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A note on the flexibility of the Chinese characte
It is a difficult job to summarize the personalities of more than one billion Chinese into one single national character. There are imcomputable adjectives that can be used to describe Chinese: diligent,collectivist ,conformed and so on. All of them are right but not recapitulatory enough. In fact, the greatest character of Chinese is that we can adapt ourselves to any condition. Being gregarious is one of the most important thing for Chinese. We have to change ourselves to fit in the environment. Do the right thing at the right time, and more importantly, do the right thing under the right situation and the right identity, which is called"Zhong Yong". That is a part of flexibility, which is about how to behave. There is another part about how to treat different things. Chinese prefer to cut corners instead of resolving problems in a direct way. There is an example from an emperor of Ming Dynasty. He wanted to improve the status of cabinet to better help him manage government affairs. However, the last emperor, his father, had ruled the grade of cabinet members and it would be considered as unfilial to change this rule. In the end, the emperor succeeded without disobeying his father. He had the cabinet members hold a concurrent post which is of high grade. This is a typical instance of Chinese wit. If you can't understand such flexibility, just think of water. In most cases, water exists in a collective form, such as river, lake and sea. If not, it would evaporate quickly. Water always flows down the stream just like Chinese herd behavior. When encountering obstacles, water often passes through edges or gaps instead of breaking the obstacles. But these are not all. Water can also be fierce and powerful when necessary. Just like flood, like tsunami, like rainsquall. When there is enough water, there wouldn't be barrier. When encountering huge crisis, Chinese would unite to fight for the collectivity. The world has witnessed too many examples of Chinese power such as the anti-Japanese war, Korea war, fighting the Covid-19. Facts have proved that there is no one who can overcome the sea.
