During the recent Spring Festival, students of Chinese may have noticed that a word appeared in almost all the New Year messages they received from local friends. The two-character word is “mashang”. The foreigner may know the character “ma” as horse and “shang” as up, but he or she would wonder what “horse-up get wealthy”, “horse-up date a girl”, “horse-up buy a house” or “horse-up succeed in career” means. By looking in the dictionary he would know the word means “immediately” or “right away”. Then it would dawns on him that “shang” is actually used in another sense – to mount. Mount a horse and you are certainly ready to reach your goal very soon.
This sentiment best reflects the currently prevailing cultural psychology in our society. That is, striving for the fast growth of wealth at any cost. We Chinese seem to be suffering from a “mashang” syndrome – seeking swiftness but not exquisiteness, pursuing wealth but not health, and favoring advancement but not the environment.
God has given us life but we seem to have no idea how to best use our time. We only care for what the future will bestow on us and never care to do the right thing at present. Laozi, who promoted the philosophy of inaction, said: “One cannot stand still on raised toes, and striding won’t get one anywhere.” Even Confucius, who aspired for success all his life, once said: “Hasty moves lead to nowhere.”
Driving guidelines in many countries warn motorists that the faster the vehicle goes, the narrower the field of vision becomes. When a car travels at 40 km/h, the field will be 90 degrees; but when the speed reaches 90 km/h, the field narrows down to 40 degrees. Narrowed vision may lead to a wrong direction or even some danger.
In 1965, there was a popular song entitled “Slow Down, My Horse”. It depicted what a rider saw traveling across the country. The impassioned, lusty singing expressed Chinese people’s pride and confidence during the golden years of 1962-65. The words “I can’t have enough of these beautiful sceneries” not only expressed people’s love of the motherland but also conveyed a philosophical understanding of the causality between a slow-paced lifestyle and enjoyment of beauty. If the horse ran too fast, the dust would hide the scenery and even ruin the blue sky. Unfortunately, that scenario has come true today.
Since the launch of the reform and opening-up drive, China has been galloping at such a fast speed on the road of development that the whole world has stood up in salute of the fine horse. Now, after having left poverty and backwardness far behind, we find many of our cities often shrouded in smog and a blue sky has become a rarity in many places. More than three decades of GDP growth at an annual rate of over 10 percent has won us the honor of being the world’s number one in many fields, such as foreign trade and foreign exchange reserves. However, the rapid growth has also brought us the infamy of being the world’s number one consumer of energy resources and number one discharger of air pollutants. It is my wish that, starting from this Year of Horse, we Chinese will use our wisdom, talent and perseverance to keep our economy growing in a speedy but steady manner. I believe that by the next Year of Horse, the world will applaud the Chinese steed for its elegant composure more than for its speed.
Our GDP complex seems to have spread to Wall Street. When the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted in late January, Wall Street analysts all attributed the slump to the slowdown of China’s manufacturing. They sounded as if the global economy would be stalled whenever China’s GDP failed to grow higher than 8 percent. In fact, so long as China’s GDP keeps growing at 7 percent, the world economy will grow one percentage point annually. China has paid dearly in sweat, environment and health for the rapid development. We don’t owe Wall Street anything. Instead, we owe ourselves a blue sky, a band of white cloud, an expanse of water and a green, low-carbon life.
For me, this New Year is not the time to whip the flying horse to a faster speed. I would rather slacken the rein and let the horse stroll on the wild flower-dotted prairie. I will look forward to the horizon, and look back as well at the winding paths I’ve traveled. I’ll ask myself in introspection: Have I kept a healthy heart in this world that overflows with material desires? Have I remained undisturbed amid the thunderous gallops of tens of thousands of horses?
Zhao Qiguang is a professor in Carleton College in USA.
