Ana Cristina Alves, attained her PhD with maximum score cum laudae (with distinction).
I do not remember how long I have known her. There is no time measurement, but I always knew her as being very pleasant, smiling, carrying that spontaneous joy that infects and transports us to another world where the pleasure of Friendship circulates.
She came back to Macau very recently to give a series of classes at the University of Macau, also her University, where she taught for years, and she wanted to give a public lecture, because sharing in a selfish world is what is natural of the spiritual greatness of this friend of mine. This opportunity led me to want to know more of what she knows so much, and with that ease of exposure that flows with the pleasure that she feels in communicating, this conversation was born that will stay here in my blog, for years, I hope, for future memory.
Professor Ana Cristina Alves, since when and why, was this interest of yours in China was born?
A.C.A.: My interest on China was born of the philosophical curiosity of wanting to understand Chinese characters. Why was the language so different from the West? I tried to understand the differences at first by simply learning the official language of China, Pǔtōnghuà (普通话), only later I became interested in the people who spoke Chinese, whether Chinese or Macanese ....
In your lecture at the “Rui Cunha Foundation”, and with regard to the Chinese concept of religion, would you care to clarify the mystery referred to in the Dào (道). Is "obscuring obscurity", in your view, the door to understanding the mystery?
Still on this theme, how do you see this same mystery in the Buddhist Xīn (心)? Is compassion, love, part of the mystery? If so, what mystery? Does the definition imply a transcendence as we know it?
A.C.A.: My relationship with the Dào (道) is not intellectual but dynamic and affective, so I believe it can be considered "an obscuring obscurity", that is, an instinctive connection, sent to intuitive knowledge. I translate Dào as a "path" whose conceptualization I avoid. I take each step with the intuitive certainty of immersion in a deep mystery, which Buddhists help to experience, as you saw very well, through Xīn (心), the attentive heart and compassionate, or rather, with-sharer than the "passions" of any living being. What happens through a double movement of transcendence and osmosis: one walks towards the other, one feels his pain (a) and his passionate states in himself (a).
You do of course understand that Rén (仁) is the essence of Confucianism. Are the precepts of the "Analects" and the Li (禮) as a ritual today, part of the behavioural edifice of the Chinese? For example, in the case of silence as a place of waiting or face preservation, Carlos Castañeda, disciple of the Mexican sorcerer Don Juan, emerges curiously "The Power of Silence".
A.C.A.: I agree with you. Rén (仁) is the essence of Confucianism, softened by the philosophical tradition of the school, and from Mencius by the possibility of loving connection brought by Ài (爱), attention and care to the other, even when it belongs to the female sex, because on the one hand, Mencius had an admirable mother, and on the other, he impartially loved human beings, so he placed them, women included, above the Rites Lǐ(禮), the most important thing would always be to care for and save someone instead of obeying the commandments and precepts, even when they have divine origin.
As to the place occupied by the Five Virtues (Benevolence 仁, Justice 義, Rites 禮, Wisdom 智 and Confidence 信), as values capable of influencing the behavior of the Chinese, it was almost lost, this being one of the complementary justifications of the current ideology for the role of the Confucius Institutes and Classrooms within China and abroad as a softpower capable not only of elevating Chinese culture to an internationally recognized pedestal but also of reminding the people of the basic virtues forgotten by a century of predominance of Western philosophies, as for example Marxism, arrival in China did not come through Germany, but Russia.
Although the Confucian tradition of containment and control, reservation and silence has not been completely forgotten by the Chinese. Silence is an integral part of many oriental cultures, in which the Chinese are integrated. It is in its cultural veins that it is the result of a rigorous and not self-congratulatory education, on the other hand derived from purposive philosophical positions developed for this end.
Speaking about the Self and the Other, do you think that we can understand by philosophy the behavioural processes that Chinese tourism abroad shows, or will other instruments such as anthropology and sociology be needed? Put another way, as a second question within the first, what is the phenomenon of today's mass culture in China?
ACA: I think that the Chinese have caught the boat of globalization and that they feel a great curiosity and fascination for all kinds of cultural, economic and social manifestations, which leads to travels to satisfy this enormous will to embrace the other, especially all the news with which the other can contribute to enrich the Chinese world. I believe that, and perhaps is mistaken, the tourist curiosity of the Chinese is more intellectual than affective. The novelties are mainly aimed at personal and collective enrichment, and not so much the attempt of fusion or transmutation in the other.
In Portugal at least one faculty of philosophy, his, understands that Chinese knowledge is not philosophy, but literature so alone.
We are probably witnessing the lack of a bit of otherness. We are attending a group of pseudo gourmets entering a Chinese restaurant and eating with fork and knife. Are we facing the crass (and unexpected) manifestation of ignorance coming from an area that would demand the exact opposite, or do we witness the manifestation of the fear of the unknown?
ACA: It is true that for a long time the Portuguese university institutions, in particular the departments of Philosophy, remained in the zone of Western comfort, not looking for any approaches to other ways of doing Philosophy, so when confronted with them they apocused and demoted them, cataloging -as as Art, namely Literature, in the wake of the Platonic prejudice launched against the Arts, considered inferior to Philosophy.
The situation has been changing, very slowly, it is certain, but it is already letting the light of hope shine. I believe that these new generations will have a greater range of choices within the departments of Philosophy, which will have to follow the changes brought about by a new time of alliances, especially political ones. The time of the philosophical prejudices relative to expressions of knowledge that do not fit by the pitch of the same has the days counted, being the case to say that it is better late than never.
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