Figure 3.
Author: Yi Xiaoping. Drafted on May 14, 2002. Last updated June 27, 2004
July 4, 2004 is the 228th anniversary of the American Independence. The United States of America, as an independent sovereign country, has its spiritual roots in the "American Declaration of Independence of 1776". This declaration consists of only about 100 lines of English words. 4% of it described human ideals, 75% of it described the crimes of the British King and the rest 21% explained why a revolution was necessary. The Declaration of Independence was an outcry for justice by an oppressed people. It constituted the basis for the American System of Government such as the Constitution of the United States, laws and their enforcement agencies and public services.
In my opinion, the following three points summarize the style and spirit disseminated in the Declaration of Independence: (1) it inheritated the essence and style of the Christian bible, (2) it started a new age of science and technology, and (3) it is for an oppressed people.
At the beginning of the Declaration, it stated that humans are submissive to Laws of Nature and Nature's God. Laws of Nature here refer to the concrete and practical Laws of God. This statement is characteristic of the American Culture and different from other European cultures in that humans obey God by first obeying the Laws of Nature.
The second paragraph wrote that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. .--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,".
The above declared the equality of men, but the meaning of "equality" was not given. Due to this lack of definition, the issues of "equality of men and women, of races and of professions, etc." have not been resolved more than 200 years later today. This abstract declaration of equality is practically indifferent from the ancient Confucian declaration more than 2000 years ago that "humans are born good" . The unalienable Right of Life should mean that under no circumstances can one person, organization of government take away the life of another person. Unfortunately, we see today never ending cases of murder, terrorist killings, auto accident killings, and death sentences, etc.. The unalienable Rights of Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness should mean that we must "help one another to achieve common happiness and equality". Unfortunately, many of us are pursuing our own freedom and material wealth without regard to, and even undermine, other people's happiness. Therefore, ideals in the Declaration of Independence have failed to become reality because they were not articulated.
The Declaration of Independence declared that governments must derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. This has not been realized fully today with the American elections. It is majority rule at best. Many potential voters never bother to vote due to various reasons. Residents without citizenship are not eligible to vote. The rich people control the mass media, but the poor people have no chance to express their opinions in the mass media.
75% of the Declaration of Independence condemned the criminal acts of the English King. This style of using negative facts to mobilize people's enthusiasm for justice is typical of the Christian culture. Modern day Chinese call this negative teaching. For example, the cross is the symbol of crucifixion, and it is also the symbol for many Christian churches. The International Red Cross chose this symbol as the organization log. The negative condemnations contained in this Declaration is complete and concrete. They serve as warnings for governments. I summarized them in a 6-character per sentence Chinese poem as follows:
独立宣言反谱(6律)
1 无视公众利益。 2 忽视紧急要求。 3 罢免人民代表。 4 阴谋疲惫议会。
5 防止移民如籍。 6 阻碍人员流动。 7 妨碍分田分地。 8 反对本地司法。
9 随意任命法官。 10 设立无数公职。 11 搜刮民粮民财。 12 和平期驻重军。
13 军权高于民权。 14 强加外来法律。 15 派遣大量军队。 16 法庭做假逃罪。
17 截断对外贸易。 18 独自强加苛税。 19 剥夺法庭审判。 20 强押海外判决。
21 邻设独裁政府。 22 逐渐侵入我地。 23 废我宪章良法。 24 改我政府机构。
25 停议会行独裁。 26 废政府宣开战。 27 掠我海洋海岸。 28 焚烧城镇乡村。
29 野蛮谋杀暴政。 30 逼迫捕虏为敌。 31 我中引发暴动。 32 派遣土著杀手。
33 杀光抢光烧光。 34 置我请愿不理。 35 伤害变本加利。 36 无视血肉情意。
The above poem may be translated into English as follows:
He has,
1. neglected the public good.
2. refused to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance.
3. forced people to relinquish the right of representation in the Legislature.
4. fatigued legislative bodies into compliance.
