Han Fei Zi
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Social networking behind the stage
One benefit of living in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai is that at any given time, there are many plays to choose from. In return, stage producers in big cities enjoy a steady flow of audiences. But local art theaters and producers far from the country's cultural centers often experience difficulty promoting their performances. Confined by a small audience base and limited promotional channels, some stage productions sink before swimming. "Currently the communication between stage producers and stage contractors or investors is not smooth," said Fu Weibo, general manager of the Pioneer Theatre of National Theatre of China (NTC) in Beijing. "This is crucial during the initial stage of creation, when directors should communicate their ideas to investors." Showcasing ideas The situation may be changing, with the emergence of a new platform for showcasing stage performances. China's first platform for stage productions to show their work was launched in Beijing at the Modern Art Theater in China Millennium Monument, on July 20. The event was held to give art theaters in China the opportunity to introduce their performances to a larger group of industry insiders. "The platform is a new concept in China," said Gao Wei, organizer of the project. "We didn't have a platform before to advertise our stage performances, for plays, musicals or dances." According to Gao, this event is a way for domestic and international art theaters to introduce their performances to different contractors and investors. "The introduction is completed through performances on stage, video broadcasts and lectures," Gao told the Global Times. Having been in preparation for two years, the inaugural activity held on July 20 featured nearly 30 art performances from different theaters. "A week later, a dozen cooperations were formed between art theaters and performance contractors," said Gao. "We are still at the initial stage with the focus centered mainly on activities. In the near future, an online network will be set up to efficiently facilitate communication." Gao said that a trial version of the online platform will begin running on August 20, and the whole project will be completed in two to three years. Frequent communication Platforms similar to Gao's idea already exist in China, in the form of art performance fairs. Such fairs are annual events that last three to four days, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture. Though such events facilitate communication between art theaters and contractors, these occasions are infrequent and have unfixed schedules. This results in outstanding performances overlooked each year. "The online service works around the clock and offers more opportunities for the two sides to communicate," said Gao. Open to industry insiders including producers, performers, professionals and performance contractors, the idea is to develop this model into a large-scale and professional platform. As a member of the panel during the inaugural activity providing suggestions to both sides, Fu thinks highly of this platform. "It facilitates the communication between producers and contractors," he said. "If there are more subdivisions in the industry line of the stage performance, the platform will be more effective," Fu told the Global Times. Although some websites in China like damai.cn and 228.com.cn currently engage in the ticketing aspects of stage performances, their roles are limited to collecting performance information. Without contractors or promotional aspects, it's difficult for art theaters or studios to sustain performances. The cast from The Execution of the Judge of Hell, an innovative performance incorporating Peking opera and shadow play produced by Han Feizi Shadow Puppet Company in 2009, participated in Gao's inaugural event. Although the play has received acclaim from the foreign market, it is still relatively unknown in China. "One reason we put our focus abroad is because we are facing difficulty promoting it in the country," said Han Chi, producer of the play, "I think the platform is a great thing, especially for private theaters that don't have the resources State-owned productions have." Foreign models China's show business started to develop in the early 1990s and has seen a great deal of commercial changes. But despite the production of innovative plays, China still doesn't have an effective platform to promote plays, unlike its foreign peers. "Foreign countries used this kind of platform a while ago, only in different forms," said Gao. Art festivals are an example. Large-scale ones like Festival d'Avignon and the Edinburgh International Festival are a comprehensive way for play producers, contractors and theaters to meet and network with each other. Another example is the industry association for Broadway. The alliance of theaters can collectively buy copyrights of different performances from producers without having to talk to each another separately, opening the market to stage producers and performers. "We can't simply copy these models in foreign countries. We have a different market environment and resources," said Gao. "We must complete this platform through practice." The standardization of copyright payments and the organization of tour performances are still in development. "We hope this platform can be a free, transparent and convenient method for staged work," Gao said. "It can be a progressive, cultural link between China and the world, bringing world-class art performances into China while exporting ours out."
