Traditional And Modern Pecking The Ending Of The Meeting Etiquette Of Reconstruction

The ancient China was well known as “the land of ceremony andpropriety”. The traditional society, with the Confucian “filial piety” as thecore value, developed a set of conduct disciplines for the meetingetiquette on the basis of seniority order and the parent-child behaviorpatterns, in which the young and elderly meeting etiquette was the coreand foundation. The ceremonial discipline of the elderly to young peopleis passed from generation to generation. From “The Book of Rites” twothousand years ago to Zhu Xi’s "Primary" of Song Dynasty, and then the"Rules" are all canonical texts of ceremonial behavior used to disciplinethe young in daily life. However, with the deepening of the national crisisin modern China and the input of Western concept of equality andfreedom, the seniority order of traditional society suffered from a seriousblow and the most respected meeting etiquette,"kneel ceremony", wascompletely abolished and replaced by the “bow ceremony” as a symbolof equality after the foundation of the Republic of China. The ceremonialdiscipline given to the young began to break off with the tradition sincethen. In the modern “National Transformation movement”, thetransformation of the discipline of rituals between the young and elderlydid not form a new meeting etiquette between them. Today, the meetingetiquette between the young and elderly is still in the old but not a new state.With the abolition and reconstruction of the young and elderlymeeting etiquette as a clue, this paper shows the break and transformationprocess of the traditional young and elderly meeting etiquette disciplinarysystem in the modern “National Transformation movement”. This paperis divided into four chapters. The first chapter introduces the abolition of“kneel ceremony” as the symbol of traditional seniority order and thesituation of the young and elderly rituals before the Republic of China,from the appearance of the traditional “kneel ceremony”, the formation ofetiquette of the seniority order, to the late Ming and early Qing dynasties,when the “kneel ceremony” was questioned by Western missionaries as areligious symbol of idolatry, and then the late Qing diplomacy in which“kneel ceremony” was regarded as a symbol of inequality. With thedeclination of China and the coercion of the gunboats of Western powers,the “kneel ceremony” regarded as "religion" and "inequality" symbol wascompletely abolished in the diplomatic field. The fierce criticism of the“kneel ceremony” and the seniority order in the late Qing Dynastyprompted the rise of the modern transformation of education for theseniority order and decorum in the discipline, which involved strategiessuch as replacing the disciplinary field and power of the young andelderly etiquette, transforming the traditional discipline texts, anddepriving the elderly of the traditional disciplinary power. From the perspective of performance studies, this article attempts to show thespecific etiquette behaviors of the young and elderly in theinter-generational conflicts caused by the etiquette disciplines of the lateQing Dynasty and analyze the specific implements of etiquette disciplinesin the behavioral level. The second chapter analyzes the cleansing twistsof the old customs and the practices of the etiquette disciplines of youngpeople in the “National Transformation Movement” during the historicalperiod from the foundation of the Republic to the Kuomintang PoliticalTutelage. The paper inspects the texts for the ceremonial disciplines, theperformance steering of the meeting etiquette in the school space, and theseniority role and order before and after the New Culture Movement inthe education steering, to give concrete and specific descriptions to theritual disciplines on the young. Secondly, the paper shows the ups anddowns of the Confucian ceremonies in the field of education of thisperiod. Thirdly, from criticism of the “father” and “son” seniority orderand the dislocation of the ritual performances of the young people in theNew Culture Movement, the paper analyzes the appearance of the ritualdisciplines in the "citizen" movement.rising in the1920s.The thirdchapter inspects the etiquette and conduct disciplines on the young in theKMT’s political tutelage, from the political ritual discipline in the classfield and the “model" behavior shaping mode to the specific appearanceof the "Party" disciplines and the daily life behavior disciplines and etiquette order of "Boy Scout". KMT followed the “Reform thecitizenship, strengthen the country” notion in the late Qing Dynasty todevelop a universal social behavior discipline of an “elderly society”based on the discipline mode of the young, Boy Scouts, which resulted ina complete reversal of the seniority order politically in the "New LifeMovement".The traditional seniority etiquette disciplinary system was graduallydestroyed in the modern “National Transformation movement”. It didhave some overcorrect and regrettable sides. But the general directionwas in line with the inexorable law of the historical development. ChapterFour (also the conclusion) summarizes the valuable experiences andlessons learned in the process of reconstructing the etiquette discipline, topropose the feasible ideas and strategies for the reconstruction of today’syoung and elderly meeting etiquette from the perspective of performancestudies.