On games as modern Confucian ritual: It may seem a stretch, but I dont think so: games have rules and social expectations all players are expected to observe with propriety, and that propriety does not make them stiff; on the contrary, it gives them the socially harmonious ease Confucius, to me, most valued ritual for. Games can thus be seen as cultivating 仁 ren. Evidence: This student reflection on the 20-student trip I led to Qufu and Mt. Tai last month. Seen from the perspective of Confucian emphasis on ritual for social bonding, it speaks volumes to me. You? Here it is: I feel like one of the parts of interim that I’m going to remember most, although somewhat arbitrary, is the card game that we started to play on the train from Beijing to Qufu called Mao. It began as a group of four students trying to find something to do to pass the hours on the train faster, and it ended with huge groups of us playing at one time, each person striving to win the game and become “enlightened.” This game was played at every opportunity: during free time, at lunch tables, and even while travelling from place to place on buses (which was very hard to manage, but we figured it out). The game never ceased to spark laughter and friendly competition among the group, and was, in my opinion, what really made each person on our interim trip so open with one another and easy to talk to because of how much time we spent together playing Mao. This game is what really started this trip off well for me, and it sort of broke the ice between everyone, making the rest of interim even better.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 23:58:20 +0000
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