Bei Tanning once jokingly asked the audience in the class if he could give a lecture at the Central Party School. The listener answered without thinking: no! But before long, the listener sent him an invitation.

"I wonder, can a foreign political science professor really go to the highest institution of China * * * Production Party to give lectures?" Betanine's eyes are wide open.

"Yes!" The auditor replied solemnly, "The Central Party School is revising its past policies. As long as it is approved by the vice president, foreigners can now give lectures at the Central Party School. "

However, both sides are a little hesitant and don't know what to say. He is still a clever listener. He opened his mouth and said, "You can talk about how to improve your English."

Mr Tannin smiled. "I don't know anything about it! Do you know that I learned it from novel English? What is the reference for China students? "

The audience encouraged him: "Don't refuse, you are a big professor and you must have something to say. It's a deal. I'll pick you up tomorrow. "

This is a strange experience for the Central Party School: Bei is very interested in the history of the campus and the school. He met several girls who spoke Tibetan and was surprised to learn that they were likely to be senior cadres in Tibet in the future. When he stood in line in the student canteen, the students looked at his expression as "both curious and ridiculous".

Of course, the theme of the speech is not the political philosophy that Bertini is familiar with, but how to learn English. I'm actually talking about my experience in learning Chinese. There was a smile in Betannin's eyes, a little proud like a child. A girl asked him how to improve his English as soon as possible. He immediately told the audience that you can find an English-speaking boyfriend or girlfriend. "I started learning Chinese after I met my wife. She gave me a lot of help. But I didn't know that the girl who asked me questions was actually sitting next to her. "

Some students asked us whether we should listen to BBC or VOA in English study. Bei Daning replied: VOA is a propaganda tool of the US government, and it may be better to listen to the BBC. Many people in the audience couldn't help laughing. "I didn't expect a foreigner to talk like this."

According to the students of the Central Party School, the atmosphere that day was "quite humorous". Some people have also raised the issue of communitarianism. "In fact, we are no different from other schools except that there are guards standing at the school gate." A student of the Central Party School said, "In fact, the discussion in our class is quite active. Students have a wide range of interests and read English books. Perhaps only in the eyes of Professor Bei Tanning, the Central Party School is still shrouded in a mysterious color. Perhaps this is why he always described coming to the Central Party School as a glorious thing. "

In fact, there is a certain gap between them: Bei Tanning was surprised when he heard that a professor of the Central Party School had read his book "East meets West".

After the speech, several girls stayed to continue the discussion. A student jokingly asked him if he should go abroad to find an English-speaking man and never come back. Betanine immediately replied, "It's easy to find an English-speaking person and take him back to China, just like my situation."

Everyone present burst into laughter.

"Owls take off at dusk"

"When it comes to politics, my mind will immediately think of the dogma of rote memorization in primary schools, middle schools and even the college entrance examination. Why does Tsinghua now invite foreigners to teach politics? What are the similarities and differences between the politics he taught and the politics we studied before? " In fact, the question of Kong Xiao, a student of Tsinghua Automation Department, is also the question that most people will have when they hear that "foreigners teach politics in Tsinghua".

In the view of Professor Wan Junren, the head of the Philosophy Department of Tsinghua University College of Humanities, this is nothing strange. Hiring foreign teachers is one of the important measures to implement the plan of "World-class University" in Tsinghua. Among liberal arts disciplines, economics, management and so on began to hire famous foreign professors many years ago.

Many scholars at home and abroad often confuse Bettanin, 42, with daniel bell, 87, another famous Harvard University. In order not to cause more misunderstanding, Bei Tannin reverted to his middle name-Daniel A. Bell. Although Belchang of Tsinghua can't compare with Bell of Harvard in contemporary international academic circles, it is this Bei Tannin who is recognized as "the representative of a new generation of communitarianism" by western academic circles.

1985 After graduating from McGill University in Canada, Betanin received a doctorate from Oxford University. His works have been published in the publishing houses of world-class universities such as Oxford University in Britain and Princeton University in the United States. His representative works Communitarianism and Its Criticism and East-West Encounter have been translated into Chinese, Japanese and other languages several years ago.

Professor Wan Junren's academic research focuses on modern and contemporary western ethics and political philosophy. As early as the early 1990s, he noticed Betanin's research results. Later, they got to know each other better through international academic conferences.