Innovators must take over from heroes
The 21st century will be one of constant change and a flexible, pragmatic approach is the best way forward China's journey from isolationism to the center of the global economy is frequently described as "epic". In the strictest sense of the word, however, the epic is a concept increasingly ill suited to our age. Epics chart the rise - and sometimes the fall - of great enterprises. They always move toward a conclusion. The heroes fight a final battle. A new order is established or an old order restored. The ending is recognizable and to a large extent predictable. The Monkey King, Sun Wukong, completes his mission and achieves Buddahood. King Arthur sails away to Avalon after Camelot falls. The cowboy rides off into the sunset. Mulan heads home. The familiarity of the ending reflects an ancient cyclical worldview. As the beginning of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms has it: "An empire long apart will come together; long united will fall apart." Western tradition was expressed by Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations: "Those who come after us will see nothing new. Our ancestors saw nothing more than we do." There is only the repetition of an endless cycle - the wheel of fortune. But since those times there has been change - technological, social and even, some would argue, moral. We have witnessed changes so vast that even Marcus Aurelius would have to admit we are seeing more than our ancestors ever did. We call it progress, and the notion has taken on epic qualities to the degree that the end is sometimes seen as nigh. Francis Fukuyama famously surmised that we had reached "the end of history", and that was less than 25 years ago. Lofty declarations such as this highlight the seductive power of what classical scholar J.B. Bury called "the illusion of finality". This is the belief that our knowledge is effectively complete and that we can fill the few remaining gaps with comparative ease, that we know where we are going and are nearly there. If progress really is an epic then we should perhaps give some thought as to whether it is going up or down. Will it be a happy ending or could it be otherwise? After all, just as some thinkers have presumed that we have nothing left to learn, others have foretold the imminent downfall of the human race. In the West the most famous prophet of doom was Malthus, but he was not the first to be worried. Chinese philosopher and statesman Han Feizi expressed exactly the same concerns way back in the third century BC. Over-population, the depletion of natural resources and the collapse of the established order have customarily featured high on the list of triggers for disaster. But, again, these predictions have not yet come to pass. Civilization is still here, and that cannot be a matter of pure chance. There are well-documented accounts of the ruination of numerous societies throughout history, yet humanity has survived. For this we can thank intelligence, creativity and invention. Innovation - or, if you prefer, ingenuity - has brought us this far. We must conclude that it will have to take us a lot farther, too. If we are to survive, then new ways of doing things will have to be introduced to replace the old ways, as has happened in the past. The gales of creative destruction, as Joseph Schumpeter called them in his Theory of Economic Development, are blowing loud and fast and may never subside. There is a feeling that those who yearn for the calm after the storm - the "normalcy" that we expect to follow a period of change - are doomed to wait in vain. Our future, unlike the epic, is deeply unpredictable. So what does all this mean for China, whose extraordinary metamorphosis over the past 35 years has been the foremost economic story of our times? Where might this astonishing tale end, and, more pertinently, is it bound to end at all? Innovation takes many forms. Innovation in business, in finance, in politics, in organizations, all have shown that carrying on in the same old way is seldom, if ever, a promising option. Innovation keeps us ahead of catastrophe, and the optimism it engenders leads us to expect things will get better rather than worse. How many of these particular boxes does China tick at present? Of course, there is plenty of evidence that in some departments it is doing very well indeed. It is without doubt investing heavily in science and technology, as illustrated by the number of students specializing in these disciplines who graduate from Chinese universities year after year. In 2015, if all goes according to plan, 17,000 post-doctoral fellows will enroll at the country's major research institutions. It has been reported that R&D spending increased by more than a fifth every year from 2006 to 2011 and by only slightly less last year. And yet, for all its ambition and unquestioned status, right now China remains predominantly an imitator. Much is said about record numbers of patents, but research has exposed most of these as piecemeal, incremental innovations rather than substantive new technologies. In this field China is keeping pace - it could even be setting the pace - but it is not, by and large, choosing the direction. As we have seen, epics are defined by their ending. The task is completed, and the hero attains his or her destiny. Once the final page has been turned, once the credits roll, it's all over. But for the rest of us there is always tomorrow, which is why the "epic" approach is no longer appropriate. Epics, by their very nature, are simply not sustainable. If we live in an era when the only certainty is ceaseless transition, when innovation is inevitable and the gales of creative destruction never die down, then we are left with a story that is denied the traditional denouement of heroic resolution. As sociologist Robert Holton observed: "Without any clear sense of the possibility of new patterns, crisis becomes a more or less permanent condition - a chronic illness or a dream without end. In place of the epic narrative we now have the soap opera." It might sound comparatively unappealing, but the soap opera's narrative structure now offers far greater promise. Soap operas are capable of huge change over time, as a consequence of which many are long-lived and extremely profitable. Epics are finite; soap operas are built to last. They never end. Individual heroes plough lone furrows, pursuing a single vision. Soap operas thrive on the ability of many diverse characters to fashion an altogether larger story, continually interacting with a wealth of possibilities. To achieve