Classmates, what do you say is the next line after “When the world rises or falls”? — No, it is “It is my responsibility.” If this year everyone taking the college entrance exam got an extra 10 points, wouldn’t that amount to no bonus at all? “When the world rises or falls, every common man has a duty” means nobody has any duty. “Every common man has a duty” should be changed to “It is my responsibility.” This is how I teach my students. So, if education on our mainland is not being run well now, that is my, Gao Zhentung’s, responsibility. Precisely because of this, I returned to the motherland especially to give lectures on morality. (Applause) “To take the rise and fall of the world as one’s own duty” is Mencius’s idea. Yu was a man, Shun was a man, and I am a man too! What they could do, why can’t I? “When the world rises or falls, it is my responsibility” — only with this idea does our country have hope. If every one of our students says: poor order at school is my responsibility; poor national education is my responsibility; the nation not being prosperous is my responsibility... if everyone can take responsibility on their own initiative, what country would fail to prosper? What group would fail to unite? So every student should pull responsibility onto himself, not push it away. This is how I run schools in Taiwan. If a classroom is very dirty, I ask, “What happened?” If a student stands up and says, “Reporting to teacher, today it was student no. 32’s turn on duty, and he didn’t clean,” then that student is going to get a beating. In my school, students would say this: “Teacher, sorry, this is my responsibility,” and then immediately go clean it. If a light bulb is broken, whichever student sees it will take out his own money to buy one and put it in. If a windowpane is broken, students will immediately buy a new one and replace it themselves — this is education: not pushing responsibility away, but taking it on. Some people may say that this is suffering a loss. I tell you, suffering a loss is taking advantage. This kind of education must be firmly remembered in our hearts. Every Chinese person must remember it!
Schools should train students even more in this way of thinking: “When the world rises or falls, it is my responsibility.” If the campus is not clean, that should be everyone’s responsibility. Think about it: on such a big campus, if you don’t damage it and I don’t damage it, would it get dirty? Once it is dirty, if everyone goes and cleans it up, would it stay dirty? You only expect a few workers to do this job and say, “That’s their business. I’m here to study, not to sweep the floor.” — What kind of attitude is that? What are you studying for? Isn’t studying for serving the country? If you won’t even serve the immediate task in front of you, how can you serve in the future? If you won’t shoulder your current responsibility, can you shoulder future responsibility? If a faucet is leaking, can’t you stop it? Some people will say, “That’s not my business, that’s the general affairs office’s business.” This is wrong. The worst bad habit of ordinary people is this: they turn on a faucet, find there’s no water, then go turn on a second one; that one has no water either, so they go turn on a third one — students like that would be expelled from my school! They don’t even understand how to draw inferences. If the first one has no water, will the second one? Didn’t it occur to you that the water may come later? How can a person get by without thinking ahead? As a cadre, as a person, you must think of the consequences. The farther ahead a person can see consequences, the more successful he is. A person who cares only about what is right in front of him and not about the future is not a good cadre, nor a useful person. If the water pipe is left open, and when water comes it gushes away and fills the whole basin, yet no one pays attention, saying, “Anyway it’s the country’s water, not my own!” — wasting the nation’s property makes one a traitor! Why do you waste the country’s water? Why do you waste the country’s resources? Every day when I wash my face, I save one basin of water for the country. Figure out how much that saves in a year. Your school has more than six thousand students. If each person saves one basin of water every day, how much is that in a year? Saving water means saving electricity, means saving national resources. There are two kinds of love: one is active patriotism, the other is passive patriotism. Active patriotism is creating wealth for the country; passive patriotism is saving wealth for the country. The country uses so much of the people’s hard-earned wealth to support your studies, yet you still waste the country’s wealth — where is your conscience? If even university students are like this, how can we expect anything from middle school students or primary school students? How can we expect anything from ordinary common people? If you highly educated intellectuals do not love your country, how can you ask the common people to do so? Only by starting from ourselves does our country have hope — this is the moral concept of positive responsibility in “When the world rises or falls, it is my responsibility.” This is moral education.
Another point: we must have the professional ethic of “Do not fail to do good because it is small, and do not do evil because it is small.” Are there any truly great things in the world? No. But any small thing is a big thing. Accumulated small evils become great evil; accumulated small good becomes great good. Cultivating good morals starts with respecting teachers, and starts from very, very small things. This kind of morality is built up little by little; it is not something you only do when some major matter comes along. This morning after class, I came out together with the president of the normal university, and there was a lot of waste paper in the auditorium. I said, don’t pick it up; wait until the students pick it up themselves this afternoon. Classmates, whoever dropped these scraps of paper does not love the country. There are no great things in the world. First pick up the paper scraps at your own feet — this is my “teaching material.” Good, classmates picking up the waste paper at their own feet — that is the beginning of patriotism. Let me tell you two stories about waste paper.
The first: in America there was a “Ford Company.” Ford was a man. After graduating from university, he went to apply to an automobile company. The three or four other people applying with him all had higher educational qualifications than he did. After the first few had interviewed, he felt he had little hope. But since he had come, he might as well settle in. He knocked and entered the chairman’s office. As soon as he entered, he saw a piece of paper on the floor by the door. He bent down to pick it up, found it was a piece of waste paper, and casually threw it into the wastebasket. Only then did he walk up to the chairman’s desk and say, “I am Ford, here to apply for the job.” The chairman said, “Very good, very good! Mr. Ford, you have been hired by us.” Ford said in surprise, “Chairman, I think the previous few were all better than I am. Why did you hire me?” The chairman said, “Mr. Ford, the previous three did indeed have higher education than you, and they looked dignified as well. But their eyes could only see big things, and could not see small things. Your eyes can see small things. I believe that a person who can see small things will naturally see big things in the future. But a person who can only see big things will overlook many small things. He will not succeed. That is why I hired you.” That is how Ford entered the company. Before long, the company became famous throughout the world. Ford changed its name to “Ford Company,” and also changed the entire condition of America’s national economy, making America’s automobile industry stand at the top of the world. This is Ford, the founder of today’s “American Ford Company.” Tell me, was that scrap of paper important or not? A person who sees small things can see big things, but a person who only sees big things may not be able to see small things. This is a very important lesson.
