Thorsten J. Pattberg
Research Fellow, Peking University
Dr. Thorsten J. Pattberg (裴德思 Pei Desi) is a German writer, linguist, and cultural critic.
rnHe attended Edinburgh University, Fudan University, Tokyo University, and Harvard University, and earned his doctorate degree from The Institute of World Literature at Peking University. He studied under the guiding stars of Ji Xianlin, Gu Zhengkun, and Tu Weiming, whom he considers his spiritual masters.
Dr. Pattberg is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo; and a former Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Peking University. He is the author of four monographs 'The East-West dichotomy,' 'Shengren,' 'Holy Confucius,' and 'Inside Peking University,' and some of his representative articles are 'Language hegemony – It’s shengren, stupid!,' 'Long into the West’s dragon business,' 'China: Lost in Translation,' and 'The end of translation.'
BEIJING – James Palmer, a journalist from Beijing, reports about the ongoing plight of the disabled in China. His article deserves attention: Practical and communist “95% of orphans in China […]
BEIJING – There are probably as many definitions of ‘genius’ as there are vain, successful people. Yet, not everyone who is vain and successful is a genius; in fact, many […]
‘Religion’ is a Western word and concept. There’s only one “Religion” -this category. Naturally the West will generously promote “religious freedom” as long as terms and conditions apply: We are […]
A philosopher is a wise man distinguished for wisdom and sound judgement while a sage is a wise man distinguished for wisdom and from experience. The philosophers Philosophy is concerned with […]
ONE of my childhood buddies died unexpectedly at the age of eighteen. That was many years ago, in Hamm, Germany. While alive, he was a known brawler, a brutish drunk, […]
BEIJING – Western journalists (and bloggers) understandably often take deep satisfaction from exposing the corruption, megalomania, and banalities of authoritarian regimes -preferably great powers like China and Russia. But beware […]
There’s something deeply and profoundly philosophical about the gradually decline of the Europeans: It’s going on for over a century now. MOST observers will have heard about the latest US […]
BEIJING AND TOKYO – The Chunjie celebrations have come to an end this week and, starting from next Monday, we can expect Beijing’s political retaliations against Tokyo and Manila for […]
We cannot and we must not become Chinese, and at heart we don’t want to either. We must not seek ideal or higher meaning of life in China or in […]
“This is the character of the Chinese people […] unconstrained morality, in practice and theory, Heart, inward Religion, Science and Art properly so-called – is alien to it. […] The […]
SHANGHAI – The Wall Street Journal‘s recent investigations – those parts that went into final print – paint a rather mild picture of the stressful situation in China, mainly concentrating on […]
US will have gradually withdrawn from battle for world domination by mid century MUNICH – Helmut Schmidt, 95, Europe’s most eminent living politician and former German chancellor, overshadowed this year’s […]
In the Chinese Zodiac, the horse symbolized high expectations, performance, and stubbornness. What better occasion than this to talk about the heavy work load that’s awaiting China’s leaders, economists, and […]
The Cyclops Polyphemus as a Metaphor for Western Civilization and its Linear Way of Reasoning “The Greeks only understand theories, but the Chinese are the people who own the technologies.” […]
Red-hot news Jan 26 – Beijing has sent another activist, Xu Zhiyong, to prison. He fought against corruption and social injustice. Washington and Brussels protested vehemently on Sunday, and on […]
A German top official with the Goethe-Institute in Shanghai once remarked that “marrying a Chinese woman will make you rich.” This statement was soon retracted, and the man repatriated, but […]
“Underdeveloped,” “immature,” “effeminate” – such adjectives from the life-sciences were often used to describe East-Asian cultures in the 20th century. By erroneously seeing ‘culture’ as an organic, living entity -a common metaphor […]
“Now, working elbow to elbow with billionaires, I was a giant fireball of greed.” –Sam Polk BREAK it down: Obscenely rich people from 2013 meet in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss […]
During the age of colonialism, Western powers conquered the people of Asia and objectified their women. This is well documented in literature, film, and scholarship: Here the dominant, masculine West; […]
This topic deserves more attention. Below you will find an [abridged] transcript of a fascinating talk given on Chinese identity by Frank Ching, an American writer and journalist. It touches […]
THAT is a common joke among mainland Chinese who outnumber the Japanese roughly ten to one. It also mocks Japan’s geographical tininess. (It’s not a small country, bigger than Germany […]
When the Western powers colonized Asia, naturally they enforced their own views on sex, gender, and relationships onto the subjugated civilizations. This is from a chapter on ‘Gender’ taken from […]
Horrible, horrible social injustices “I feel like a walking corpse.” BEIJING – Left picture: Gong Qifeng is traumatized and suffers from schizophrenia ever since the forced abortion of her second boy […]
“Hence the competition […] was sharp between book and book, brain and brain, constituting […] almost a gladiatorial spectacle for the entertainment of the sophisticated.” –A. R. Hall, Philosophers at […]
“We practically know the West like the palm of our hand, but the West’s vision of the East is still a murky confusion. It is thus self-evident who would hold […]
USScience Magazine excludes Chinese terminologies from its publications If the shengren isn’t science, what in China is? The shengren is the single most important concept in the Chinese tradition. Yet, […]
“Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.” –Thomas Carlyle, 1840 1. Be that […]
BEIJING – Chinese universities are plagued with corruption. Last November, the clique around Cai Rongsheng at Renmin University got busted. The 48-years old ‘Chief of the Student Admissions Office’ tried […]
‘Tiger Mom’ spurns out another bestseller – a bit racist but true? NEW HAVEN – Social media is currently hyping a soon-to-be published book by America’s notorious ‘Tiger Mom’, Amy […]
“Education isn’t about knowledge, it’s about privilege.Would we know about Hannah Arendt had she not studied under Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers? Let me be more specific, education is about the privilege […]