this longevity China might do well to cultivate a healthy skepticism about imitating the hero model of entrepreneurship, which may have served the West well but today looks unsustainable and was probably always more myth than reality. Naturally, there is room for both epic and soap in the schedules, but we would all do well to acknowledge that it is the latter that has the staying power and is capable of greater development, even if the former maintains a loftier standing in some circles. One contention is that in times of turmoil, with confidence low and patterns of normalcy ever harder to discern, we should limit ourselves to safe short-term bets and never lose sight of our exit strategy. The global financial crisis stands as testimony to the perils of such a view. Radical responses require flexibility, and that comes from a pragmatic approach rather than from being bound by the epic sensibilities of single minds and fixed ends. Such a philosophy is not new. To return to Han Feizi: "The sage neither seeks to follow the ways of the ancients nor establishes any fixed standard for all times ... but examines the things of his age and then prepares to deal with them." In other words, we progress by solving the problems life throws at us. We always have, and, hopefully, we always will. To assume a leading role in this quest, as it has in so many areas of 21st-century life, China will need a full, diverse cast of innovators rather than a few individual heroes. The key lesson that now has to be learnt is that sustainability comes from people who see innumerable opportunities and outcomes, not from people who pursue personal ambition on their own solitary quests. The author is a researcher in the field of entrepreneurial creativity with Nottingham University Business School and co-deviser of the ingenuity problem-solving process taught to students at the Nottingham Institute for Enterprise and Innovation. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
Profile of Han Feizi
Han Feizi was a philosopher who, along with Li Si, developed Xun Zi's philosophy into the doctrine embodied by the School of Law or Legalism. Himself a part of the aristocracy, Han Feizi was born into the ruling family of the state of Han during the end phase of the Warring States Period. His philosophy centered on the ruler. In Han Fei's philosophy, the ruler firmly controls the state with the help of three concepts: his position of power; certain techniques, and the laws. Han Fei's philosophy assumes that everyone acts according to one principle: avoiding punishment while simultaneously trying to achieve gains. Thus, the law must severely punish any unwanted action, while at the same time reward those who follow it. Apart from the Confucianist Xun Zi, who was his and Li Si's teacher, the other main source for his political theories was Lao Zi's Taoist work, the Tao Te Ching, which he interpreted as a political text, and on which he wrote a commentary (chapters 20 and 21 in his book, Han Feizi). He saw the Tao as a natural law that everyone and everything was forced to follow. Parallel to this, he envisioned that an ideal ruler made laws, like an inevitable force of nature, which the people could not resist. His philosophy was very influential on the first King of Qin and the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, becoming one of the guiding principles of the ruler's policies. After the early demise of the Qin Dynasty, the following Han Dynasty officially vilified Han Feizi’s philosophy. Despite its outcast status throughout the history of imperial China, Han Fei's political theory continued to heavily influence every dynasty afterwards, and the Confucian ideal of a rule without laws was never again realized. Han Feizi's entire recorded work is collected in the Han Feizi, a book containing 55 chapters. It is also important as the only surviving source for numerous anecdotes from the Warring States Period. Han Feizi was a philosopher who, along with Li Si, developed Xun Zi's philosophy into the doctrine embodied by the School of Law or Legalism. Himself a part of the aristocracy, Han Feizi was born into the ruling family of the state of Han during the end phase of the Warring States Period. His philosophy centered on the ruler. In Han Fei's philosophy, the ruler firmly controls the state with the help of three concepts: his position of power; certain techniques, and the laws. Han Fei's philosophy assumes that everyone acts according to one principle: avoiding punishment while simultaneously trying to achieve gains. Thus, the law must severely punish any unwanted action, while at the same time reward those who follow it. Apart from the Confucianist Xun Zi, who was his and Li Si's teacher, the other main source for his political theories was Lao Zi's Taoist work, the Tao Te Ching, which he interpreted as a political text, and on which he wrote a commentary (chapters 20 and 21 in his book, Han Feizi). He saw the Tao as a natural law that everyone and everything was forced to follow. Parallel to this, he envisioned that an ideal ruler made laws, like an inevitable force of nature, which the people could not resist. His philosophy was very influential on the first King of Qin and the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, becoming one of the guiding principles of the ruler's policies. After the early demise of the Qin Dynasty, the following Han Dynasty officially vilified Han Feizi’s philosophy. Despite its outcast status throughout the history of imperial China, Han Fei's political theory continued to heavily influence every dynasty afterwards, and the Confucian ideal of a rule without laws was never again realized. Han Feizi's entire recorded work is collected in the Han Feizi, a book containing 55 chapters. It is also important as the only surviving source for numerous anecdotes from the Warring States Period.
Knowledge Graph
Examples
1 The show was first produced in 2009 by the Beijing-based Han Feizi Drama Club, a body devoted to reviving traditional folk arts.
2 The Shuangfeng (double phoenix) economic development area may reflect the ideas of the Han Feizi, a philosophical work of the Legalist School of the Warring States (475-221 BC), which said, "The phoenix spent three years developing wings, during which time it neither flew nor cried, it just watched and waited.
3 According to the Han Feizi, a classical philosophical work written at the end of the Warring States Period (475-221BC), anyone who dumps trash on public roads will receive a cutoff - a finger loss penalty that existed under the law of Shang Dynasty (1600-1046BC).