By Nancy Kwon
Contributing Writer

East Asia has felt the impact of the modern West, one example of which is finding a niche for Confucian studies in modern East Asian studies, said Dr. Tu Weiming, director of Harvard-Yenching Institute.

Dr. Tu spoke at the International Conference on East Asian Studies on Nov. 23 which concluded Nov. 24 and coincided with the opening of the new Academy of East Asian Studies (AEAS) at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul.

The Enlightenment mentality was introduced as a "dominant ideology" in East Asia, said Dr. Tu in his lecture called, "The Global Significance of Local Knowledge: A New Perspective on Confucian Humanism." Confucian studies, he said, was replaced by western learning in the East Asian education curriculum.

However, East Asian studies are far from disappearing from university curriculums. According to Dr. Tu, Confucian studies in North America began in the early part of the 20th century. There are three epochs of Confucian learning: the classical, the neo-Confucian and the modern. "I would say as of now in the area of history, literature, philosophy, social sciences, anyone who is interested in East Asia inevitably encounters the Confucian tradition; even though we don? have any major programs focusing on Confucianism exclusively," he said.

In East Asia, Dr. Tu said the interest in Confucian studies is a fascinating phenomenon. "Korea has always been a major center for Confucian studies in East Asia, we?e in the Sungkyunkwan, this university is noted for its Confucian studies," he said. "There? no question about Confucianism study both as an academic subject, but also as a habits of the heart, meaning the cultural resources widely accepted and sometimes not clearly acknowledged."

The most intriguing phenomenon regarding Confucian studies is in China, said Dr. Tu, who was born in China but grew up in Taiwan. Dr. Tu went back in 1978 and then stayed one year studying in Peking Normal University in 1980. He said at the time there were only sporadic expressions of interest in Confucianism in the faculty departments of history, literature, and philosophy. "I was invited to give a course on Confucian philosophy at Peking University in 1985, I must say that could be considered as a new beginning, as some of the most brilliant Chinese students became interested in their own heritage after the cultural revolution," Dr. Tu said, adding that a paper presented by professor Wang Zhong Jiang at the conference, "The Study of Confucianism in the 1990? as a New Paradigm," points to a major upsurge of interest in Confucian studies in the 1990s there have been more than 600 books published and thousands of articles.

Dr. Tu explained that earlier in the mid-19th century, there was a very serious concern among East Asian intellectuals about how to protect their Confucian heritage from the influence of the West. With the collapse of the military, the need to reform political institutions, and the undermining of social organizations like the family, some East Asian intellectuals accepted the fact that unless East Asia became thoroughly westernized they could not survive, he said. As a result, many East Asian societies abandoned their Confucian traditions. "But in the last 50 years," Dr. Tu said, "since the Second World War, I would say that all of these societies have become thoroughly westernized."

However, instead of abandoning their eastern values and ideas, many East Asian cultures have simply included some Western values into their already established cultural heritage. "And it is after more than 150 years of learning from the West, they could actually talk about western learning from within rather than simply from without," said Dr. Tu. "Now they are participants rather than observers, and now they begin to retrieve their own cultural resources. And part of the reason is because newly emerging intellectual trends in the West [such as environmentalism] that prompted us to become more critical of the Enlightenment tradition form the West."

Korea is just one example of the many East Asian countries that has embraced Western ideas. "The younger generation in Korea is very cosmopolitan compared to the Japanese and Chinese," Dr. Tu said in an hour-long interview with The Korea Times following his lecture. "The society here as a whole is such a crossroad of ideas." He pointed out that almost 30 percent of the Korean population is Christian, demonstrating that it is one of the most westernized societies in the world.

The young democracy in Korea is both fragile and unique, said Dr. Tu who added that the advantage of the latecomers (to democratic ideas) is that they have so many models that they are not "sucked into one particular model" and they can learn from others mistakes.

East Asian studies such as Confucian studies have been influenced by the West but Dr. Tu sees it as being a benefit rather than a detriment. "Without western influence, Confucianism could have been totally outmoded," he said. "With the western influence revitalization, this new sense of being part of the West, at the same time a retreat to cultural tradition, gives East Asian intellectuals a kind of creative edge for developing new ideas, that to me is the most exciting part of it." Dr. Tu stressed that this is not narrow nationalism, or "the West against the rest."