5. prevented the population of these states and naturalization of foreigners.
6. blocked their migrations.
7. raised the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
8. refused his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
9. made judges dependent on his will alone.
10.erected a multitude of new offices.
11.sent swarms of officers to harrass our people and eat out their substance.
12.kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies.
13.rendered the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
14.subjected us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution.
15.quartered large bodies of armed troops among us.
16.protected murderers from punishment by a mock trial.
17.cut off our trade with all parts of the world.
18.imposed taxes on us without our consent.
19.deprived us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.
20.transported us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences.
21.established an arbitrary government in a neighbouring province, and
22.enlarged its boundaries as an example of absolute rule.
23.took away our Charters and most valuable Laws, and
24.altered fundamentally the Forms of our Governments.
25.suspended our own Legislatures and legislated for us in all cases whatsoever.
26.abdicated Government here and waged war against us.
27.plundered our seas and ravaged our coasts.
28.burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
29.used armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny.
30.constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high Seas to bear arms against their own country.
31.excited domestic insurrections amongst us.
32.endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, to
33.commit an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
34.ignored our petition for redress in the most humble terms, and
35.answered our repeated petitions only by repeated injury.
36.been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.
The negative teaching above constituted the basis for the Constitution of United States including its amendments. More generally, negative teaching is the basis for Western jurisprudence. It assumes that individuals and organizations tend to go negative or corrupt. To prevent this, laws of all kinds have been erected and a huge system of law enforcement has been established and perfected.
In summary, the Declaration of Independence declared that men are created equal and that Life and Liberty are of uttermost importance. These were very progressive ideas. Only because of the absence of precise definitions, had the ideals failed to become reality more than 200 years later today. This declaration inheritated the Christian culture in that it emphasizes negative teaching, and it resulted in a relatively effective and complete system of government to maintain national peace and justice. Nevertheless, the cost of maintaining this system is getting higher and higher to the extent that it has lead to the degradation to Nature. It is affecting the American people's Right of the "pursuit of Happiness". The American people should start deliberating on this important issue.
It should be noted that the American War of Independence lasted for as long as the Chinese Anti-Japanese War of about eight years. The American civil war lasted for about 5 years, whereas the Chinese civil wars were interwoven with the wars of independence that lasted for a century. The imperial Qing Dynasty collapsed in the year 1911. China finally achieved full independence on in 1949, but till today, she remains divided. The character of "Peace" in Chinese consists of "Rice" and "Mouth", symbolizing that the peace is the balance of food and population. The French and English word "REPUBLIC" may be derived from the French word "REPAS" which means "MEAL". The English word "Hey" (meaning dried grass of rice or wheat) sounds the same as the Chinese character "He". The main western food such as "Milk" and "Beef" are derived from hey. Therefore, the western word "Hey" may have originated from the Chinese word "He". These indicate that the Chinese and Western cultures have the same understanding of peace. Another interesting Chinese word is "Zhou Yi"(周易). It was translated into western language as "REVOLUTION". After travelling around the earth via America and back to China, it became "Ge Ming"(革命) which has the meaning of killing. One of the earliest western handgun is the "REVOLVER" that is closely linked to revolution. On the other hand, the English word "EVOLVE" may be derived from the Chinese word "YI FU (易伏)" that means changing and moving waves.
A clear linkage between English and Chinese can be seen from the eleven basic English number (Fig. 1). These numbers are sonic representations of many Chinese words that state the things that are important to people. (0) ZERO from "Zei Lai Lo (贼来锣)" meaning home security; (i) ONE from "Wan (碗玩晚完王，等等)" meaning many related and sometimes contradictory things such as bowl, playing, late, finished, king, etc; (ii) TWO from "Tu (土途，等等)" meaning soil or land and road, etc; (iii) THREE from "Shui (水)" meaning water, (iv) FOUR from "Huo (火)" meaning fire, (v) FIVE from "Fan (饭房)" meaning food and shelter, (vi) SIX from "Shui Xi (水溪) meaning water stream, (vii) SEVEN from "Shen Fen (身份)" meaning profession, (viii) EIGHT from "Er Zi (儿子)" meaning son, (viiii) NINE from "Nai (奶耐)" meaning horse and cow and endurance, (x) TEN from "Tan (炭潭塘糖堂谈，等等)" meaning charcoal, pond, sweet, house, talking, etc., all having to do with "reserve"; (xi) ELEVEN from "YI FU (衣服)" meaning clothes.
