This is an old manuscript of mine 12 years ago, signed "Cheng Shi", and now the original text has been published without changing a word.
It's the Year of the Dragon.
Dragons are virtual animals and mythical beings, so "talking about dragons" is also a very profound and flexible topic, a topic that can be freely played by anyone based on their own position, and it is a topic that is worth writing about and has already been written about. Many experts and scholars who take Haoshou Poor Sutra as fun have made a lot of contributions back to the source, but there are still audiences who are willing to create or fabricate history by themselves. A stamp for the Year of the Dragon, which elicits a lot of rhetoric, is an example. This is not a good thing, as long as you set the foundation of your thinking: you can say dragons, I can also say dragons, then that's fine, you don't need to be frightened by the fame of any famous person.
Chinese people like to call themselves "descendants of the dragon", therefore, in Chinese circles, it is said that dragons are fun and proud of dragons. But don't think that when you talk about dragons in the West, they will be as awe-inspiring as you are, because in some Western cultures, dragons are the devil, the embodiment of evil, and the evil to be exorcized.
I recently witnessed two physical objects. One is an ivory sculpture, which is a statue of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus, and at the feet is a dragon with a hideous face. THE SECOND IS A DUTCH TILE SHOWING TWO MEN ARMED WITH SPEARS PRYING A DRAGON WITH A SWASTIKA ON THE HEAD AND THE WORDS "VERZET" (RESISTANCE). Underneath is the text: Den Vaderland getrouwe, under which is "1940-1945". It is clear that this is a memento of the Dutch rebellion against Nazi Germany.
So I went through the materials and learned a lot.
As the heirs, we create the dragon that is unique to our culture and a symbol of good luck. However, like many cultural products with idiosyncrasies, there is a bias in expressing them in other languages. Westerners translate our dragon, based on its physical characteristics, as Dragon (draak), and this is problematic. Although the dragon of Westerners is also a symbol of some Western peoples, since the time of Christianity, the dragon has had a negative meaning like a snake, a devil, a Satan, and an image of evil. So, it's understandable why Maria was hiding from the dragon, and why Nazi Germany was portrayed as a dragon.
According to some sources, some Chinese scholars have proposed to change the English translation of "Chinese dragon" to "long", which is close to the pronunciation of Chinese, but this has not yet been widely recognized. However, some Western scholars have also referred to the Chinese dragon as the "Chinese dragon" to distinguish it from the "dragon" of horror and evil in Christian culture.
Allowing Westerners to correctly understand the "Chinese Dragon" is a process of cultural transformation and construction, and this process takes time, and more exchanges, run-in, understanding and integration between cultures are needed.
The image of the Chinese dragon is also rich and colorful, there are authoritarian dragons, dragons that do good, dragons that dominate the water side, and dragons that can be conquered by a child. Since I was a child, I have watched (Cantonese opera) "The Biography of Liu Yi", and the lyrics in it are still catchy: "I have been in harmony with you and Tilian, you love each other and pity each other, and I am grateful for Lang Love, such as honey and sweet, I hope that you will not be suspicious, I am a dragon." Later, I learned that the story was originally from the legendary novel "The Biography of Liu Yi" by the Tang dynasty Li Chaowei, whom Lu Xun also admired. The dragons in there are simply humanized to the extreme: the three princesses of Dongting Dragon, who are charming and weak, the prince of Jingshui Dragon Prince, the dragon king Dongtingjun who is cautious, and the dragon king Qiantangjun who can't rub a sand in his eyes and values love and righteousness. Is this a dragon? This is a man!
In Chinese culture, the dragon is a beast, the embodiment of the ancestors, and the gods worshiped by the ancestors. The transformation of the dragon into a symbol of imperial power was a later event.
In ancient Egypt, ancient Babylon and ancient Greek cultures, there is no shortage of affirmation of dragons, and the flag of Wales is even the image of a red dragon in the West. It was only in the era of the predominance of Christian culture, because of St. George's dragon slaying, that the dragon of the West was basically fixed in some images of fierceness, greed, evil and aggressiveness.
When China grows stronger and its economy grows stronger, when Chinese with a lot of money in their pockets not only swing freely in airport duty-free shops, shout in auction houses, but also go into Western companies to negotiate acquisitions, those of us who are proud of the dragons in our culture may be compared to the Western dragons in their eyes, consciously or unconsciously. There are even people who think they are St. George, who play the role of slaying dragons, but aim their spears at the Chinese dragons that have nothing to do with the dragons slaughtered by St. George.
To tell the truth about this year's Chinese dragon ticket, the author also thinks that it is not beautiful, and even thinks that the explanation of the designers and the judges is very far-fetched, and the author even thinks that it may be in order to make the dragon ticket have more value-added space, so as to create such a "controversial dragon". However, from talking about dragons to talking about politics and politics, linking the dragon ticket to something in China and interpreting it intelligently is also making a big fuss and making a big mistake. But the intentions of these speculations are 100% there, there are foreign devils and fake foreign devils.
Of course, we are also pleased to see that more and more people of insight in the Western world are getting to know the Chinese dragon, the Chinese dragon that appeared on the river at the Rotterdam International Harbour Festival was warmly welcomed in the northern city of Assen, and our old friend, the Dutch ceramist Tineke van Gils, was invited to make a teapot for the Year of the Dragon for an international exhibition in China called "Teapot of the Year", on which the dragon is the lively Chinese dragon.
Zhang Jun, Chinese ambassador to the Netherlands, said at this year's (2012, editor's note) Spring Festival reception: "At present, there are voices in the international community that do not understand and even question China, and every overseas Chinese and Chinese have the responsibility and obligation to answer with little actions and tell the world with actions that China is a peace-loving country, a country that advocates harmony, a country that attaches importance to mutual benefit and cooperation, and that the Chinese people of China are enlightened, progressive, progressive and friendly people." ”
Make the dragon clear, that is, the bits and pieces of the bits and pieces. It takes our efforts to let more Westerners distinguish the dragon in their traditional culture from the dragon as a Chinese beast, so that Westerners can understand the Chinese dragon more and more, and our efforts have achieved certain results and will achieve greater results.
As a Chinese, I would like to say to all my friends, no matter what color they are: The Year of the Dragon is auspicious!
(Originally published in Sino-Dutch Business Daily No. 156, January 20, 2012, signed by "Cheng Shi")