The Beneficial Course

In the last two days, I spent my time in Lu Jiang Cultural Centre located just a stone throw away from The Mines shopping Mall. It was a two days and a night course or camp held under the support of more than 20 college mates having an intention to explore more about Di Zi Gui (弟子规).

Di Zi Gui is an ancient Chinese teaching advocated by Confucius, where it has influenced a lot of learners to behave positively and wisely. It is not only a compilation of intelligence inherited from the Chinese ancestors, it also serves as a guidance to a happy life. Some people might have misconception such that Confucianism is religious and it could pose conflicts to their existing mindset about the way to live their life. In my opinion, unless you have not been exposed to those Chinese historical stories or anecdotes at all, you would at least have a sense of resonance with the Confucian teaching because Di Zi Gui is closely related to the analogy extracted from those allusions.

We reached the centre at about 8.30am on the last Saturday. A teacher welcomed us through a polite ninety degree bow. We were really surprised as a man with approximately three times our ages could show his respect to us in this way. He spoke softly, gracefully and gently. This is a trait we could seldom come across with especially in this modern era with everything should have done quickly and harshly. The place is clean and interspersed with traditional Chinese decorating. Lanterns, calligraphy couplets, wood carvings, the ambiance had really thrilled me as I have a great interest in these! The staff were dressing in samfu and cheongsam too!

The courses were fantastic and insightful! Because we had only two days and a night, the courses were tightly packed. I particularly salute Teacher Song, a kind woman whose great proficiency of linguistic skills were shown in her fluent speech conducted in many languages and even dialects!

We were introduced to Di Zi Gui, learned about practicing healthy vegetarian diet and sharing of allusions which I miss a lot since primary school. Di Zi Gui is based on eight-fold virtues: 孝(filial piety), 悌(brotherhood), 忠(loyalty), 信(trustworthiness), 礼(propriety), 义(righteousness), 廉(cleanliness), 耻(shame).


There was a session of movie sharing. I strongly recommend the Korean movie to you, namely "The Way Home" which tugged at my heartstrings to the extent that I phoned my grandma after that to express my love to her which I had never done before. However she didn't seem to have any response to my words. I expected, as I have written somewhere in my blog that my family is very conservative, we don't take much obvious action to express our love to each other. However, we do know how much we love each other.

Talk about love, I eventually realised that family love is the foundation of love, it is the fundamental relationship that everyone has the responsibility to carry. How could we expect ourselves to have a true friendship, or to have a long term and "high resistance" relationship with the one we have chosen, or in my case, to have the compassion needed in my future profession towards the patients, if we have failed to do so to our family?



An ideal place to live =)