Nietzsche and the Chinese

[Xunzian]

The world today seems absolutely crackers.
With nuclear bombs to blow us all sky high.
There are fools and idiots sitting on the trigger.
It’s depressing, and it’s senseless, and that’s why…

I like Chinese,
I like Chinese,
They only come up to your knees,
Yet they’re always friendly and they’re ready to please.

I like Chinese,
I like Chinese,
There’s nine hundred million of them in the world today,
You’d better learn to like them, that’s what I say.

I like Chinese,
I like Chinese,
They come from a long way overseas,
But they’re cute and they’re cuddly, and they’re ready to please.

I like chinese food,
The waiters never are rude,
Think of the many things they’ve done to impress,
There’s Maoism, Taoism, I Ching and chess.

So I like Chinese,
I like Chinese,
I like their tiny little trees,
Their Zen, their ping-pong, their
yin and yang-ese.

I like Chinese thought,
The wisdom that Confucious taught,
If Darwin is anything to shout about,
The Chinese will survive us all without any doubt.

So I like Chinese,
I like Chinese,
They only come up to your knees,
Yet they’re wise and they’re witty, and they’re ready to please.

(Verse in Chinese)

I like Chinese,
I like Chinese,
Their food is guaranteed to please,
A fourteen, a seven, a nine and lychees.

I like Chinese,
I like Chinese,
I like their tiny little trees,
Their Zen, their ping-pong, their yin and yang-ese.

I like Chinese,
I like Chinese,
They only come up to your knees,
Yet they’re wise and they’re witty, and they’re ready to please.

[Xunzian]

So here is the real question . . .

What is worse:

1. Having two fat white dudes play a caricature of a Chinese detective who attributes nonsense to Confucius

or

2. Having a woman who had her eyes surgically altered to look white play a caricature of a Chinese detective who attributes nonsense to Confucius

or

3. Having a Chinese woman pretend to be a Japanese Geisha

or

4. A bunch of Japanese businessmen hiring a bunch of hookers in a hotel in Nanjing on December 13th?

We report, you decide.

[Phaedrus]

If that Chinese woman is Zhang Ziyi, there’s not a goddamned thing wrong with it. And I’ll fight any man who says otherwise!

IMOHO, Zhang Ziyi is one of the most beautiful women on the planet. We should require her to appear in every movie, preferably clad in as little as possible.

[Xunzian]

Confucius say, “With [Ziyi], I can find no fault”

I am fairly certain there was a corruption in the Analects, and I think I’ve managed to finally correct it.

[Coyote_Ugly]

@Xunzian

Check out the book I recommended then, and I’ll see if I can’t dig up some cites for some other essays that establish what I said.

But I would agree that Nietzsche would have loved Huangdi . . . he did have a soft-spot for Fascists, now didn’t he?

It is a fair and relevant criticism of Nietzsche to see his words in the mouths of twentieth century dictators- Hitler, Stalin and likely even Mao included. Carl Jung certainly would not let him off the hook in this regard-nor would I!
(Rather, what I find particularily appealing about Nietzsche, in this paradoxically hyper-Chrisitian post-Christian era is the relevance that Nietzche still has in his disdain for the slave morality of the ‘cult of the victim’ which is now expressing itself so globally and so nihilistically. His words of disdain agaisnt such a philosophy is quite prophetic in this regard, imho).

And as hated as Huangdi- the Chinese Hitler- is in Chinese history, it is also true that many historians have also credited him for the the founding of the Chinese empire, more than any other individual. China after all bears the name of his Ch’in dynasty to this very day.

Certainly, light readers of Nietzsche could use his ideas to further then own little megalmoniac fiefdoms, and use his ideas as their justification, just as fascists and communists thugs no doubt did, in making the twentieth century flow red with blood.

In the end though, the racism that has stained Fascism more than anything else can not honestly be laid on Nietzsche’s feet. The anti-semitism expecially has a two thousand year Christian-based history, and may even have a genetic-tribal component. Nietzche himself found these social tendencies repugnant, and said as much.

Edit: Have you read Zhuangzi? I mean, come on. Anyone who doesn’t see the parallels there is either reading a terrible translation of one-or-the other or just plain ain’t payin’ attention.

I haven’t read Zhuangzi to the extent that I have read Lao-tsu, all those years ago. The internet on the other hand, gives much information on virtually any subject almost instataneously. (but if you find my contributions to the subject too ignorant to be of any interest to you, please say so, and I will bow out of the conversation).

It is not that there aren’t parallels, as have been pointed out. Yet it would be a mistake, I think, to not see Nietzsche as being in the end very Western, very much oriented to the empirical world, and very much interested in this life as being the full measure of the man.

The qualifications which demonstrate the differences between Zuangzi and Nietzsche is what I was pointing out,and actually I think you have already agreed them.
After all, while it is certainly possible that Nietzchean ideals could give rise to a Huangdi, as you have already noted, it would be a far stretch to think that anyone of the Tao tradition could really justify such behavior with their ideals.