The second waste-paper story: when this session’s Asian Games ended in Hiroshima, Japan, in a venue holding sixty thousand people there was not a single piece of waste paper on the ground. Newspapers all over the world ran articles in amazement: “A respectable, formidable Japanese people!” Just because there was not one piece of waste paper, the whole world was astonished. Now look at the footage of the October 1 flag-raising in Tiananmen Square. After the crowd dispersed, the ground was full of waste paper, blowing everywhere! When foreigners see that, of course they will think this: if you Chinese want to compare yourselves with Japan, you are still far behind! Don’t always say: our country is vast and rich in resources, we have 137 gold medals — none of that is any use. Our moral standards still have not come up; we are still far behind! Tell me, are these scraps of paper important or not? So when I ask everyone to pick up one piece of waste paper, that is the beginning of patriotism. Everything starts from small things. America’s Apollo 3 was close to the moon, yet it could not land and had no choice but to return. Why? Only because a small battery costing 30 dollars had broken. Their long-prepared space plan was ruined, and hundreds of millions of yuan were wasted! Are there big things in the world? Tell me, when has a plane crash happened because the wings and the nose fell off all at once? It is always because one fuel pipe is blocked, or one tire won’t come down, and then the crash happens. When a person dies, who dies because the whole body rots away? It is always because the liver failed, or the heart had a problem, because one small organ was abnormal and the person died! — Classmates, from now on you must have a professional ethic. This is precisely the purpose of our country’s nine-year compulsory education: to see how you get along with teachers, how you get along with friends. This is the purpose of education. From ancient times to the present, Chinese education has been the greatest education. If you regard Western education as the most advanced education, then you are greatly mistaken. Three months ago the U.S. Secretary of Education gave a speech saying, “Education in our country is a total failure. We have turned people into meat machines. We must learn humane education from the East!” So I say, the education of our motherland is the greatest education in the world! (Applause) Confucius told us: study without thought is confusion, thought without study is peril. A student must keep learning, keep thinking, keep doing — this is true education, this is where the essence of Chinese education lies.
And another thing: we must carry out moral education for reviving national culture — eating Chinese food, speaking Chinese, celebrating Chinese festivals, and wearing Chinese clothing. If a Chinese person does not even eat Chinese food anymore, can he still be called Chinese? The first representative of eating Chinese food is using chopsticks. Chopsticks are originally Chinese culture, a civilized way of behavior. When I go to America, if I occasionally eat their Western food, as soon as they serve it I say, “Please bring me chopsticks.” They ask me, “Western food is eaten with knife and fork. Why do you use chopsticks?” I say chopsticks are a symbol of civilization, while your knives and forks are a mark of barbarism, so I do not use them. Chopsticks can cut, can spear, can shave, can pick up, can poke — they can do anything, while your knives and forks are unbelievably clumsy, like weapons for killing people. (Applause) If a student wants to eat roast chicken, I say fine. If he says he wants to eat “Kentucky Fried Chicken,” I’ll beat him. If he says he wants bread with fermented bean curd, fine. If he says he wants a “hamburger,” that won’t do. You can eat a bunker, but you can’t eat a “Han-burger.” This is education in the Chinese national spirit! Foreign countries are only stronger than us in machines and guns and cannons. Can what they eat compare with China? Eating foreigners’ food is just a strange mentality, something contemptible!
The English teaching in our school is the best in all Taiwan. I brought in two teachers from America especially to teach my students foreign languages. I have an America-study class; they are definitely going to study in America.
But on the first page of the materials they study, my words are printed: “For Chinese people to study English is an act of national humiliation. Studying English is the saddest thing for China, but we have no choice but to learn it, because others have surpassed us, because the enemy’s guns, cannons, and science have overpowered us. Today we must learn their science, and only then can we defeat them! Surpass them! We must use the barbarians to control the barbarians! We absolutely must learn English well, so we must study English gritting our teeth in hatred! (Applause) Our purpose in studying English is not to go to America to wash dishes and scrub toilets, to serve foreigners, to do things that disgrace eight generations of our ancestors!” (Applause) So my students all learn English extremely well. If an English teacher comes into class and says, “Classmates, today we are going to learn English. English is a world language, the most beautiful language in the world! A people that cannot speak English is an inferior people. English is so beautiful! So wonderful!” — tell me, shouldn’t that teacher get a spanking? So I always tell those teachers: teach my students well, but do not advertise for foreigners and turn into traitors! You must tell students to wipe away humiliation and strive to become strong, to defeat the great powers — that is China’s hope (Applause)! Don’t you also have English teachers here? Won’t students in the foreign languages department also go on to teach English? Before class, you must give students patriotic education about learning English. Don’t come in and immediately spend the whole time praising foreigners. You must not think that a teacher’s duty is only to transmit the way of English and teach the profession of English, but rather to transmit the way of patriotism and teach the profession of English.
