This is apparently an old Chinese proverb (I had not heard it before), and it is mentioned in the opening line of a China Daily story about a Chinese farmer, Liu Fucheng, who has been reduced to begging from millionaires to raise money for his daughter’s medical treatment.  There are various issues here.  For one, the fact that this man is reduced to writing letters to rich men, pleading for funds for his family’s health care, is just another reminder of how dire economic inequality has become in China.  Also, the fact that this story is now featured on the Internet tells us something about China Daily’s willingness to publicize such stories. But I want to focus on something else.

   As I read the proverb – "A man without money is no man at all" – I was immediately struck by the disconnect from both Confucianism and Taoism.  Both philosophies, at least from what is available in the ancient texts (as opposed to later philosophical and political accretions), would reject this idea.  Confucius quite explicitly repudiates the idea that one’s material wealth is a measure on one’s humanity.  Indeed, he is most disdainful of those rich people who conspicuously display their supposed higher morality, as when he scoffs at the Ch’i family patriarch who goes overboard in using eight rows of dancers at this ancestral temple (3.1).  No, money does not make the man; understanding and careful practice of ritual makes the man. 

    Little needs to be said about Taoism here.  The idea that money somehow defines a person would be patently absurd to both the writers of the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu.  Their message is quite the opposite: to find Way, one needs to disentangle oneself from material desires and pursuits.  We might even reverse the quotation to gain a Taoist perspective: a man with money is no man at all.

    And this leads to another point about Chinese culture.  We often assume that Confucianism and Taoism – and perhaps Legalism – and Buddhism, are the central elements of our definition of "Chinese culture."  And those lines of thought are certainly part of it.  But, as the money proverb demonstrates, there are also many local practices and understandings, some that might directly contradict the supposed pillars of "Chinese culture," that, in fact, loom large in the popular Chinese imagination. 

    The sensibility captured by the proverb might have deep historical roots, reflecting the stark competitiveness of a high-population country where a lack of economic resources could spell personal doom.  Indeed, it might be that (I am guessing here) population pressure created incentives for shrewd business practices and carefully planned family-centered economic strategies.  People had to work hard and calculate carefully to maintain their living standard in the face of competitive economic pressures from others.  If you and your family did not take advantage of certain opportunities, others would, and you would lose out.  A man without money would then become no man at all.

    One more thing, then.  Confucianism and Taoism might not have been the leading cultural-moral definitions of "Chinese culture."  They may have been plaintive critiques of the competitive materialism of actually existing "Chinese culture."  Maybe these schools of thought were always oppositional, never encompassing even the majority of daily culutral practices.  Maybe China was never wholly "Confucian" nor "Taoist."  Maybe it wasn’t as "Chinese" as we now understand the term….