You can’t make this stuff up:

BEIJING, May 21 — The China Confucius Foundation will award a 500,
000-yuan (about 60,000 U.S. dollars) prize for the winner of a Confucius’
animated image selection.

     The selected imagery is to be adopted in a 100-episode cartoon TV play
featuring the ancient Chinese philosopher and educator.

    It was reported the foundation has signed Thursday a contract on production
of the animation drama with a media outlet based in southern China’s Shenzhen
city.

    The producer is to solicit the animated imagery of the sage from designers
around the world.

    The animation will tell stories about Confucius’ life and the history of
the Confucianism.

    Deputy Secretary General of the foundation, Wang Daqian, said the animation
will provide a wider channel to increase the influence of the Confucianism
around the world.

     Why in Heaven’s name do they think we need a Confucius cartoon?  Will that really help encourage a serious engagement with, say, The Analects?  Or will it simply feed into pre-existing shallow distortions of his thought?   We do pretty well invoking Plato and Aristotle – not to mention the usual parade of modern Western philosophers – in a wide range of contemporary debates without an animated cartoon of any of them.  Or did I miss something?

      This is just another pathetic attempt to make money off of the Venerable Sage.  Notice where this is happening: Shenzhen!  The epicenter of wild and crazy capitalism with Chinese characteristics (don’t get me wrong.  I like Shenzhen.  But I do not take it as a place where serious intellectual work is being done…).

       Here’s what China Daily reports:

The idea of Confucius in cartoon has been welcomed by animators, Zuo Jin,
president of the Shenzhen-based Shenbi Animation Co who first proposed the
series, said.

"Potential buyers from the United States, Canada, the Republic of Korea,
Spain and Israel have all expressed their interest," Zuo said during the ongoing
third China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industry Fair.

 It’s all about the buyers.

       Another thing: why bother soliciting animations from "around the world"?  What are the odds that the head of the China Confucius Foundation would select a cartoon from Japan or Korea, or the US for that matter, as the "best animated image" of Confucius?  Nationalism will, I predict, win out.  And that’s just one more way that this whole affair violates the spirit and letter of Confucius’s writing. 

The Master said: "The noble-minded are clear about Duty.  Little people are clear about profit." (4.16)