The main differences between Western and Chinese cultures are the languages and the ways of staple food production. The Chinese language is based on pictures or characters that are two dimensional and visual, whereas the western languages are spelling codes that are linear and audio. The former also contained audio features. A language that combines picture and sound is easy to learn and remember and hard to forget. From the point of view of human cultural development, the former was the earliest and most fundamental and the latter was further abstracted from the former. The knowledge that is contained in the Chinese language must be more original than that in the western languages. Therefore, the Chinese language is the key to understanding the past of humanity and to predicting her future. The rice production in the Orient is fundamentally different from the grass- based production in the west in terms of its influence on the earth's environment. More details on this are presented elsewhere.
The Chinese has used 10 Heavenly Stems as shown below since ancient times well before all the 10 solar stems (9 planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto plus the Sun) of the solar system had been discovered in the Western civilization. In fact, the last one, Pluto was discovered as recent as 1930 by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. It is possible that the human race knew all about the solar system in the ancient past, but this knowledge was later lost.
Figure 2. The Chinese10 heavenly stems.
The very construction of the above ten Chinese characters may indicate the super-human history on a planet. They are explained as follows:
(1) Character JIA is made of the character for "plantation field", indicating the beginning of agriculture.
(2) Character JI3 is made of a sickle for harvesting crops, indicating the making of tools.
(3) Character BING3 shows a person in a house with ceiling and walls, indicating permanent residence.
(4) Character DING shows piles driven into the ground to mark boundaries, indicating ownership of property. It also means young men working as border guards.
(5) Character WU4 shows a weapon for self-protection.
(6) Character JI3 shows a winding river or stream, indicating irrigation of plantation fields, and migration and expansion along rivers.
(7) Character GENG shows a prosperous tree with roots, indicating advanced trees and fruits agriculture. It sounds the same as the character for "ploughing". It may also indicates reworking of the land to achieve cyclic harvest.
(8) Character XIN is made of the characters for "stake" and "cross", indicating burials as a result of wars and diseases.
(9) Character REN2 is actually the character for "king", indicating unifications into kingdoms.
(10) Character GUI3 shows weapons of war (characters for "knife" and "weapon") above "heaven", indicating military activities in the sky and heaven is subdued and can hardly be seen.
The following figure shows a family poem "YI LING GONG PU" from MaiYuan village, DongAn county, Hunan province, China. The poem was passed down the generations by the migrating Yi families as a persons naming convention. For example, a forefather in the "Yuan" generation had the name "YI Yuan Jia". my father's name is Yi He Cai, and my name is Yi Xia oPing. The two words "He Ping" (Peace) are from the 5th sentence of "YI LING GONG PU". The poem was first used by the first Yi settler of MaiYuan village, Yi ZhenXiu (Gui Yi Lang), about 600 years ago in the Ming Dynasty of China. The time of writing is unclear, but the title YI LING GONG was the second name for "Jiang Zi Ya" who was an official in the Zhou Dynasty about 3000 years ago. The YI LING GONG PU demonstrates a positive attitude, distinct and non-repetitive meaning in each character of the 52 characters in the 12 sentences which reflect the 12 months or 52 weeks in a year respectively. The 52 characters are the detailed explanations of the title "YI LING GONG PU". The declared the best goals for the humanity.
Figure 3.