All right, classmates. Once you understand these principles, the next step is to realize that our education today is a failure. Because from childhood we were taught wrongly. Therefore, we must carry out altruistic and group-oriented moral education: seeking knowledge for the country, learning skills for the division of labor in society. First, everyone must think about why you study, and for whom you study. Reflect on it. Some people may say, I study in order to find myself a rice bowl! How despicable and petty that is, how boring and pitiful! You absolutely should not live merely in order to find a rice bowl for yourself! Finding a rice bowl to eat from is too simple! Take a knife and stab someone at random — then you’ll absolutely have food to eat for the rest of your life, and there will even be people to serve you and cook for you, and people standing guard while you sleep, and not one of your things will be missing! Wouldn’t that solve your food problem? Then why don’t you do it? Because, I tell you, you must learn the skills for survival, and understand the meaning and value of life. That is not a place where human value is created! So we must understand that studying is absolutely not for ourselves. Studying is to seek knowledge for the country. Therefore we must tell children that in studying and doing things, they must set a direction: first do what one ought to do, then do what one likes to do. Many people study for interest. What nonsense! What interest is there in studying? The real goal should not be interest, but responsibility — finding interest within responsibility, but not replacing responsibility with interest. The more one does bright things in darkness, the more that is moral education. We study for the country. Classmates, think about what kind of education you received from childhood. Especially those from rural families — how did your parents teach you? They told you this: you must study hard! If you don’t study hard, in the future you won’t be able to make a name for yourself. You must struggle and study hard, then you will have a future. Study is for your happiness, study is for your future! Everything about study is for you! You grew up under this kind of education. This is the most mistaken education, the worst education! So when a child grows up, he knows: aha, studying is for me! It has nothing to do with anyone else. It is for my future, for my tomorrow, for my hope. Tell me, can this country still have hope? It has nothing to do with the country at all!
He drinks the country’s milk, uses the taxpayers’ money, and what is raised with the people’s hard-earned wealth is a selfish child, and a batch of selfish teachers. Tell me: can such a country have a future? The direction of your studying is already wrong. Studying is not for yourself; studying is for our country. The country needs talented people, the country needs cadres, the country needs pillars for building the nation. Why does the country train you? Does the country owe you something? Can you just eat the country’s food for free? Enjoy the dormitory and cafeteria here for free, enjoy your teachers passing knowledge to you for free? On what grounds? What contribution have you made to the country? What contribution have you made to society? What sacrifice have you made? You have made none at all. You are merely a machine for producing excrement. Every day you eat, yet do nothing. What contribution have you made to the country? The country is waiting for your contribution, waiting for your future, because one day you will grow up, one day you will complete your studies, and then you must work for the country. That is why the country invests in you, so that you may devote yourself to serving it. Because moral education must take national education as its premise, today we must love our country. It so happens that you are students at a normal university. In three or four years, you will be training the successors of the next century. Your responsibility is greater than anyone else’s. If you yourselves have no national consciousness, if you yourselves do not love your country, how can you ask your students to love their country? So today’s teachers are the most important. This is why I run around everywhere instilling patriotic thinking into teacher-training students! If you are patriotic, your students will naturally be patriotic. If you are not patriotic, if every day you complain, every day you want to change professions, every day you want to jump into business, then what hope is there for the next generation? Especially those studying English, always thinking that if they learn well, in the future they can go work as interpreters for some company, some boss, some chairman — how shameful! How lacking in character, how lacking in bearing! (Applause) What I especially emphasize here is national consciousness. I often tell my students a story: one day we went on an outing, and suddenly a storm came. We had nowhere to shelter from the wind and rain. The children ran forward and saw a grass hut ahead. Everyone rushed into it with a whoosh, and just as they went in, the heavy rain came. Everyone was delighted: “Wow, today our luck is pretty good. We just found a house and then the rain came. How wonderful!” Nobody cared whether the house was clean or whether anyone had lived there before. As long as there was a place to avoid the rain, they were satisfied. But then in the wind and rain the house suddenly was about to collapse, and the students did everything they could to hold it up: “Hold it, we can’t let the house collapse.” Under those circumstances, I was deeply moved. Classmates, tell me, do we need the house, or does the house need us? (Applause) I think it is we who need the house.
That house is our country. No matter how broken or shabby it is, it is our home. No matter how poor or ruined, it is our home. We must love her! (Applause) How can you envy foreigners? “Oh, look how good foreigners have it! I don’t want to be Chinese, I want to be a foreigner!” That is wrong. If our country is not as good as others, we admit it. But we are determined; we will gradually make it better. But we absolutely must sacrifice ourselves and have the idea of loving the country. If everyone keeps hacking at the country, eating the country, taking from the country, how can the country possibly improve? If everyone is greedy and corrupt, can the country improve? There is a Canada abroad; in China there is “Everybody Takes.” Even the biggest country will be taken into poverty by you. (Applause) Wherever I go, I absolutely refuse any hospitality. Wherever I go, I pay my own way, use my own things. If I ride in your car, I pay you car fare. If I stay in your hotel, I pay you hotel money. If I eat your food, I pay for the meal. I absolutely do not touch even one cent of the nation’s money. I want to set an example for you to see! (Applause) What is patriotism? It is when we give things, give money, give our lives to the country — that is patriotism. If you are always taking the country’s things back to your home, what kind of patriotism is that? Some people steal from the country and take from the country, and do so with relish, with brazen confidence, utterly shamelessly. How can that be allowed? (Applause)
Some people say: Teacher, you want me to love the country, and I can love the country — but where is the country?
