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In the Chinese-speaking world, traditional values play a central role in public discourse and education. The governments in mainland China , Taiwan , Hong Kong and Singapore promote concepts of filial piety and social propriety, which they regard as natural, pragmatic and lofty principles. Many citizens, too, are proud of such values and define them, more or less consciously, as important elements of their own individual identity.  According to Zhang Lihua, a resident scholar at the prestigious Carnegie–Tsinghua Center for Global Policy and a professor at the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University, “[t]he traditional cultural values that influence the psyche of the Chinese people are harmony, benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, honesty, loyalty, and filial piety. Of these, the core value is harmony ,” which means “proper and balanced coordination between things”. Confucian ideals were belittled and denigrated in China under Mao Zedong (fo...

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon an article about Huang Yuting , commonly known as Tingting (婷婷) , the ex-wife of Taiwanese actor  Shao Xin (邵昕). The article appeared on the popular Taiwanese tabloid Apple Daily , a newspaper that often talks about the private lives of celebrities. Tingting and Shao Xin divorced two years ago. This year, a friend introduced Tingting to a man who is now her boyfriend. They have been together for about half a year. He has already proposed to her and they are planning to get married.  What interests me about this article is not the gossip. What I find fascinating is how Tingting and her boyfriend explain and articulate their relationship by using a mix of traditional Confucian values and of modern concepts of love. Let us examine the text a little closer. In an interview, Tingting stated: There is almost no resistance [on the part of our families] to our being together. My mother likes him. His parents, too, have accepted me (我們在一起幾乎...