Hero is as hero does

The Bookworm audience asked about historical heroes - and villains, for that matter.

That's a murkier area than defining the bus driver's deed. For thousands of years, Chinese did look up to some historical figures such as Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhuge Liang, all from the Three Kingdoms era. Likewise, Cao Cao was the bad guy, First Emperor Qin the archetypal despot, Pan Jinlian the woman of easy virtue.

But in the past century, ever since the May 4th Movement, there has been a re-evaluation of many of them. Pan came to embody the awakening of feminism. Cao Cao's image has been burnished as a brilliant strategist while Liu Bei's tarnished as a wimp. The coup de grace came from Chairman Mao Zedong, who favored Emperor Qin and denounced Confucius.

Heroes of bygone ages have either been toppled or subverted. It is near impossible to take people back to the time when the hoi polloi got their history lessons from operatic dramatizations. The more one gets to know about a real person, the less likely that person will be given an exalted stature.

That's why imported superheroes - Superman, Batman and Iron Man come to mind - go down easily with young Chinese. They are fictional and mythical. Even though they come with embedded foibles, they'll never commit a fatal error such as racial bigotry or encounter a real-life dilemma that pits self-interest against the common good.

In the meantime, I take my cue from Confucius that, of three people who have just passed by, at least one could be my teacher. I can learn many things from many people. I don't have to erect one role model and put him or her on a pedestal.

(China Daily 02/25/2011 page18)