I can’t find it! “One cannot see the true face of Mount Lu, only because one is in the mountain.” You are inside the country, so you do not know where the country is. For a teacher, the country is the students in front of you. When you stand on the platform, the students below are your country. Finding the country is very easy. Today I stand here, and the 1,500 people below are my country. I must do my utmost and fulfill my responsibility toward you. Then there will be a civilizing effect, an influence. You are my country. If I love you, that is my loving the country. If I spread my ideas to you, that is patriotism! (Applause) And when in the future you stand in front of your students, that will be your country. You must not waste their time, their lives. You must properly train the next generation for the country. If you give them this patriotic thinking, then you are a patriot. If you do not give it to them, then you do not love the country, you are a traitor! (Applause) Classmates, in the future you may also have chances to study abroad. You must take care not to lose Chinese face. If you go and then don’t come back, that loses face for Chinese people! Foreigners will not think highly of you. They will say: look, these overseas students have no national consciousness at all, these little slaves of a lost nation! How could people respect you? It is disgraceful, a very embarrassing thing. The country is extremely important to us. If you have not gone abroad, you do not know the importance of the “motherland.” A person without a country, a person whose country is very weak, is truly too pitiful! Too tragic! Therefore, we Chinese today must strengthen ourselves and love ourselves. We must know to love our country. If the country does not become strong, what use is your personal wealth? What use is your personal status? You will never be respected!
Today I have spoken about what patriotism is. Where is patriotism? Patriotism is everywhere! Any action can be patriotic. Everyone knows about the war between Israel and the Arabs. While the Arabs and Israel were fighting fiercely, the world happened to be holding a beauty pageant, and that year the Israeli contestant was chosen as “World Miss.” Many people from the film world crowded around her: “Miss, sign a contract — in the future you can make a fortune,” “After signing, you’ll gain both fame and wealth. Why go back to your country? Your country is at war, such a small country, it could be swallowed up at any moment!” “How frightening it would be to go back! Now you have money and fame — stay in America!” But this girl made a statement on television: being chosen as world beauty was not something I wanted merely for myself. I only wanted you to know that Israel is an excellent people, so I came out to compete. I wanted people to know that there is a country called Israel on this earth, so I came out to compete. Now that I have been chosen, I have completed my mission. I have also told the world that Israel is an excellent people, because I am the most beautiful woman in the world. At the same time, I tell the world that the country of Israel is now fighting bitterly, and I hope the people of the whole world will sympathize with us and support us! Support our country’s independence! Now my country is at war — what use is money? We Israelites lost our country for two thousand years, but because our culture did not perish, we were still able to rebuild our nation. Today I am going back to fight for my motherland — what use is money? — after making this statement, the next day she took a plane back home. (Applause) After this news came out, people all over the world looked at Israel with new respect! Wow, the Israelis are really incredible! And so the morale of Israel’s army surged. They fought like mad and utterly crushed the Arab armies! This was the greatest Seven-Day War in history! Finished in seven days! And this was all because of one sentence from a girl! So, classmates, patriotism is often found in some tiny place.
“One word can lose a state, one word can revive a state.” We are people who have received higher education. We bear the country’s honor and disgrace on our shoulders. When people see us, they see the country’s hope. Classmates, the future of the country is viewed by looking backward, while a person’s future is viewed by looking forward. If a teacher looks back like this, he can know what China will be like twenty years from now; by looking at primary school students, one can know what China will be like thirty years from now. If they have good character, noble morals, and patriotism, then twenty years later the country has hope. If you see that this child is very patriotic, very polite, very moral, then thirty years from now Chinese people will be remarkable Chinese people. Otherwise, if you see him lazy, selfish, arrogant, rude, and lacking standards, then you know China thirty years from now will be just like that. Today we must wipe away humiliation and strive to become strong, and make every effort to do better. Do not lose face for our ancestors; do not lose face for our forefathers and martyrs of the Han and Tang. Patriotism is very concrete. At the gate of my school there is a slogan: one step beyond the school gate, and you bear loyalty, trust, honor, and disgrace on your shoulders. Extending that further: one step beyond the national border, and you bear the honor and disgrace of the whole nation. Spitting one mouthful of phlegm in China is a small matter; spit one mouthful abroad, and you lose face for 1.2 billion Chinese compatriots, because you represent 1.2 billion Chinese people, not yourself personally. You must never think, “A true man takes responsibility for what he does.” You are wrong. You cannot do that; you are not qualified to! So every student must pay attention to every word and action. When Teacher Gao comes back to the mainland and sees something disagreeable, I will speak, scold, criticize, and make suggestions. But once I leave the mainland and return to Taiwan, I will not say one bad word about the mainland. If they ask: is the mainland good? I say it is unbelievably good! So big, so wonderful. When I get to America, I say Chinese people are unbelievably great. I will absolutely not lose face for Chinese people, and I will not say a single word criticizing China. But when I return, I will certainly speak truthfully and make sincere suggestions. Some people are exactly the opposite: in China they do not dare utter a peep, pretending to be so meek and lovable, but once they leave China they spout wild words and curse China as worthless. That is the standard conduct of a traitorous bastard! (Applause)
How is studying for oneself? It is for society’s division of labor. You study shoe repair, I study driving a car — learning any skill is not for oneself. Classmates, think about it: a surgeon studies how to hold a scalpel. Would he say this? I must study hard, so in the future it will be convenient when I operate on myself; I absolutely must not cut the wrong place. Is that how it is? Classmates, think about it — what thing is for oneself? I study teacher training well so that in the future I can educate myself? Aren’t you doing it to teach children? Whatever you study, it is for children, for middle school students, for primary school students. A teacher full of misspellings and lacking all knowledge does not know how many children he will ruin! Therefore, studying is not for oneself. It is for many, many little lives in the future. You are working hard for them! You are not now trying to get first place for yourself; you are preparing lessons for your students — that is your current goal in studying! Students in medical school: if you doze in class and do not study properly, if you cannot even distinguish the fallopian tube from the ureter, on what grounds do you graduate from medical university? Do people like you harm others or not? Is studying for oneself? Studying is for the safety of others. The higher one’s medical skill, the safer the patient, and the more his life is protected!
