Needham's high evaluation of Chinese Taoists greatly encouraged Chinese. At that time, the Chinese people, who had lost confidence in their own culture, began to have different views on Chinese culture. In fact, Needham's research on Chinese culture and science in this book seems to be very shallow. Although the book has not yet conducted in-depth research on Chinese Taoism, it is enough to wake up the Chinese, so that the Chinese people began to pay attention to their own cultural and scientific treasures.
At that time, when Joseph Needham was writing his book, he consulted many Chinese scholars and experts, such as Guo Bendao, Feng Youlan, Wang Yanan, Wang Xinggong, Huang Fanggang and so on. But because the content of Taoist academic thought had not yet been completed, he went to Taiwan to collect information.
On September 22, 1984, Dr. Joseph Needham, together with his student Dr. Lu Guizhen, accompanied by Mr. Chen Lifu, came to visit his father. They talked about everything, from Taoism and Buddhism to specific functions, and even to the development of human economy and the well-being of the soul. In this regard, my father said plainly: "All kinds of modern economic theories stand on the position of economic development of a country, and there is no model for the economic and social development of all mankind from the perspective of the well-being of all mankind." Needham listened and nodded frequently.
The pre-agreed time of conversation was two hours, but because the two talked too closely, they did not realize that three hours had passed, but at this time Needham was still gushing, and his father was also full of excitement and could not stop. Despite this, my father kept a clear head, and when he saw that it was not early, he told Needham that he would have to give lectures at night. In this way, the two men talked for three hours before it was over.
At that day's academic talks, many people came to attend, including Cheng Cangbo ("legislator"), Chairman Gaoxin ("Overseas Chinese Committee"), General Deng Wenyi, Director Xiong Xianju ("Compilation Hall"), Director General Zhang Wei ("Taoist General"), Dr. Hong Wenliang, Dr. Zhu Wenguang, and other German scholars Dr. Bojdnov and Dr. Auhajann, as well as French Ke Yougeng Botu.
In addition, the symposium was attended by a scholar from the Federal Republic of Germany who studied Zen Buddhism. He had admired his father for a long time, and he was suffering from the fact that he had no reason to know jingjing and could not see him. By coincidence, Kapler happened to be promoting Zen Buddhism in Europe at that time, so through Kapler's introduction, he came to Taiwan to ask for help from his father, and incidentally participated in this historic symposium. When he returned to China, he was tearful and reluctantly bowed to his father in China. The exchanges with these overseas academics made my father famous and had a considerable impact overseas. These academics all over the world also postponed their fathers to go abroad to give lectures, but they were all politely rejected by their fathers. Mainly because the time had not yet come, Taiwan's native cultural seedlings had not yet grown into a big tree, and they still needed to be watered and moisturized at all times, so they never made the trip. At present, this kind of dissident political atmosphere of "black clouds crushing the city and wanting to destroy the city" is an opportunity.
My father wanted to take this opportunity to go far away from his hometown to realize his long-term wish to promote culture overseas and regain his long-cherished wish to promote culture in the 1970s. Although my father wanted to take culture out of his hometown and state, promote culture overseas, and promote cultural undertakings, it did not mean that he would abandon all affairs in Taiwan. The work of the East-West Essence Association and the business of the Laogu Cultural Undertaking Co., Ltd., my father arranged the handover, and the thousands of instructions were made; for the Zen Gate, it was even more ruled. From these instructions from his father, we can also see his inseparable feelings for Taiwan.