landscape is not only in the physical sense, but also expresses the understanding of Taoism and Buddhism on the philosophy of existence, non-existence and emptiness. Just like a few years ago, I read that an American philosopher tried to use reductionism to interpret emptiness, and I felt that it was wrong—interpreting emptiness with the methodology of disassembly and reduction will never reach emptiness.

I talked about philosophy and other things with friends in Europe and America, and I deeply felt that my way of thinking was different from them. But I don't think it's due to cultural factors. Living experience in contemporary China has never brought me closer to being, although we can certainly find similarities and support in specific cultures. As mentioned above, it may be difficult for a modern Chinese to understand the spiritual world that an ancient Chinese wants to express; there are many different people in the same era. This kind of understanding or lack of understanding is of course cultural, but it also depends on who has inherited this culture. As a result of studying Western philosophy, I can certainly understand the general mindset of Europeans more easily. I believe this will not be difficult for everyone who studies Western philosophy. But philosophy is not built in the air. It will moisten things and infiltrate people's living world silently, and subtly influence people's choices. Therefore, in every fragment of life, you can find the shadow of ideas. The unity of knowledge and action is to manifest your philosophical ideas into reality and into the decisions you make.

3.

A few days ago, I talked with Mr. Wang Qian about the expression of Chinese intellectuals, and I couldn't help asking: who can really understand China? I think that anyone with the right conditions and aspirations to understand China can understand China. What's more, China is such a huge concept that everyone may only understand some aspects of China. Chinese people don't necessarily know China better than other people, and other people don't necessarily know China better than Chinese people. With the strengthening of China's geopolitical power, more and more people overseas are paying attention to China's affairs, but many of them view China with a Western gaze, although they may have similar political positions to many people. But we should not only focus on political dynamics, but ignore other dimensions, such as culture, race, class, gender... This kind of power relationship shaped by history is something that both sides (East and West) should reflect on and Attention. Many scholars I know are very conscious of this. Learning does not depend on what to do, but also on how to do it. It is particularly important to approach a research with what attitude, and this attitude or method is the soul of academic research. The rest is just technology and knowledge capacity, which can be acquired .

I stopped writing here for a while, not knowing how to end. Just now I happened to be reading Chen Danqing's 2014 speech "Mother Tongue and Mother Country" in Singapore. I believe that in recent years, more people have a deeper and more subtle feeling about this topic. The first time I went abroad was when I was in my early twenties. At that time, I felt fresh about the world. A newborn calf was not afraid of tigers, but only knew how to explore. My young body could not feel the weight of these things; The weight became heavy, pressing on the body, almost breathless. But at that time I didn't want to give up my mother tongue anyway. However, when I looked around, I couldn’t seem to find a way out. In addition, in the days in Hong Kong, my mother tongue became the source of barriers, and language is politics. I have a clear understanding here. In order not to be treated differently in daily life, I had to speak English when I went out; And now, I no longer have the opportunity to speak my mother tongue in my daily life. Except for communicating with close friends and family members in Chinese, I use my second or third language for the rest of the time. To be honest, I consciously keep a certain distance from my mother tongue. My friends and colleagues, almost all of whom are Europeans and Americans, exchange philosophy with them and inspire each other, and they can only use English. But I didn't completely abandon my mother tongue. When I came home, when I was alone, when I was writing, these words came out, and it was a moment that made me feel at ease. Just like Chen Danqing wrote: "I want to say that a person who speaks his mother tongue may not be in his mother country, may fear his mother country and be persecuted by his mother country, but his life is his mother tongue. He relies on his mother tongue to save himself, and even saves the declining mother tongue .” I don’t think any of us can understand him.

In fact, Chinese people want to express themselves—not only intellectuals, but also artists, media professionals, scientists, entrepreneurs, etc., should try to use a second language. There are too few Chinese people in this world. Of course, due to historical factors, contemporary Chinese people do not understand their own thoughts or philosophies, so who should they ask to understand, and what aspects should they understand? Maybe at the end, it means talking about politics, and then sigh and leave one after another. But Chinese intellectuals may not be able to talk only about these. With vast knowledge and far-reaching interests, as long as you open your eyes and look at the world without blinding leaves, you will find that there are too many fields in this world that are still worthy of our contribution. Chen Danqing quoted Mu Xin, and I will quote the two of them here as the end of this article: "Set out to the world, go into exile, go through thousands of mountains and rivers, to the ends of the earth, and go into exile to the motherland and hometown."

Decades later, this is still the way we must go.