A very interesting idea, writing letters one as a historical figure (Liu Dapeng) to his son, and one as his son to the father responding to his fathers thoughts and worries.
To my dear son Liu Xiaopeng
I have believed that education, lifelong learning, and study should be one of the highest priorities for a person, and ones family. I would like to think that I have instilled the same thoughts, priorities, and values in my children, including, and especially you. I am saddened by what I am hearing about what you have been studying and how you have been using your education to inform your actions.
I would like to have believed I had raised you to understand and follow the tenants and cultural morays of our great society. Instead I find that you have joined the New Culture Movement, and more specifically the May Fourth Movement. They are in opposition of everything I had taught and tried to instill in you.
People are not equal, not in the eyes of the government, and not in the eyes of those you wish our society to turn into, those you wish our society to mirror. They clearly believe themselves to be better than us, just as your movements believe those within the movements are better than those outside the movement. The thoughts, no matter how worthy they may be, mean nothing if the actions cannot agree with them.
The father as the family head is our way, choosing the individual over the family can cause a breakdown of our society. The father is to look out for the family, moving the power to the individual means that the perspective needed will not exist, as only the father has the understanding and perspective needed to care for the family as a whole unit.
Our great society has been around and survived for so long, and yet all your movements see is the future, not our past. We cannot move forward without at least accepting what came before.
Why you believe, after the education you have received at Beijing University, that our nation’s place is that of other nations? Other nations believe our land to be worth less than their own, and yet they will fight to have it. Our culture is superior to that of other nations and cultures, and yet you place our culture on that of other nations.
Confucius’ texts were meant to be studied not picked apart using your modern textual methods. If you do have any connection with the Doubting Antiquity School, it would make me feel I failed you in your education, young life, and all studies as a whole.
Our society may not be perfect, but moving toward democracy is not the answer. If we look outside our society on how to fix our society we will fail to fix our own society and instead become only a part of their society. I know that you do not wish for us to simple become a part of their society as you joined in on the May Fourth Movement. You cannot take only a part, you must take the whole, so which is it, do you want the whole of their society, or do you want our society.
My son you have been educated, and studied, and I only wish the best for you, and or country, but I strongly believe that what you want to do, and the way you are doing it will leave our country with less strength, power, and lose itself.
To pass this time of strain in our country and the world we need to go back to our roots, to our culture, to find what we need to survive, finding survival in others will only have us loss ourselves more.
Your Father Liu Dapeng
To my honorable father Liu Dapeng
I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits.
I respect that you believe what you have said, but I believe you fail to understand what is going on outside, in the country, and beyond.
You did instill a love of learning, and study in me. But that does not mean I agree with everything you think and do. I cannot just agree with something because it was spoken by a certain person, or disagreed with by another certain person. I must look into these thoughts, and study them for myself, and not lean on the education, of belief of my father, I must have my own understand, my own faith.
The Germans, who are not in any way our superiors or have any actual claim to our land has given some of our country to Japan, who also has no claim to our lands. I disagree that going back to our roots, to our culture, or anything but what will force our government to listen will fix these issues. If we continue in the vein we were already in than the logical conclusion is that we stay were we are, as we are, and I do not believe that is what either of us wants. We both want a better tomorrow, a better China, and leaving things as they were will not bring about better, just what we have had.
Confucius was a great thinker for his time, but times have changed and we must change with them, or be left behind. Our culture has been left behind, when we could have been a part of the changes the world has been undergoing.
Father you where a great educator, and great lover of knowledge and study. But the world has changed, we cannot stay the same lest we be left behind. With this great mind you must see the logic in the need to evolve when culture moves on, the need to change as the world changes. We cannot leave our destiny to a government that does not see what is happening at its own front door, to its own lands, nor to the outside world which wish to take our country from us piece by piece.
China has been under the thumb of imperialism, a system that lets a man rule not because he cares for the country, neither its land nor people, but because his father ruled. If we look at other countries that live this way all they want is to take, or be left behind as the world evolves around them. I wish our country to be neither. When we look to the new countries, specifically the one that is leading the change we see something different, some new. Why would we not want our country to be a part of this, democracy is the way to do this.
Our country should be on the level of other nations, our country could have what every other great country has. I do not think letting ourselves stay below, focusing on our culture is the way to save us. To save us we must be with the great powers, we must so what we must to have the great nations look at us not as land and resources, but as a people and a country no less than their own.
Yes the movements I am involved in look to the future not the past. We need to see where we are going. As one would not walk around with their eyes closed, one should not live life, especially not when dealing with a nation, not seeing what tomorrow will bring. Our leaders should think as the rice farmer thinks, not what is best for today, but what is best life.
Father I wish the best for you, and the family, but I must do what I think is right both for our family, and for the country.
Your son Liu Xiaopeng
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