Letter describing why we still read Zhuangzi today.

 Helen,

            Hey! How’s life? What’s new? How’s school? You’re in a U.S. history class right? I’m in a history of China class. There’s so much history. We just read some Zhuangzi selections. It’s some old Chinese book written a long time ago by a very old Chinese philosopher. Its kind of weird that after 2,500 years people still read his stuff. I’m going to try to understand why smart scholars care to still read it today.

It’s still relevant to today. Zhuangzi philosophy about death was actually interesting. There was one story that talked about when Zhunagzi’s wife died. Huizi, a friend, came to the funeral and thought Zhunagzi was being really disrespectful because he wasn’t even crying. You’d think after being married for that long he would be really upset right? He was also banging on a tub singing. Yea, that’s definitely a really nice thing to do at his wife’s funeral. I thought he was being really disrespectful until Zhunagzi started talking about death. He said it was unavoidable. He thought why should he be upset. His wife had lived a long happy life. “If you are content with the time and abide by the passing, there’s no room for sorrow or joy.” This is a quote I found that I really liked. I think it means that if a person has lived a long, content life you shouldn’t be sad because death is inevitable so why mourn when crying and being sorrowful will get you no where. We should celebrate that person’s life. It makes me wonder if we should really get upset when are elders die. Yes, we loved them and we will miss them but why get upset when we all know death is going to come at one point. We should’ve been prepared for it by the time they pass.

            Scholors still read this because it’s still relevant to today and the story above is one example. His philosophies make us think and we all interpret them differently. The question is what is the write interpretation and what was he really trying to say? I think we are still trying to figure out what they mean and that’s another reason we read his stuff today. Anyways, not that you really care about this old stuff but I actually thought his philosophy about death was interesting and I’m not just saying that because I’m getting graded on this. :D Hope to talk to you soon.

                       

Laura Doolittle