①Confucianism (儒家思想) has been followed by Chinese people for more than two thousand years.
②To help people understand how to behave towards others, Confucianism teaches the Five Constants (五常). These are ren, yi, li, zhi and xin. They are general virtues (美德) around the world. The most important two are ren and li.
③Ren is the feeling of care and love we should have for others. Confucius explained ren could best be understood as loving others. He is famous for teaching people “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” It is quite similar to what is known in the West as the Golden Rule (treat others as you wish to be treated).
④While the meaning of ren is easy to understand, li is a little harder to express. It can be thought of as duty or even respect. Generally, li is the way we should connect with people in our everyday life. In Confucian writings, discussions about li include the proper way to drink tea and how to remember ancestors (祖先). While ren is mostly about our opinions and feelings, li is about how we express our opinions and feelings towards others and towards the world around us.
⑤Perhaps the most well-known Confucian virtue is xiao. This is the duty children have to their parents. Xiao means loving, respecting, obeying and taking care of one’s parents in their old age. In Confucianism, xiao is important for a harmonious (和谐的) society: Without it, the whole world would fall into a mess.
【小题1】What is the best Chinese translation of the underlined sentence in Paragraph 3?| A．博学于文，约之以礼。 | B．学而不思则罔，思而不学则殆。 |
| C．己所不欲，勿施于人。 | D．君子和而不同，小人同而不和。 |
| A．Building a peaceful society. | B．Taking care of one’s children. |
| C．Obeying rules for drinking tea. | D．Learning all through one’s life. |
| A．To tell us about general virtues in Confucianism. |
| B．To let us know the long history of Confucianism. |
| C．To show us the new challenges in the development of Confucianism. |
| D．To explain the golden rules in Confucianism. |
A． | B． |
C． | D． |