The first sentence implied that literacy and mindset are like the Sun and the planetary stars. The word "馨" in the fourth sentence consists of two words "Sound and Fragrance" in Chinese. This reflected that the two natural phenomena were the same in origin, i.e., they both require the existence of air. The parallel combination of the two words "馨光" reflected the unity of sound, particles and light. Western science re-discovered the unity of light in waves and particles in the 20th century. This author does not know whether or not there exists a unified theory for sound waves, stress waves and light waves.
YI LING GONG PU contained all progressive elements found in the Declaration of Independence, but it has nothing to do with the distinction between men and women and between races. The main theme of "repentence, forgiveness and love of your enemy" found in the New Testament of the Bible was absent in the Declaration of Independence.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1989, the world went towards global dictatorship led by the United States. The middle position that China has taken on the world stage has lost ground. Western countries have worked to westernize the former soviet union, China and other third world countries. Unfortunately, the United States would not donate its own resources towards this end in a peaceful manner. On the contrary, they have used the threat of military power together with economic invasion to get resources and products from other countries. Unemployment rate went up in the United States. This is against the Declaration of Independence
Another major difference between Western and Eastern cultures lies in the belief and concept of God. In the West, there is clear and written definition and practice of one invisible and powerful God. In China, there is only vague definition and practice of heavenly intelligent forces. In short, the West puts belief first and reason second, whereas China puts reason first and belief second. A good example is that the Western governments are achieving population control by invisible economic forces, whereas the Chinese government is achieving it by enforcing the policy of one child for city residents and two children for farmers. The bearers of the Chinese culture are declining in number as compared to the world population. The Chinese population decreased from a quarter after World War II to one sixth of the world's population today. A policy of two children equally implemented for both city and rural residents should be beneficial for the people of the world.
In our modern times, there are certain popular misconceptions on differences between Western and Eastern cultures, such as diversification versus unification, individualism versus collectivism, purification versus mixing, and freedom versus dictatorship. History indicates that every major group of people all over the world have undergone one and the other, although not necessarily at the same time. For example, the United States of America unified the languages and dialects of the European colonists and the American Indians. The western people are unified under the Christian Bible. Individualism was highly valued in America, but, it is diminishing in the International business competitions. It should be mentioned that there is a common misbelief that the American Indians perished in large numbers because of disease brought over from Europe. Modern medical technology of immunization together with life experiences have shown that it was really foreign invasion that lead to the starvation that caused the sicknesses, which in turn deprived the patients of their productivity, leading to their neglect and death.
YI LING GONG PU is a positive teaching material, and the American Declaration of Independence is a negative teaching material. Both are beneficial to peace, friendship, cooperation and happiness for the human race today.
Appendix 1. MaiYuan Kid Game
I learned a kids' game in Yellow-Pond Canyon adjacent to MaiYuan (Pulsehead) village when I was 7 years old. The game was played with 5 cards. One side of each card has an image or a character of an animal or plant, the other side is of course indistinguishable from one another. The circular inter-relations of the 5 different animals and plant are as follows:
人 吃 鸡 (人胜3 - 鸡，虫，木)
鸡 抓 虫 (鸡胜1 - 虫)
虫 钻 木 (虫胜1 - 木)
木 打 虎 (木胜2 - 虎，鸡)
虎 吃 人 (虎胜3 - 人，鸡，虫)
Human wins over Chicken (human wins over also bug and wood)
Chicken wins over Bug
Bug wins over Wood
Wood wins over Tiger (wood wins over also chicken)
Tiger wins over human (tiger wins over also chicken and bug)
The game above demonstrates the circular reliance of the 5 different types of animals and plant. Tiger symbolizes large carnivor animals that are physically stronger than a human. Tiger wins over Human in forests, but Human uses Wood or clears forest to kill Tiger. This indicates the mutual reliance and fear between humans and animals in order to warn humans to preserve Nature. The ideas expressed in this card game are similar to what the American Indian Seattle expressed: "If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts soon happens to man. All things are connected". The modern Green Peace and Environmentalist movements have also been inspired by this type of thinking.