All right, classmates, let me tell us the six major outlines of moral education: first, education in loyalty to the Party and love of the country, steadfast and unchanging loyalty; second, ethical education in filial piety toward parents and respect for elders and superiors; third, positive and responsible education in “When the world rises or falls, it is my responsibility”; fourth, the professional ethic of “Do not fail to do good because it is small, and do not do evil because it is small”; fifth, the idea of reviving Chinese culture by eating Chinese food, speaking Chinese, and celebrating Chinese New Year festivals; sixth, the altruistic and group-oriented idea of seeking knowledge for the country and learning skills for society’s division of labor. These are the six major outlines of moral education. Have you remembered them?
Schools should train students even more in this way of thinking: “When the world rises or falls, it is my responsibility.” If the campus is not clean, that should be everyone’s responsibility. Think about it: on such a big campus, if you don’t damage it and I don’t damage it, would it get dirty? Once it is dirty, if everyone goes and cleans it up, would it stay dirty? You only expect a few workers to do this job and say, “That’s their business. I’m here to study, not to sweep the floor.” — What kind of attitude is that? What are you studying for? Isn’t studying for serving the country? If you won’t even serve the immediate task in front of you, how can you serve in the future? If you won’t shoulder your current responsibility, can you shoulder future responsibility? If a faucet is leaking, can’t you stop it? Some people will say, “That’s not my business, that’s the general affairs office’s business.” This is wrong. The worst bad habit of ordinary people is this: they turn on a faucet, find there’s no water, then go turn on a second one; that one has no water either, so they go turn on a third one — students like that would be expelled from my school! They don’t even understand how to draw inferences. If the first one has no water, will the second one? Didn’t it occur to you that the water may come later? How can a person get by without thinking ahead? As a cadre, as a person, you must think of the consequences. The farther ahead a person can see consequences, the more successful he is. A person who cares only about what is right in front of him and not about the future is not a good cadre, nor a useful person. If the water pipe is left open, and when water comes it gushes away and fills the whole basin, yet no one pays attention, saying, “Anyway it’s the country’s water, not my own!” — wasting the nation’s property makes one a traitor! Why do you waste the country’s water? Why do you waste the country’s resources? Every day when I wash my face, I save one basin of water for the country. Figure out how much that saves in a year. Your school has more than six thousand students. If each person saves one basin of water every day, how much is that in a year? Saving water means saving electricity, means saving national resources. There are two kinds of love: one is active patriotism, the other is passive patriotism. Active patriotism is creating wealth for the country; passive patriotism is saving wealth for the country. The country uses so much of the people’s hard-earned wealth to support your studies, yet you still waste the country’s wealth — where is your conscience? If even university students are like this, how can we expect anything from middle school students or primary school students? How can we expect anything from ordinary common people? If you highly educated intellectuals do not love your country, how can you ask the common people to do so? Only by starting from ourselves does our country have hope — this is the moral concept of positive responsibility in “When the world rises or falls, it is my responsibility.” This is moral education.
Another point: we must have the professional ethic of “Do not fail to do good because it is small, and do not do evil because it is small.” Are there any truly great things in the world? No. But any small thing is a big thing. Accumulated small evils become great evil; accumulated small good becomes great good. Cultivating good morals starts with respecting teachers, and starts from very, very small things. This kind of morality is built up little by little; it is not something you only do when some major matter comes along. This morning after class, I came out together with the president of the normal university, and there was a lot of waste paper in the auditorium. I said, don’t pick it up; wait until the students pick it up themselves this afternoon. Classmates, whoever dropped these scraps of paper does not love the country. There are no great things in the world. First pick up the paper scraps at your own feet — this is my “teaching material.” Good, classmates picking up the waste paper at their own feet — that is the beginning of patriotism. Let me tell you two stories about waste paper.
The first: in America there was a “Ford Company.” Ford was a man. After graduating from university, he went to apply to an automobile company. The three or four other people applying with him all had higher educational qualifications than he did. After the first few had interviewed, he felt he had little hope. But since he had come, he might as well settle in. He knocked and entered the chairman’s office. As soon as he entered, he saw a piece of paper on the floor by the door. He bent down to pick it up, found it was a piece of waste paper, and casually threw it into the wastebasket. Only then did he walk up to the chairman’s desk and say, “I am Ford, here to apply for the job.” The chairman said, “Very good, very good! Mr. Ford, you have been hired by us.” Ford said in surprise, “Chairman, I think the previous few were all better than I am. Why did you hire me?” The chairman said, “Mr. Ford, the previous three did indeed have higher education than you, and they looked dignified as well. But their eyes could only see big things, and could not see small things. Your eyes can see small things. I believe that a person who can see small things will naturally see big things in the future. But a person who can only see big things will overlook many small things. He will not succeed. That is why I hired you.” That is how Ford entered the company. Before long, the company became famous throughout the world. Ford changed its name to “Ford Company,” and also changed the entire condition of America’s national economy, making America’s automobile industry stand at the top of the world. This is Ford, the founder of today’s “American Ford Company.” Tell me, was that scrap of paper important or not? A person who sees small things can see big things, but a person who only sees big things may not be able to see small things. This is a very important lesson.
