The end of 2006, one thing caused little shaking in the Chinese, the Dragon is also as a symbol of Chinese national debate. In fact, earlier in the debate began. In 2004, of the Changjiang Arts publishing house published the Wolf Totem, the author in this book, put forward the advocating of the Chinese nation “very likely that the Dragon Totem is the Wolf Totem evolved from nomadic” which attracted widespread attention at home and abroad, and widely disputed. In July 2006, there was one user posting on the Internet that we inherited the wild boar of the Chinese people smart, wisdom, spirit upright and unyielding, Valor, and other cultural, children of the Chinese are pigs, not descendants of the Dragon. Since then, the head of society of Chinese mythology who is language a remarkable, he said: “the Dragon Totem from the bear Totem of the Chinese nation.” If the seemingly astonishing views several times above has not caused widespread concern in society, then, this time of controversy it caused widespread concern in society. Causes is a leading university professors in Shanghai Declaration Shanghai city planning philosophy and social science subjects and has obtained approval, the reconstruction project is the name of the brand and showing the world China’s national image, main content is to consider removing the “Dragon” as a representative image of China’s position, while building a new national image logo. The declared reason is that, “the Dragon” in English “Dragon”, in the Western world is considered to be a monster full of arrogance and aggression. “The Dragon” image often know little about Chinese history and culture of the legend of the foreigners have some bad, so as to affect the international image of China. This theory came out, immediately becoming a hot topic of network and media debate.
Since ancient times to the Chinese nation proud descendants of the Dragon, it was proposed to cancel the Chinese Dragon symbols of status, cause for concern is reasonable thing. So let us look at how Chinese traditional classics describes Dragon, why Dragon can contact our peoples together.
Han, of the said article of Xu Shen’s write view, Dragon’s Ascension into the function: “Dragon Lindorm long deep out to small to large, long-short, Equinox and bounds, autumnal equinox to Sichuan. “Erbium authored the Guangya, think of the three countries, there are various different Dragon:” scales said the Dragon, winged said Dragon, Kok said a kind of Dragon, Kok said hornless Dragon-free Dragon. “Song Luo in the wish for the elite wing of the view that nine animals feature the Dragon is set in one:” the point like a deer, head like a camel, eyes like a rabbit, snake, belly like a frog, fish scales, claws like a bone of the Eagle, Tiger, ears like cattle. “Morphology and origin of the Dragon later ancient scholars did a study. Morphology and origin of the Dragon by these scholars to explore, we can see that the ancient dragon described an idealization, of the existence of mystification. Dragon if different dinosaur and specific, of the kind described by the ancients set features nine animals like dragons, are in fact does not exist. This is the image of the Dragon with the collective wisdom of the Chinese nation created a human “animal”, is in the minds of the Chinese fiction out of a mascot, reflecting the history of the development of the Chinese nation and peoples in the integration process. Then, animals that do not exist, is associated with how we as a nation. In this issue, there are two long history legend: one legend is that, the Yellow Emperor in uniform before the Central Plains, Xiong Wei tribal totem. Defeated Chi you in particular, unified after the Central Plains, to enable tribes to unite closely, cohesion, he and other tribes of the tribal totem Totem integration became a representative of common worship of Totem image—Dragon of the Chinese nation. Therefore, the Dragon holds the image of the Chinese history of integration, unity and cohesion between various ethnic groups. There is also a legend in jiaxiang County, Shandong province of Eastern Han Wu graves carved stone is confirmed. Stone inscriptions in this group, there is a set of portraits of the emperors. Portraits in China include Fuxi, God of fire, Shennong and Huang di, Tang Yao, Yu etc ten kings. Nine Kings are the head of which the person, only Fu XI’s He Nvwa draw together, and both are physical, Dragon’s tail. Legends of Fuxi and nuwa marriage under epigenetic humans, Fu XI is the Humanities ancestor of the Chinese nation, and linked together with the Chinese Dragon. For thousands of years, the dragon has been deeply carved in the image of the Chinese nation deep in the heart of every Chinese has been deeply rooted in traditional Chinese culture and psychology of the nation, descendants of mental provincialism and emotional ties in the world! We Chinese tend to themselves as “descendants of the Dragon” to be proud of, all friendly people in the world is to “Eastern Dragon” refers to China. In the minds of the Chinese, the Dragon represents good luck, harmonious long represents the good weather, the harvest of happiness, representing solidarity, everlasting. Relationship between Dragon and all people and things seem to be the symbol of auspicious festive. Not only has a specific meaning in various parts of the Dragon: protruding forehead represents wisdom; antlers said the State and a long life; the Chief moral leader names; Tiger eye manifestations dignified; talons Valor; symbol dashing eyebrows valiant; nasal symbol valuable Lion; gold fish symbols flexible horse tooth symbol of hard work and kindness. And the Dragon culture has penetrated into all aspects of our social life, the dragon as a symbol of the Chinese nation and the symbol are evolving for thousands of years, it has gone through a long historical process.
Due to differences in culture between East and West, angle of looking at things, understanding the attitudes are very different things. Westerners may caused some adverse effects on the Chinese Dragon is not grounds for changing the image of the Chinese Dragon. China has a history of thousands of years of civilization, with its own unique historical and cultural traditions, if returned to the more than 100 years ago, when still unable to fully grasp their own national destiny of the Chinese nation, when the only answer “Yes” and “no” when we could only dependence and trampled. And now is different, already standing in the world among the Chinese nation, is the indomitable spirit of Oriental giant, we don’t need Westerners to the history and culture make gestures to China, Chief Executive. If we follow their logic, if someone does not like traditional Western culture, Westerners should abandon it? Obviously this logic is preposterous.
Of course, this dispute also gave us some enlightenment, the Enlightenment is “Dragon” translation problems. In fact, the Chinese Dragon and Dragon are two fundamentally different kinds of animals in the West, not confuse. Perhaps the Chinese “Dragon” translated as “Dragon”, was a mistake. To avoid this confusion, has some scholars suggested that “Dragon” of closer to pronunciation and English translation of Chinese “Long”, “Loong”, “Liong” and many other choices. This is a useful attempt.
Overall, in the era of economic globalization, cultural nationality needs to be respected. Culture of globalization does not mean that the nationality of the dead, only those who are able to adapt to globalization, national characteristics and to maintain their traditional culture, to exist and continue to develop. More peoples of the world, conversely, the more the world needs more traditional culture with national characteristics. In the globalization process, maintain an independence of the national traditional culture, confirm the traditional culture of ethnic identity becomes increasingly important. For us, only to find the source of its own national culture, to identify future development direction only to find the pulse of the culture of their nation, to Ze Hui-descendants of the Chinese nation; only to find the root of the culture of their own nation can effectively hold the destiny of the Chinese nation, will achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.