Definition of Chinese Culture

“Culture” is everything we rely on as we live in this world. For example, we have to rely on agricultural and industrial production in order to live. Connected to this are tools, technologies and their social systems, which constitute an important part of culture. Our lives also depend on social security and order. Therefore, those things that ensure and maintain that social security and order, such as national politics, legal systems, religious beliefs, morality, law courts, the police and the army, undoubtedly constitute an important part of culture. What's more, since we are born capable of nothing, we need to acquire learning in order to gain ability. As a result, all facets of education are indispensable to us and also to the transmission and the incessant progress of culture. Needless to say, written language, books, learning, schools and so on are thus considered elements of culture.

The popular view that written language, literature, ideology, education, and publication are elements of culture is rather narrow in scope. My statement that culture is everything that we rely on in life insists that culture is concrete. In its literal sense, culture should encompass economy, politics and almost everything else.

However, can music, drama and all kinds of recreation be thought of as things that we rely on in life? My answer is: they seem to be something we enjoy, rather than something “we rely on”. But human beings often need something more than mere food and clothing. Thus people often use the expression “spiritual food”. Viewed from this perspective, music, drama and other kinds of pastimes soothe and nourish the soul and cultivate and foster the spirit, and can to this extent be considered essential.

We designate as “Chinese culture”, our own culture, that which differs from alien cultures. This refers in particular to everything that we Chinese people are used to depending on in life. As culture originates from transmission and communication, it is almost impossible for us to make a distinction between “our own culture” and “foreign cultures”. Moreover, due to the sharp rise in communication in recent one hundred years, Chinese culture has been so greatly influenced by Western culture that it has almost lost its original flavor. As a result, we take as Chinese culture only the fundamental part that remains intact after the past century.