You may be wondering what Confucius’ birthday has to do with the study of the Internet. Well, not a lot. But Google’s Search logo today is in honour of the man, so I thought that I would mention it. I just went to Google to search for something, and was curious to see what the Chinese logo represented. It is his birthday.
For those interested in who Confucius was, and what he represented, here is some information from Wikipedia (Confucius):
Confucius (Chinese: 孔子; pinyin: Kǒng zǐ; Wade-Giles: K’ung-tzu, or Chinese: 孔夫子; pinyin: Kǒng Fūzǐ; Wade-Giles: K’ung-fu-tzu), lit. “Master Kong,“[1] (traditionally September 28, 551 B.C.E. – 479 B.C.E.) was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher, whose teachings and philosophy have deeply influenced Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese thought and life.
His philosophy emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. These values gained prominence in China over other doctrines, such as Legalism (法家) or Taoism (道家) during the Han Dynasty[2][3][4] (206 B.C.E. – 220 C.E.). Confucius’ thoughts have been developed into a system of philosophy known as Confucianism (儒家). It was introduced to Europe by the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who was the first to Latinise the name as “Confucius.”
His teachings may be found in the Analects of Confucius (論語), a collection of “brief aphoristic fragments”, which was compiled many years after his death. Modern historians do not believe that any specific documents can be said to have been written by Confucius,[5][6] but for nearly 2,000 years he was thought to be the editor or author of all the Five Classics (五經)[7][8] such as the Classic of Rites (禮記) (editor), and the Spring and Autumn Annals (春秋) (author).
So, there you go. I first met him when I started studying Shaolin 5 Pattern Hung Kuen kung-fu. Well, I did not meet him, someone in the class suggested I read a bit about him, just to get into the Kung-fu groove. The Google logo today has brought back some old memories. 1992. Preston. Cold. Wet. Kung-fu. Stars. Flying tables. Pork chops. Rain. Long walks. Lakes. Rain. Burglary. Losing everything. Moving on. I wonder how Master Ang Kee Kong is today. And Sifu Andy. Hmmmm.