The future survival of Confucian studies as well as East Asian studies as a whole may be assisted by the current interest in all things Asian in the world said, Dr. Tu. The seemingly new interest in eastern culture and traditions is not new. He said there was an upsurge of European interest in East Asia after the First World War following fears about the decline of the West. "Yet after the Second World War," said Dr. Tu, "the European and American intellectuals were not interested in Asia at all; they were obsessed with the West. East Asian intellectuals also became attracted to the West." He said it has only been in the last 20 or 30 years that western intellectuals began to quest for the global ethic and realized they needed to broaden their resources to extend past those that has been generated ever since the Enlightenment of the 17th century and began looking towards East Asia when looking at issues related to ecology, feminism and religious pluralism.

Dr. Tu said it is time for Westerners to learn that even in a country like Korea, where people appear to be Westernized, Koreans are different. "The world is not going to be dominated by one culture tradition, we call it religious pluralism, which means there will be more than one center," he said.

The notion that western ideas must be adopted to be successful is simply not the case said Dr. Tu. In his lecture, he said, that China rejected Confucian humanism as a "necessary precondition for embarking on a new approach to save the nation," from foreign aggression. Dr. Tu said when he started to lecture on some of these issues in China the people were very surprised about his position because they all assumed that if you want to be modern you have to get rid of the Confucian traditions. "Right now in Korea, some scholars say Confucius must die or the Confucian tradition must die so Korea can become modern," he said. In America there has always been the notion of the ?elting pot when it concerned issues of cultural diversity that meant immigrants were expected to give up their cultural heritage to be considered fully American. Dr. Tu was naturalized as an American citizen in 1976 and said he didn? feel pressured to abandon his eastern ideals living in the West. "(However) no matter how hard I try, there is always a gap I am not a native speaker," he said. "On the other hand I do have some resources that are not part of the American culture that I feel encouraged to offer or to share. It? a double-edged sword, on one hand I feel inadequate, on the other I feel I am more blessed than someone who is not brought up in dual cultural background."

When asked about the role of Confucian Humanism in the 21st century, Dr. Tu said two words came into mind: diversity and community. "We have to celebrate diversity but we have to search for common humanity in terms of the global community," he said. "So Confucianism, among many other spiritual traditions seems to have a lot of resources that can be mobilized for this purpose." Christianity, unlike Confucianism has been able to thrive as perhaps the most influential religion in the world. The Vatican has claimed 800 million followers. Dr. Tu doubts that Christianity will be the only religion in the world, pushing Judaism, Buddhism and Confucianism into the background.

He outlined some of the common misconceptions associated with Confucianism by saying, "All the accusations, none of them are a figment of the mind, every one of them is based on very good empirical data." One misconception involves the consideration of nation and community above the individual as a Confucian dictum. Dr. Tu said this is a misuse of Confucianism. "On the surface it? very true; the nation is so big and so is the community, but within the Confucian tradition there is a very strong feeling that the dignity of the individual, while confounded with the corruption of the society, and the total privatization of national interests by the elite, we have to be able to say no." He cited Korea? example where the economy has suffered through corruption scandals in a society that has been under the influence of Confucian culture.

"Christianity too can lead to corruption, tension, exclusivism, but then in the Biblical tradition, Christianity is such a spiritual force for human flourishing all over the world," Dr. Tu said. "Sometimes the tradition, for various reasons, sometimes irrational forces that the tradition has become very detrimental to human flourishment, like Confucianism as perceived by some of the best minds in the early part of the 20th century."

One of Confucianism? greatest contributions to society has been the idea of the public intellectual someone who is according to Dr. Tu "politically concerned, socially engaged and culturally sensitive and informed." These are not academics but include those in the mass media, government, business, and social organizations. "This is really a major heritage in East Asia, you don? find the same heritage in other civilizations," he said.

Dr. Tu said the digitalization of today? society has hindered the ability of transmitting values, such as those of Confucianism from one generation to another. Firstly, he said the young people have lost their art of listening because they are bombarded by all kinds of sounds. Secondly, face-to-face communication is competing with virtual reality. "You cannot really feel a handshake in virtual reality and emotionally invested feelings cannot be transmitted, not to mention love-making." Lastly, "the cumulative wisdom of the elders," Dr. Tu said is best transmitted by teaching by rather than merely by words.

In this era of globalization where people and nations are becoming more alike than different, Dr. Tu thinks the time is right for us to think beyond the either/or dichotomy and think in terms of both / and. "Certainly the global community that emerges will integrate not just east and west but north and south, especially traditions and modernity," he said.