The second waste-paper story: when this session’s Asian Games ended in Hiroshima, Japan, in a venue holding sixty thousand people there was not a single piece of waste paper on the ground. Newspapers all over the world ran articles in amazement: “A respectable, formidable Japanese people!” Just because there was not one piece of waste paper, the whole world was astonished. Now look at the footage of the October 1 flag-raising in Tiananmen Square. After the crowd dispersed, the ground was full of waste paper, blowing everywhere! When foreigners see that, of course they will think this: if you Chinese want to compare yourselves with Japan, you are still far behind! Don’t always say: our country is vast and rich in resources, we have 137 gold medals — none of that is any use. Our moral standards still have not come up; we are still far behind! Tell me, are these scraps of paper important or not? So when I ask everyone to pick up one piece of waste paper, that is the beginning of patriotism. Everything starts from small things. America’s Apollo 3 was close to the moon, yet it could not land and had no choice but to return. Why? Only because a small battery costing 30 dollars had broken. Their long-prepared space plan was ruined, and hundreds of millions of yuan were wasted! Are there big things in the world? Tell me, when has a plane crash happened because the wings and the nose fell off all at once? It is always because one fuel pipe is blocked, or one tire won’t come down, and then the crash happens. When a person dies, who dies because the whole body rots away? It is always because the liver failed, or the heart had a problem, because one small organ was abnormal and the person died! — Classmates, from now on you must have a professional ethic. This is precisely the purpose of our country’s nine-year compulsory education: to see how you get along with teachers, how you get along with friends. This is the purpose of education. From ancient times to the present, Chinese education has been the greatest education. If you regard Western education as the most advanced education, then you are greatly mistaken. Three months ago the U.S. Secretary of Education gave a speech saying, “Education in our country is a total failure. We have turned people into meat machines. We must learn humane education from the East!” So I say, the education of our motherland is the greatest education in the world! (Applause) Confucius told us: study without thought is confusion, thought without study is peril. A student must keep learning, keep thinking, keep doing — this is true education, this is where the essence of Chinese education lies.
And another thing: we must carry out moral education for reviving national culture — eating Chinese food, speaking Chinese, celebrating Chinese festivals, and wearing Chinese clothing. If a Chinese person does not even eat Chinese food anymore, can he still be called Chinese? The first representative of eating Chinese food is using chopsticks. Chopsticks are originally Chinese culture, a civilized way of behavior. When I go to America, if I occasionally eat their Western food, as soon as they serve it I say, “Please bring me chopsticks.” They ask me, “Western food is eaten with knife and fork. Why do you use chopsticks?” I say chopsticks are a symbol of civilization, while your knives and forks are a mark of barbarism, so I do not use them. Chopsticks can cut, can spear, can shave, can pick up, can poke — they can do anything, while your knives and forks are unbelievably clumsy, like weapons for killing people. (Applause) If a student wants to eat roast chicken, I say fine. If he says he wants to eat “Kentucky Fried Chicken,” I’ll beat him. If he says he wants bread with fermented bean curd, fine. If he says he wants a “hamburger,” that won’t do. You can eat a bunker, but you can’t eat a “Han-burger.” This is education in the Chinese national spirit! Foreign countries are only stronger than us in machines and guns and cannons. Can what they eat compare with China? Eating foreigners’ food is just a strange mentality, something contemptible!
The English teaching in our school is the best in all Taiwan. I brought in two teachers from America especially to teach my students foreign languages. I have an America-study class; they are definitely going to study in America.
But on the first page of the materials they study, my words are printed: “For Chinese people to study English is an act of national humiliation. Studying English is the saddest thing for China, but we have no choice but to learn it, because others have surpassed us, because the enemy’s guns, cannons, and science have overpowered us. Today we must learn their science, and only then can we defeat them! Surpass them! We must use the barbarians to control the barbarians! We absolutely must learn English well, so we must study English gritting our teeth in hatred! (Applause) Our purpose in studying English is not to go to America to wash dishes and scrub toilets, to serve foreigners, to do things that disgrace eight generations of our ancestors!” (Applause) So my students all learn English extremely well. If an English teacher comes into class and says, “Classmates, today we are going to learn English. English is a world language, the most beautiful language in the world! A people that cannot speak English is an inferior people. English is so beautiful! So wonderful!” — tell me, shouldn’t that teacher get a spanking? So I always tell those teachers: teach my students well, but do not advertise for foreigners and turn into traitors! You must tell students to wipe away humiliation and strive to become strong, to defeat the great powers — that is China’s hope (Applause)! Don’t you also have English teachers here? Won’t students in the foreign languages department also go on to teach English? Before class, you must give students patriotic education about learning English. Don’t come in and immediately spend the whole time praising foreigners. You must not think that a teacher’s duty is only to transmit the way of English and teach the profession of English, but rather to transmit the way of patriotism and teach the profession of English.
All right, classmates. Once you understand these principles, the next step is to realize that our education today is a failure. Because from childhood we were taught wrongly. Therefore, we must carry out altruistic and group-oriented moral education: seeking knowledge for the country, learning skills for the division of labor in society. First, everyone must think about why you study, and for whom you study. Reflect on it. Some people may say, I study in order to find myself a rice bowl! How despicable and petty that is, how boring and pitiful! You absolutely should not live merely in order to find a rice bowl for yourself! Finding a rice bowl to eat from is too simple! Take a knife and stab someone at random — then you’ll absolutely have food to eat for the rest of your life, and there will even be people to serve you and cook for you, and people standing guard while you sleep, and not one of your things will be missing! Wouldn’t that solve your food problem? Then why don’t you do it? Because, I tell you, you must learn the skills for survival, and understand the meaning and value of life. That is not a place where human value is created! So we must understand that studying is absolutely not for ourselves. Studying is to seek knowledge for the country. Therefore we must tell children that in studying and doing things, they must set a direction: first do what one ought to do, then do what one likes to do. Many people study for interest. What nonsense! What interest is there in studying? The real goal should not be interest, but responsibility — finding interest within responsibility, but not replacing responsibility with interest. The more one does bright things in darkness, the more that is moral education. We study for the country. Classmates, think about what kind of education you received from childhood. Especially those from rural families — how did your parents teach you? They told you this: you must study hard! If you don’t study hard, in the future you won’t be able to make a name for yourself. You must struggle and study hard, then you will have a future. Study is for your happiness, study is for your future! Everything about study is for you! You grew up under this kind of education. This is the most mistaken education, the worst education! So when a child grows up, he knows: aha, studying is for me! It has nothing to do with anyone else. It is for my future, for my tomorrow, for my hope. Tell me, can this country still have hope? It has nothing to do with the country at all!
