Yumiko's World: Day 14 – 2 weeks in Wuhan

Day 14

Today is a cold and wet day. In addition, I am having flu. This is my first time falling sick in overseas and my family members are not around. How I wish they were here…

I woke up at 8am and OIE lecture on Chinese Philosophy Part 1 started at 9am. I took quite a lot of notes as I am very interested in this particular area. 2 hours later, we went out for lunch at the soup stall, my favouriteJ I ordered 山药排骨汤. YUM!

山药排骨汤

After lunch, we went shopping at the supermarket and a bookstore. We then returned to our dormitory room before heading for Physiology lecture on Endocrine System. At 4pm, we ended and headed back to our rooms for a shower and then had dinner. Later in the night, we had to do our tutorial (due tomorrow) and OIE presentation slides (due on Wednesday). So that’s my day today.

Reflections:

I learnt a lot during the OIE lecture today.

There are 4 main philosophy back in the Spring Autumn Period of East Zhou Dynasty (东周-春秋) from 770 – 476 BC. They are: Confucianism (儒家), Taoism (道家), Moism (墨家) and Legalism (法家). I prefer Confucianism (儒家) to others as Confucianism (儒家) taught me moral values that are more useful to me.

Confucianism (儒家) was led by Kong Zi (孔子) and the main concepts of his teachings are: 1. Humanity 2. Rite 3. Rectification of Names 4. Doctrine of the Mean 5. On Heaven and the Spirits 6. Government by Virtue. Meng Zi (孟子) is the second sage of Confucianism (儒家). He had a famous story and that was 《孟母三迁》. This is how the story goes:

Meng Zi’s father passed away when he was young and his mother did not remarry. At first, they lived near the cemetery but then Meng Zi started to learn to bow and cry as adults did during funeral. That was when his mother decided that she could not let her children live there anymore so they moved to a market near a butcher stall. However, Meng Zi started to learn how businessmen did business and how the butcher slaughtered the sheep and swine. When his mother saw it, she frowned and decided to move as the place was not suitable for her children to live. This time round, they moved to an area near a school and lived. The officials would visit the temple and greet each other politely on the first day of every month on the lunar calendar. When Meng Zi saw it, he learnt them by heart. This time, his mother smiled with satisfaction and said “This is the place where my son should live!”

Since then, people used this story to say that one should be close to good people and things in order to learn good habits. This also shows that environment can change one’s hobbies and habits.

With reference to: http://baike.baidu.com/view/45153.htm

Xun Zi (荀子) was another sage from Confucianism (儒家) as well.

Photo of the day:

Taken when I was on my way back to dormitory room after lecture J This is definitely not seen in Singapore.