The British scientist Charles Darwin was amazed at the diversity and inter-dependence of animals and plants during his field trip around the world (1799-1804). He was equally impressed by the fact that species adapted to or were selected by their Natural Environment. He published his famous work "The Origin of Species by Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" was published in 1859, 50 years after his voyage of the Beagle round the world. In 1871, he published another revolutionary work entitled "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex" that applied the laws of natural selection to human races with all their physical and mental faculties.
Large wild carnivor animals like tigers are no longer to be found at MaiYuan Village or in the surrounding mountains, just as they are not found in England. Instead, a folk art called "Lion Dance" is very popular. The lion is played by two persons with one as the head half and the other as the tail half. The dance is accompanied by drum, brass gong, and horn instrument, etc..
When I was a kid, I used to go fishing in the winding stream at the bottom of the residential slope in MaiYuan village. A bamboo stick, a silk line and a small steel hook were the tools. I used earth worm as bait. I never failed to catch small fish, the length of my hand palm, of different kinds. I also went trapping fish with circular bamboo saucers in the shallow river at about 1 km distance. I used cooked ground rice as bait. Fishes were mostly the length of a hand palm. Fishing has been common in Chinese villages in southern China. When I was going out fishing, my grandmother often said "Fishing like Jiang ZiYa". I did not know what she meant. I know only in the year 2001 that Jiang ZiYa, also by the name Sir Yi Ling, was a distant ancestor of the migranting Yi families in ShangXi province of northern China. It may indicate that fishing was common in the Yellow River tributaries in ancient times. Rice farming has been a labor intensive work. It is not siutable for old people to do. Fishing would be one of the things that is both productive and leisurely for old people.
My family told me not to eat the eggs of fish because they were poisonous. So, we milked out the eggs before frying the fish with green or red pepper. In California, I visited a Hydro Dam where large salmon fish, a couple feet in length, were trapped and milked for eggs. The eggs were used to raise fish seedlings to be released back to the stream. The seedlings gradually swim to the ocean. After a few years in the ocean, they come back to where they were born to lay eggs. I have now realized that the MaiYuan people used to wash food and cut fish in the canal and threw away all the inside stuff of a fish. That served to release fish eggs which may still produce fish seedlings, and provide nutrients for water life in rivers and canals.
MaiYuan people teach children with a quiz. "Question: There were 10 birds on a tree. One was shot down and how many were left on the tree? Answer: there were still 9 birds. Correction: there was no more bird on the tree. ". This is different from the modern use of the idiom "kill a chicken to frighten the monkeys" the western use of "scape goat".
Appendix 2. Vacuum Bottle as Pain Killer
My grandmother Xia CuiYu was born in 1906, one of the last generation of women of small feet. She had an elder neighbor by the family name Pang, who also had small feet. Her younger neighbor was her sister. They assisted each other in home affairs. They seldom seek treatment from doctors for illness. Instead, they used the vaccum treatment pain-killing method. The method has the following steps: (1) a small clean glass bottle of approximate size of 50 mm diameter by 50 - 100 mm height was prepared; (2) mouth water was applied to the open end of the bottle as a sealant; (3) a small piece of brown paper was burned and placed inside the bottle; (4) when the paper is nearly burned out the open end of the bottle was pressed firmly againt the forehead; and (5) the bottle was hold in position for a while until the bottle cools down. The criteron for a good procedure is that the bottle should stick to the forehead without support. This process causes a little pain and leaves a red circular area of about 25 mm diameter on the forehead. The circular red mark remains visible for at least two weeks and it serves to inform others that the bearer is ill. The physical principle may be explained as follows. The hot air inside the bottle creates a slight vacuum with gradual cooling while the bottle is sealed air tight because the cooled air occupies less volume. The slight vacuum pulls blood in the forehead towards the bottle to cause the red mark.