He drinks the country’s milk, uses the taxpayers’ money, and what is raised with the people’s hard-earned wealth is a selfish child, and a batch of selfish teachers. Tell me: can such a country have a future? The direction of your studying is already wrong. Studying is not for yourself; studying is for our country. The country needs talented people, the country needs cadres, the country needs pillars for building the nation. Why does the country train you? Does the country owe you something? Can you just eat the country’s food for free? Enjoy the dormitory and cafeteria here for free, enjoy your teachers passing knowledge to you for free? On what grounds? What contribution have you made to the country? What contribution have you made to society? What sacrifice have you made? You have made none at all. You are merely a machine for producing excrement. Every day you eat, yet do nothing. What contribution have you made to the country? The country is waiting for your contribution, waiting for your future, because one day you will grow up, one day you will complete your studies, and then you must work for the country. That is why the country invests in you, so that you may devote yourself to serving it. Because moral education must take national education as its premise, today we must love our country. It so happens that you are students at a normal university. In three or four years, you will be training the successors of the next century. Your responsibility is greater than anyone else’s. If you yourselves have no national consciousness, if you yourselves do not love your country, how can you ask your students to love their country? So today’s teachers are the most important. This is why I run around everywhere instilling patriotic thinking into teacher-training students! If you are patriotic, your students will naturally be patriotic. If you are not patriotic, if every day you complain, every day you want to change professions, every day you want to jump into business, then what hope is there for the next generation? Especially those studying English, always thinking that if they learn well, in the future they can go work as interpreters for some company, some boss, some chairman — how shameful! How lacking in character, how lacking in bearing! (Applause) What I especially emphasize here is national consciousness. I often tell my students a story: one day we went on an outing, and suddenly a storm came. We had nowhere to shelter from the wind and rain. The children ran forward and saw a grass hut ahead. Everyone rushed into it with a whoosh, and just as they went in, the heavy rain came. Everyone was delighted: “Wow, today our luck is pretty good. We just found a house and then the rain came. How wonderful!” Nobody cared whether the house was clean or whether anyone had lived there before. As long as there was a place to avoid the rain, they were satisfied. But then in the wind and rain the house suddenly was about to collapse, and the students did everything they could to hold it up: “Hold it, we can’t let the house collapse.” Under those circumstances, I was deeply moved. Classmates, tell me, do we need the house, or does the house need us? (Applause) I think it is we who need the house.
That house is our country. No matter how broken or shabby it is, it is our home. No matter how poor or ruined, it is our home. We must love her! (Applause) How can you envy foreigners? “Oh, look how good foreigners have it! I don’t want to be Chinese, I want to be a foreigner!” That is wrong. If our country is not as good as others, we admit it. But we are determined; we will gradually make it better. But we absolutely must sacrifice ourselves and have the idea of loving the country. If everyone keeps hacking at the country, eating the country, taking from the country, how can the country possibly improve? If everyone is greedy and corrupt, can the country improve? There is a Canada abroad; in China there is “Everybody Takes.” Even the biggest country will be taken into poverty by you. (Applause) Wherever I go, I absolutely refuse any hospitality. Wherever I go, I pay my own way, use my own things. If I ride in your car, I pay you car fare. If I stay in your hotel, I pay you hotel money. If I eat your food, I pay for the meal. I absolutely do not touch even one cent of the nation’s money. I want to set an example for you to see! (Applause) What is patriotism? It is when we give things, give money, give our lives to the country — that is patriotism. If you are always taking the country’s things back to your home, what kind of patriotism is that? Some people steal from the country and take from the country, and do so with relish, with brazen confidence, utterly shamelessly. How can that be allowed? (Applause)
Some people say: Teacher, you want me to love the country, and I can love the country — but where is the country?
I can’t find it! “One cannot see the true face of Mount Lu, only because one is in the mountain.” You are inside the country, so you do not know where the country is. For a teacher, the country is the students in front of you. When you stand on the platform, the students below are your country. Finding the country is very easy. Today I stand here, and the 1,500 people below are my country. I must do my utmost and fulfill my responsibility toward you. Then there will be a civilizing effect, an influence. You are my country. If I love you, that is my loving the country. If I spread my ideas to you, that is patriotism! (Applause) And when in the future you stand in front of your students, that will be your country. You must not waste their time, their lives. You must properly train the next generation for the country. If you give them this patriotic thinking, then you are a patriot. If you do not give it to them, then you do not love the country, you are a traitor! (Applause) Classmates, in the future you may also have chances to study abroad. You must take care not to lose Chinese face. If you go and then don’t come back, that loses face for Chinese people! Foreigners will not think highly of you. They will say: look, these overseas students have no national consciousness at all, these little slaves of a lost nation! How could people respect you? It is disgraceful, a very embarrassing thing. The country is extremely important to us. If you have not gone abroad, you do not know the importance of the “motherland.” A person without a country, a person whose country is very weak, is truly too pitiful! Too tragic! Therefore, we Chinese today must strengthen ourselves and love ourselves. We must know to love our country. If the country does not become strong, what use is your personal wealth? What use is your personal status? You will never be respected!
