Fung Yu-lan's Interpretation

Here we could proceed from any one of the fourteen features of Chinese culture identified for further study in the preceding chapter. We will start from the discussion of the critical importance of “family” in the social structure and in the actual lives of Chinese people (see the seventh feature of Chinese culture).

As is well known, family is extremely important to Chinese people in their daily lives, which is especially apparent when compared with their Western counterparts. What are the reasons for this? In Fung Yu-lan's recent book, On the New Age , chapters such as “About Family and Nation” and “About Children” seem to offer answers to this question. Fung essentially approaches this phenomenon from the perspective of historical materialism, comparing the differences between the production methods used before the industrial revolution and those used after the industrial revolution. In a place that has never undergone an industrial revolution, whether the place is located in the East or in the West, the methods of production in this period of time will be family-oriented. In other words, in such a place, production is familialization. In a place that has undergone an industrial revolution, however, where production has been mechanized, family-oriented production methods are replaced by society-oriented production methods. In such a place, production is socialized. Because of this, Fung said,

Then he stresses that these constitute two different cultures: