2023年4月7日至10日，北京大学燕京学堂院长董强应邀访问哈佛大学，并在4月9日的第二十六届哈佛中国论坛闭幕式上，发表题为《国际教育，未来所在》（International education: the future)的主旨演讲。全文如下。
Dear friends and scholars,
I’m so happy and honored to be invited to this forum and to deliver a speech at this closing ceremony. As you may have noticed, and as the host of this panel has mentioned, I’m an expert in the domain of France and the relationship between China and France, in particular, and Europe, in general. So, apparently, I should have no occasion to be in an American environment.
By the way, it is interesting to note that the length of time living in France gave me a precious experience: the French people generally don’t have a very good opinion of Americans – I’m sorry to say that – especially in my milieu with French intellectuals! But something gave me a sense of criticism against this anti-American attitude when I lived there: I came from China and grew up in an ambiance of great enthusiasm for the US. It gave me a possibility of balance to distinguish that kind of antipathy of French people toward America. And today, I realize that this experience gives me another possibility of balance: as I’m familiar with this kind of general attitude against a country or a people, I’m not so worried about some so-called antipathies toward China.
Just a few days before I came to Boston, I was touched by an interview of Mr. Steve Orlins, someone I respect and who plays an important role in the relationship between the United States and China. You may be surprised if I tell you that I’ve met him several times in China, and we have sat together to enjoy concerts and discuss several topics concerning America and China. In that interview, he expressed that the relationship between the two countries is not only an affair of politicians or political policies but also – and much more importantly – a question of people-to-people relationships. As my experience in France teaches me, French people say they don’t like the United States but continue planning trips to America. Similarly, Americans who complain about French people’s pride or even arrogance spend their time in France to enjoy French wines and champagnes. It will be monotonous, plain, and unbearable if one country’s people pass their days to say how great another society is! Understanding a bit of human nature, it’s just impossible. The reality is even when we totally admire a friend, we sometimes make some jokes to mock them. A real friendship is judged by the degree that we can accept mockery and criticism from that person.
Three years ago, when I was at Harvard for the first time – I want to extend my heartful thanks to George Zheng, who took the initiative with his friends at the forum’s Executive Committee to invite me because we met each other during that journey three years ago. So, three years ago, when I came to Harvard and discovered for the first time the US, I was completely unaware that one day I would become the Dean of Yenching Academy, an institution that attracts a lot of young scholars from American universities, including Harvard. I remember convincing the students with me to visit the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and I showed them my favorite art pieces, including Monet’s Grainstack, or the delicious piece in which Monet painted his wife in a Japanese kimono, with many elements of “fushihui”, Ukiyoe, literally “painting on the floating life”.
I will not forget another masterpiece among the French art collections in the same museum. A Gauguin’s fresco, based on his Tahiti experience, showing the idyllic life of people called “wild people” in the Western world. I remember thinking to myself that the most intriguing aspect of this painting is its title. At the top left corner of the picture, Gauguin wrote a phrase: “Where do we come from? What are we? (not “Who are we”?) Where are we going?” These questions – I would like to ascribe the “questions of Gauguin” – are fundamental questions of the human being. I’m very surprised that humankind waited for such a long time, until the very end of the 19th century, to listen to a painter – not a philosopher, politician, or scientist – who raised those questions for them. This painter asked the question when he discovered a people who were considered “wild and savage” without any kind of industrial, technological, or even cultural progress.
Every time I encounter a topic of some importance, I try to ask myself these questions. When I met Dr. Kissinger for the first time in Beijing in 2008, I bowed before him and extended my gratitude to him because – I said to him – he was the first Western person I had ever heard about growing up in China! When I was a child, my little room was not decorated by wallpapers but newspapers, and just upon my bed, there was an article, with photos, about Dr. Kissinger’s visit to China! Chinese people of my age (I was born in the late sixties) grew up remembering the names of Kissinger and Nixon. Furthermore, if European countries were known in my country through some fictive elements derived from literary or artistic works, in contrast, the Americans are recognized immediately as a reality, especially as a political reality.
Consequently, when we think about America, we think about politics, economics, and advanced technologies, and what we are noticing now is that some differing opinions relating to politics are injuring economic and advanced technology sectors. It’s so regrettable! I want to insist on one thing: America is not just political. America is, above all, a country of inclusion. If we have grown in an ambiance of enthusiasm for America, it was because of its inclusiveness. Its power comes from its openness to all nationalities, all cultures. When China exited the rigid political ambiance of the Cultural Revolution, the famous “American dream” was also our dream. And often, I say to myself when we talk about the Chinese dream: is it so different from the American dream? As a specialist in language, I would like to tell you that it is very recently that the word “dream” gained a positive connotation in Chinese. In ancient China, “dream” had, in most cases, a negative connotation because it translated as “something not true”, unrealized, or regrettable. Whenever the Chinese talk about the “Chinese dream”, the reference to the famous “American dream” is apparent. So, why must we distinguish these two dreams as totally opposite? Just as if the dream of the one must be the nightmare of the other.