Today I have spoken about what patriotism is. Where is patriotism? Patriotism is everywhere! Any action can be patriotic. Everyone knows about the war between Israel and the Arabs. While the Arabs and Israel were fighting fiercely, the world happened to be holding a beauty pageant, and that year the Israeli contestant was chosen as “World Miss.” Many people from the film world crowded around her: “Miss, sign a contract — in the future you can make a fortune,” “After signing, you’ll gain both fame and wealth. Why go back to your country? Your country is at war, such a small country, it could be swallowed up at any moment!” “How frightening it would be to go back! Now you have money and fame — stay in America!” But this girl made a statement on television: being chosen as world beauty was not something I wanted merely for myself. I only wanted you to know that Israel is an excellent people, so I came out to compete. I wanted people to know that there is a country called Israel on this earth, so I came out to compete. Now that I have been chosen, I have completed my mission. I have also told the world that Israel is an excellent people, because I am the most beautiful woman in the world. At the same time, I tell the world that the country of Israel is now fighting bitterly, and I hope the people of the whole world will sympathize with us and support us! Support our country’s independence! Now my country is at war — what use is money? We Israelites lost our country for two thousand years, but because our culture did not perish, we were still able to rebuild our nation. Today I am going back to fight for my motherland — what use is money? — after making this statement, the next day she took a plane back home. (Applause) After this news came out, people all over the world looked at Israel with new respect! Wow, the Israelis are really incredible! And so the morale of Israel’s army surged. They fought like mad and utterly crushed the Arab armies! This was the greatest Seven-Day War in history! Finished in seven days! And this was all because of one sentence from a girl! So, classmates, patriotism is often found in some tiny place.
“One word can lose a state, one word can revive a state.” We are people who have received higher education. We bear the country’s honor and disgrace on our shoulders. When people see us, they see the country’s hope. Classmates, the future of the country is viewed by looking backward, while a person’s future is viewed by looking forward. If a teacher looks back like this, he can know what China will be like twenty years from now; by looking at primary school students, one can know what China will be like thirty years from now. If they have good character, noble morals, and patriotism, then twenty years later the country has hope. If you see that this child is very patriotic, very polite, very moral, then thirty years from now Chinese people will be remarkable Chinese people. Otherwise, if you see him lazy, selfish, arrogant, rude, and lacking standards, then you know China thirty years from now will be just like that. Today we must wipe away humiliation and strive to become strong, and make every effort to do better. Do not lose face for our ancestors; do not lose face for our forefathers and martyrs of the Han and Tang. Patriotism is very concrete. At the gate of my school there is a slogan: one step beyond the school gate, and you bear loyalty, trust, honor, and disgrace on your shoulders. Extending that further: one step beyond the national border, and you bear the honor and disgrace of the whole nation. Spitting one mouthful of phlegm in China is a small matter; spit one mouthful abroad, and you lose face for 1.2 billion Chinese compatriots, because you represent 1.2 billion Chinese people, not yourself personally. You must never think, “A true man takes responsibility for what he does.” You are wrong. You cannot do that; you are not qualified to! So every student must pay attention to every word and action. When Teacher Gao comes back to the mainland and sees something disagreeable, I will speak, scold, criticize, and make suggestions. But once I leave the mainland and return to Taiwan, I will not say one bad word about the mainland. If they ask: is the mainland good? I say it is unbelievably good! So big, so wonderful. When I get to America, I say Chinese people are unbelievably great. I will absolutely not lose face for Chinese people, and I will not say a single word criticizing China. But when I return, I will certainly speak truthfully and make sincere suggestions. Some people are exactly the opposite: in China they do not dare utter a peep, pretending to be so meek and lovable, but once they leave China they spout wild words and curse China as worthless. That is the standard conduct of a traitorous bastard! (Applause)
How is studying for oneself? It is for society’s division of labor. You study shoe repair, I study driving a car — learning any skill is not for oneself. Classmates, think about it: a surgeon studies how to hold a scalpel. Would he say this? I must study hard, so in the future it will be convenient when I operate on myself; I absolutely must not cut the wrong place. Is that how it is? Classmates, think about it — what thing is for oneself? I study teacher training well so that in the future I can educate myself? Aren’t you doing it to teach children? Whatever you study, it is for children, for middle school students, for primary school students. A teacher full of misspellings and lacking all knowledge does not know how many children he will ruin! Therefore, studying is not for oneself. It is for many, many little lives in the future. You are working hard for them! You are not now trying to get first place for yourself; you are preparing lessons for your students — that is your current goal in studying! Students in medical school: if you doze in class and do not study properly, if you cannot even distinguish the fallopian tube from the ureter, on what grounds do you graduate from medical university? Do people like you harm others or not? Is studying for oneself? Studying is for the safety of others. The higher one’s medical skill, the safer the patient, and the more his life is protected!
All right, classmates, let me tell us the six major outlines of moral education: first, education in loyalty to the Party and love of the country, steadfast and unchanging loyalty; second, ethical education in filial piety toward parents and respect for elders and superiors; third, positive and responsible education in “When the world rises or falls, it is my responsibility”; fourth, the professional ethic of “Do not fail to do good because it is small, and do not do evil because it is small”; fifth, the idea of reviving Chinese culture by eating Chinese food, speaking Chinese, and celebrating Chinese New Year festivals; sixth, the altruistic and group-oriented idea of seeking knowledge for the country and learning skills for society’s division of labor. These are the six major outlines of moral education. Have you remembered them?
