Yi Qi Story And Its Cultural Implication Of New Exploration,

Boundless thought-provoking meanings are laid in the stories of Bo Yi Shu Qi's Abdication and Reclusion, Cai Wei Shou Yang and No Eating of Zhou Millet out of Personal Loyalty, which contain and condense the violate transformation at the turn of Yin and Zhou. This paper intends to disclose how the conducts made by time and ideal sublime and settle in the mine of Chinese culture. As the period of great political and cultural changes, the turning of Yin and Shang witnesses the naissance of patriarchal clan system, the settlement of the Son Inheritance Law and the compensating Wife and Concubine Law, which is just a matter of concept. Influenced by these systems, Shu Qi demises the crown to Bo Yi. Though it has entered patriarchal society by then, some of the matriarchal practices and customs are still preserved. To some extent, women have the freedom to have intercourse with men and it is a common phenomenon to get married with pregnancy. In hope of retaining the purity of blood, possessions and power are supposed to be inherited by younger sons. The father of Yi Qi passes down the crown to Shu Qi, which is right according to the Tin system. Bo Yi, out of respect for his father's order, refuses to accept Shu Qi's offer. The result is that both of them seek reclusion. A poor life as they lead in Shou Yang, they are content to have abided by the virtue and morality and they never regret for that. The benevolence and virtue they seek is actually primitive humanism, the specific representations of which are: self-effacement of kinship, peace-loving cultural ideal, non-violence political pursuit and the senior provision economic hope. They convert to King Wen is exactly because King Wen meet the requirements of their ideals; they are against King Wu as a result of Wu's violence breaching their beliefs. In path-finding period of Chinese culture, the individual conducts and choices of Bo Yi and Shu Qi are condensed into a spirit, which surpasses the limitations of the individual personality, the rising of Zhou and the declining of Shang, and finally settles in the bed of our national spirit. Moreover, its influence extends to the construction of the entire cultural system. As a result, Chinese culture possesses the qualities of self-effacement, cherishing incorruptness, golden mean, and distaining wealth, the influence of which is shed in choosing path in the following years. The primitive humanism is still attractive to modern people, and encourages them to strive for it.