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The Himalayas As A Barrier For The World

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One Better Village to Live for All of Us

Some historians believe that the Himalayas acted as a barrier for the last five thousand years, separating civilized development in China from the rest of the world. (China kept much to herself until about two hundred years ago. Then the British, using gunpowder invented by the Chinese, forced the door to China wide open to the West, starting the most humiliating chapter in Chinese history and the interactions with the rest of the world). Developments in China and the West progressed at a similar pace, despite their engaging in little intellectual communications. Great thinkers emerged in both parts of the world about 2500 years ago, paving the way for their respective civilizations to develop culturally and intellectually, albeit taking completely different approaches.

Confucius (born 551 BC) is the most influential figure in the Chinese history. His thoughts and those of his followers laid the foundation, “the foundation is Confucian ethics” described by Fung Yu-Lan in A History of Chinese Philosophy. This is fundamentally different from the major civilizations in other parts of the world, where traditional religions have played more dominant roles in the course of development. “We are not religious because we are philosophical,” from A History of Chinese Philosophy, for example, death often plays mysterious roles in almost all forms of religions, but not in the mind of Confucius. When facing a question about the meaning

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