wénhuà

wénhuà (wén·huà {(with) writing} · transformed (system) → [culture] | {(with) writing} · transformed → [cultural] 文化) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

Ironically, even though many people obsess over preserving “authentic” traditional Chinese culture, the very Chinese word for “culture” actually came from a Japanese word, which was coined to translate the Western concept of culture:

Before the word wénhuà 文化, meaning “culture,” was imported from Japan to China, there was already a concept of wénhuà 文化. It is as old as the word Zhōngguó 中国. Four words are concealed behind 文化, namely 文 wén (civil); 治 zhì (administration); 教 jiào (to educate); and 化 huà (to persuade). 文 wén is an abbreviation of 文治 wén zhì (civil administration); 化 huà is an abbreviation of 教化 jiào huà (to persuade through education). Thus 文化 is a short way of writing “civil administration and persuasion through
education.” This refers to the peaceful, Confucian-based moral education of the people (cf. Gernet, Jacques 1983:85, 295).

The current word “culture,” which is also written 文化, has a different origin. To translate the Western concept of culture, the Japanese coined the word bunka, which is written 文化 (see Liu, Zhengtan et al. 1984, s.v. wenhua). The Chinese imported this character combination from Japan and pronounced it according to the rules of their own language: wénhuà. In this way, the modern term has been superimposed on the Chinese “civil administration and persuasion through education.” The original Chinese meaning is largely unknown nowadays.

—“Two Steps Toward Digraphia in China”, by Xieyan Hincha

So, let us not fall into the common snare of idolizing any worldly human culture, including traditional Chinese culture. As with any human culture that has had contact with other human cultures, there has been mutual borrowing/stealing of ideas, mutual influencing, etc. Also, as with any merely human culture, there is some bad along with the good. There is so much bad in every worldly human culture, in fact, that Jehovah will not deem any worldly human culture to be worthy of preserving forever, no matter how ancient and seemingly exotic it is. Indeed, “the world”—and all the human cultures in it—“is passing away”.—1 John 2:17.

For a certainty, we should never let human cultural traditions take priority over serving Jehovah in the best way we can. As in all other things, we should imitate Jesus in positively hating any human traditions that make it unnecessarily burdensome for people to serve God.—Mark 7:1–13.

Rather than putting any mere human culture on a pedastal and taking pride in learning from it, we should primarily take pride in being “taught by Jehovah” himself about ways of thinking, feeling, expressing, and doing things, which are what make up culture.—Isaiah 54:13; 1 Corinthians 1:31.