A similar treatment method is the "Skin Pinching" method. It has been used to treat headache and heartstroke. The basics are to place the patient in a cool and shaded place, and use fingers to first dip into cold water and then pinch the patient's skin. For headaches, the area between the eyes or the neck at the artery are pinched. For heartstrokes that result in discomfort in the entire body, the neck and/or other parts of the body are pinched. The medical principles of this method are (1) pain killer, (2) body heat dissipation, (3) sleeping pills, and (4) to indicate to others that the person is ill.
The above two sickness treatment methods are a demonstration of simple and effective methods of mobilizing the human immune system to combat disease and illness.
The brown paper mentioned above was the same as the "paper money" that my grandmother's generation used to share fire source from households to households and to worship their ancestors. This type of paper money was perforated with a sharp edged steel stamp at the local town. As a kid, I could remember one ceremony that she performed. It was a festival day, the entire family was together. She cooked the usual festival dishes and put them on the table placed in front of the simple or symbolic altar. She filled one bowl with rice and put some other food on top of it. She filled a small cup with rice wine. Then she burned some paper money and poured the rice wine to the ground, and said something to ask ancestors to protect the family. My bother asked her to pour out the rice as well, but she insisted to eat the bowl of rice herself because she had taught the family not to waste a grain of rice. She was a small feet old widow, a house maker and home industrial worker. Unfortunately, she was classified as a landlord. She was sometimes taken captive by youngsters and intimidated. She had a son and a daughter. Her son-in-law lost his life in the Cultural Revolution. She had lots of work but no income. Her work included cooking, laundary, cleaning, taking care of children, raising domestic animals, cotton weaving, making cloth shoes, etc.. I now understand that she was a women lonely in spirit and could only ask the spirit for protection. She felt relief or security after burning the paper money.
Today, many people enjoy going shopping and spending money. They use the products for a short while and then throw them away. They want to make more and more money, but spend it or save it to achieve the feeling of relief or security. The governments worked to endlessly devalue the money and to make more paper money available. In the West, material waste is staggering. Paper, plastic or metal dishes, cups and containers are used only once and then thrown away. Advertisement papers keep on coming to the households and then get trucked to the garbage dump. Waste of this kind is a crime against Nature.
Appendix 3. Modern Explanation of God：
Many people in the West are familiar with the Catholic religion. They consider that God is "Father" (Jehovah), "Son" (Jesus Christ) and "Holy Ghost" three in One. These words may sound strange to people who have not read the bible. But, in the context of the bible, "Father" may be related to "Nature", "Son" to "People" and "Holy Ghost" to "Spirit" (or mental work). Variations of these may be found in different religions. The Jehovah's Witnesses Inc. of New York believe that there are three powerful heavenly beings: God (Jehovah), His Son (Jesus Christ) and the Devil Satan. Central to the Christian culture is the belief that God is invisible and powerful. The characters of God may include Love, Justice, Wisdom and Power.
Appendix 4. A Bio-Excretion Processing System
There is a kind of maggot insects that colonize the open toilets of farmers. In larvae form, they are white in color, about 2 mm diameter and 10 mm length. They digest the human excretion in the wet toiletts. They may be used as food for domestic animals like ducks and chicken. They then turn into dark flies that are called "maggot flies", and fly all over the house. Such flies are also found in the United States. The processed excretion were used as fertilizer. Lime could be added to alter its chemical composition and control the spread of disease.
The flies may contain tiny amount of disease microorganisms. On the one hand, they could serve as vaccination for humans, on the other hand, they put human health at risk. To combat the possible adverse effects, all types of foods are cooked in a deep wok and treated with a certain amount of steam under a deep wooden lid. Taking fried vegetables for example, vegetables are first fried in oil; they are then kept in steam condition under the lid for a short while. Small amount of vinegar may be added. Rice wine with a low percentage of alcohol is commonly consumed. These additions not only provide nutrition supplements but also further prevent the spread of disease.
Appendix 5. Part of Mao's Ancestral Poem：
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