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CONFUCIANISM STRESSED By LYLE W. NASH THE FABULOUS CONCUBINE by Chang Hsin hai (Simon and Schuster, $3.95), clearly pallate to the Western reader an ingenious account of China, in terms of the Chinese official mind. Since the author himself is of Chinese origin and served as an envoy for his coun se this orientation in de ug on wt tree signed “to relate factual his torical events concerning the Boxer Rebellion around the close of the 19th century. Golden Orchid is the “Fabu lous Concubine,” young, clever and representative of Chinese oriental beauty. She becomes the “married concubine” of the distinguished scholar and diplo mat, Shen Wen-ching. Albeit Wen-ching was provided with a wife some years previously, he reverts to the old, but con venient Chinese custom of legally marrying his concu bine. “The age may be old but the heart is young” adequately describes the foible of this Chinese plenipotentiary. Wen-ching becomes ambas sador designate to the Court of the Kaiser and thereby takes Golden Orchid with him to Ber lin where he assumes his of ficial duties, the tact ful and combined efforts of the loving twosome, they are able to transcend racial and cul tural differences. Wen-ching is a devoted Confucian philoso pher and thereby concludes the differences in human beings to be principally concerned with education and culture. History, dress, customs, etc., he con siders to be superficial because they represent products of na ture and environment alone. Through kindly understanding, human similarities become more important than human differences. Regardless of this tenable at titude of brotherly love, Wen ching’s career is doomed for failure and he dies of a broken heart. Golden Orchid later be comes involved in the confla gration of the Chinese Boxer Rebellion. However, because of her everlasting beauty and re markable shrewdness, she is able to mold her existence into a life of pleasure and luxury. The FABULOUS CONCU BINE provides entertaining reading and concurrently stres ses the importance of Confu cianism, which is as real to the Chinese mind as Christ's teach ings are to Christian believers. Rosa V. Witczak * county Le #5 S ess pes fo Catacei tanhe. 471 pares, $7.00 Here is a colorful slice of western Americana written by a proungster from an eastern college who came to “wide open spaces” of Colorado and learned to be a cowboy. From College to Cow Country is whopping big book, and lots of pleasant country seen through the eyes of a man who obviously liked the land. Here is a homey, fast-read ing chronicle of the old west, shorn of gun play and intrigue. It has a comfortable, familar feel to it as the author learns the ropes of the cow country, as he buys his first ranch, wran stock, tries to make cow out of range cow. Enjoyable and well worth rereading. —R. L. THE controlling power in America has shifted from the politicians to the military and the corporate executives, says idiologist C. Wright Mills in “The Power Elite” (Oxford Univ. Press, $6.00). We now combine “a permanent war economy and a private-corpora tion economy . . . Not politi cians, but corporate executives, sit with the military and plan the organization of war effort.” This 423 volume con cerns itself with the stratifica tion of economic, political, mili tary, and power and traces the shifts of this power during American history. Prof. Mills joins many other American scholars in deploring current educational trends, and delivers a few well aimed blows at the “professional educators.” Thus in discussing the educa tion of the masses, he says: “In the hands of ‘professional edu cators’ many schools have come to operate on the ideol ogy of ‘life adjustment’ that encourages happy acceptance of mass ways of life .. . They do not effectively proclaim standards of cultural level and intellectual rigor; rather they often deal in the trivia of voca tional tricks and ‘adjustment to life’—meaning the slack life of the masses.” A penetrating chapter on the trained snobbishness of the up per social classes contains the nice observation that the term “old family” means “rich old family. Many of Prof. Mills’ thoughts are hidden behind his obscure and turgid prose. You have to read some sentences several times to arrive at a meaning.— Gus Albrecht,
Newspaper Details
Independent
Pasadena, California, US
Thu, May 09, 1957
Page 48
Full Page
Clipped by
Fai Y.
USA 14 Oct 2025
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