As I’m not a specialist in politics or an expert on the relationship between China and the United States, I will stop to ask such innocent questions. These “Dong Qiang’s questions” might be considered naïve, especially compared to Gauguin’s fundamental questions. I want to talk about the understanding and the misunderstanding between people and societies. Today, many people, especially experts, are afraid of the misunderstanding between the two countries and the two peoples.
“It is unfortunate that England and America have so long ignored or mistaken the deeper problems of Oriental culture. We have misconceived the Chinese as for materialistic people, for a debased and worn-out race. We have belittled the Japanese as a nation of copyists. We have stupidly assumed that Chinese history affords no glimpse of change in social evolution, no salient epoch of moral and spiritual crisis. We have denied the essential humanity of these peoples; and we have toyed with their ideals as if they were no better than comic songs in an ‘opera bouffe’.”
This quote is from an American scholar, Ernest Fenollosa, at the beginning of his famous article about Chinese, The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry. I think of him and this phrase because of his reference to French culture (“opera-bouffe”), but especially because he was an eminent element of Harvard and Boston. He worked in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and organized Boston's first exhibition of Chinese painting in 1894. This book was edited by Ezra Pound in 1908. One could have made the same criticism in the same year in China: that the Chinese people did not understand Europe, America, or other parts of the world.
More than one hundred years later, has the situation really changed?
Objectively, I have to recognize that the current situation does not appear to be very satisfying. However, in human history, more than one hundred years cannot pass without any impacts or improvements. It’s just a question of ups and downs, just like the waves. If there’s one thing that can really contribute to a mutual understanding, it will be (international) education. If my generation has grown up in an atmosphere of enthusiasm for America, it’s because we are all fruits of international education. I’m a professor in the School of Foreign Languages at Peking University, and to remember the history, its origin is Tong Wen Guan, “The Academy for a universal language”, if translated literally). It was founded after being agreed upon by the Qing emperor in 1862, which was more than thirty years before the Imperial University of Peking, the origin of Peking University, was founded. This was the first time foreign teachers were employed to give lessons, and the aim of the academy was to “help to understand the world,” according to the founders. Consequently, thirty years before the first exhibition of Chinese art organized by Fenollosa in Boston, the Chinese Imperial Court felt it necessary to open a school specializing in English and other foreign languages. One of the first foreign teachers was John Fryer, one of the most influential individuals involved in the introduction of modern sciences and technologies in China, who produced a large number of translations of scientific books. For example, he helped create a system to translate all of the chemical elements into Chinese. After a number of unwelcome changes in his life in China, he left the country, as he was deeply disappointed by the government at that time. However, his heritage has remained until this day. His system still helps us to learn science and technology, and China has become one of the most advanced countries in the world in these fields.
Dear friends, I’m sure you know a famous sentence in Chinese: “Ten years to build a tree, one hundred years to build a man.” I would like to keep the word “build” in the translation because it reminds me of the German word for education, “Bilden,” which also means “cultivate,” close to the word “culture.” That’s the essence of education. It’s the foundation of civilizations, going beyond the vicissitudes of an era or a period. International education, with human exchanges, is one of the best ways to prepare for the future.
However, one may ask: Is the future of education not threatened, for example, by ChatGPT or other advancements in artificial intelligence? This fundamental question requires an answer. My response is that AI will undoubtedly change the ways of education. But one of the defenses of education against AI is precisely international education because it can provide a valuable experience: living in another country. Yenching Academy’s experience tells me, just like my experience of studying in France, that an international ambiance in a foreign country is the best thing a young person can find to aid their development. It’s a unique opportunity where young people can build themselves with a sense of inclusiveness.
“The Chinese problem alone is so vast that no nation can afford to ignore it. In America, especially, we must face it across the Pacific, and master it, or it will master us. The only way to achieve mastery is to strive with patient sympathy to understand the best, the most hopeful, and the most human elements in it”, quoted Fenollosa.
Similarly, one can write the exact phrase for Chinese people. We must seek to understand the best, most hopeful, and most human elements in the American people. I hope that the Harvard College China Forum will continue to be a place where one can encounter people interested in the problems of both countries and enhance mutual understanding between the two peoples who genuinely deserve it for the sake of the world and the future.
To conclude my speech, I want to share a phrase from an ancient Roman dramatist, Publius Terentius, “HOMO SUM SED NIL HUMANUM MIHI ALIENUM PUTO,” which means “I’m a human, so I consider nothing of mankind stranger to me.” Terentius lived in the second century BC when education was still forbidden to enslaved people and women. I wish we could finally realize this Roman Dream in our modern era.
Thank you!
董强院长还在论坛期间与著名建筑师马岩松、马清运、埃里克·根、吴越，著名经济学家刘守英等人进行了《城市新常态与未来》的专题讨论，由哈佛中国论坛学术顾问郑直主持。
论坛之后，董强在杨继东馆长的陪同下参观了哈佛燕京图书馆，并与哈佛大学费正清中国研究中心主任伍人英（Marc Wu)、前中心主任宋怡明（Michael Szonyi）、研究员王开元等人进行了会谈。
