Party makes aged poetry essential reading for officials
Print Edition
CLASSICAL Chinese poetry has become the latest addition to the armory of frontline authorities in their war on corruption.
This month, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection posted 40 traditional aphorisms on their microblog as recommended reading for Party officials.
Written by poets, thinkers and philosophers, some of the texts are more than 1,000 years old.
From time immemorial, “family instructions” written by wise and respected forebears have been used by Chinese parents to enlighten their children. These charters used clean, simple words to set a code of conduct at home and in society.
All big families once had “ancestral halls” where they gathered to honor virtue and punish transgressions.
As war and revolution overthrew the feudal system, the rituals and traditions of ancestor worship fell by the wayside. Seen as oppressive remnants of an antiquated culture, many family doctrines were lost.
Wang Donglin, head of the cultural institute at Jiangxi Normal University, said the recommendation was a sign that traditional family values still had a role to play. All the texts emphasize duty, filial piety, integrity and loyalty, he said.
“Throughout history, families have passed on Confucian and Taoist ideologies as the norms of domestic and public life,” he added.
By putting forward these classics, the CCDI hopes that the family values therein will revive traditional morals that value integrity, and denounce dishonesty. Very few corruption convictions have been of lone officials acting alone, officials said. Almost invariably corruption is seen by the perpetrators as way of enriching the entire family.
One of the CCDI choices, a 300-character treatise by 12th century philosopher Zhu Xi, tells parents to be amiable and children to be devoted; older brothers ought to be friendly while younger brothers should be respectful. Don’t harbor grudges. Don’t be jealous.
Memorial arch
Of the 22 members of the Zhu family who held ranks higher than county chief, none had their reputation tainted by corruption, according to historical sources.
Zhu Yuquan, an education official in east China’s Jiangxi Province, is a descendant of Zhu Xi. He described a memorial arch built by three members of the Zhu family in the 14th century.
“When important things, good or bad, happen, a family gathering is held under the arch to examine the events through the lens of the norms in the family instruction. We do this to urge younger relatives to toe the family line under the supervision of us all,” he said. “I feel connected to my ancestors by these axioms, which extend our family values back nearly a thousand years.”
Zhu Xi’s political career only lasted nine years, but in that time he earned a reputation for seeking justice for common people while refusing to surrender to vested interests.
In Gandong, Zhu Yuquan’s hometown, when a new village hall was built in 2015, 80 families had their own maxims painted on the walls.
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