"I have made many friends with western scholars. Why should I hire him? " Professor Wan Junren asked himself, "Ethics and political philosophy are the main philosophical disciplines that we choose to give priority to. Mr. Bei attaches great importance to China's classical political philosophy and Confucian ethics, and has unique research. His sympathy and understanding of China's culture and education, as well as his own intention and schedule, are all reasons. At the same time or even before we hired Mr. Bei, Peking University and other universities had contact with him. The reason why he finally decided to accept our employment has a lot to do with his own recognition of our academic group. Undoubtedly, Mr. Bei's participation has a very positive significance and influence on the development strategy of Tsinghua Philosophy Department, which focuses on ethics and political philosophy. "

Regarding many questions about Tsinghua University's hiring foreign philosophy teachers to teach political philosophy, the professor explained: "If you know the knowledge system and historical evolution of philosophy, and if you have a deep understanding of the socialist reform practice in contemporary China, you will understand why we hired Mr. Bei. As an intelligent science, philosophy has always been regarded as the most important category of humanistic knowledge in the western world. Any decent university has its own sound philosophy discipline or philosophy department. Ethics was once regarded as the' first philosophy' by westerners. Political philosophy and ethics have always been regarded as the wings of philosophy, the owl that takes off at dusk (in Hegelian), and the two eyes that philosophy pays attention to the life world and practical problems. The philosophy departments of some of the most famous universities in the world focus on these two directions. There are 16 teachers in the philosophy department of Harvard University, more than half of whom are engaged in the teaching and research of political philosophy and ethics. This is also the basic reason why Harvard philosophy can become synonymous with American philosophy and form the ideological core of American spirit. "

Professor Wan Junren believes that Mr. Bei Tanning's ethical research and courses on social and cultural unity, political research and international wars, and research and courses on modern democracy and equality provide unique and beneficial foreign knowledge mirror images for teachers and students of Tsinghua Philosophy Department.

"Political philosophy is not equal to political activity itself," Professor Wan Junren emphasized. "I don't think studying political philosophy in China has difficulties and restrictions beyond academic. On the contrary, I believe that today's academic and educational circles in China not only provide an unprecedented good environment and conditions for all kinds of academic research, including political philosophy, but also provide unique and rich practical resources and theoretical motivation for the study of political philosophy and ethics. "

He said: "After more than 20 years of reform and opening up, our country is no longer a self-enclosed country. I can say responsibly that we will not use administrative means or even political means to manage university education. On the contrary, we have been trying to explore and seek a management mode of teaching and scientific research that conforms to international practice and the reality of China University. As far as I know, Tsinghua has never done anything like reviewing teaching plans, whether for foreign teachers or local teachers. "

"I can tell you, too," Professor Wan Junren's joy was beyond words. "Over the years, I have visited many philosophical colleagues and famous scholars from Harvard University and Princeton University in the United States. Not only did they know about Bay's book, but they were also surprised that Tsinghua University could formally hire him to teach. You should be able to imagine my joy and pride as his China colleague! "

He is becoming more and more "China".

The first question many people ask Betanine is, what language do you have classes in?

He said, I hope it is Chinese, but in fact, English is still the main language. "Nearly 100 people came to class for the first time, and less than 20 people came for the second time. I'm a little depressed. Later, I heard that many people came to my class hoping to practice English. After discovering that they don't understand, they won't come. "

With the improvement of North Chinese, the proportion of his Chinese teaching is increasing. He also began to accept Chinese questions because he could understand most of the contents. However, if the questioner has a strong local accent, or the question is long and not closely related to the teaching content, it is necessary to ask repeated questions.

Student Liu said: "Mr. Bei's ancient prose level is quite good, which is better than many high school students." Moving and motionless, he knows everything and can recite many famous ancient poems. " In the past two years, she spent two hours a week helping Bei Tanning learn ancient Chinese. I finished reading The Doctrine of the Mean last year, and now I am reading Mencius.

Liu Wei is a "serious student". Before each class, he will preview, make rare words cards and write English notes on the back. He will ask many questions, some of which we will never think of.

Mencius under the Ugly Sun records that Qi Xuanwang wanted to summon Mencius, but Mencius felt disrespectful to Yao and Shun, so he got sick under an excuse. After reading these, Bei repeatedly asked Liu, "Are you sure Mencius is really not sick? I said I'm sure. He asked, Mencius was not ill. Didn't he cheat Qi Xuanwang and his disciples? I explained that China people think that there are good and bad, and they can abandon small goodness for the sake of big goodness. But he thinks that Mencius' lying has a great influence on the integrity of saints. I think this may be related to his acceptance of Kant and Christianity. "

"In ancient Chinese, there were many intertextual techniques, sometimes just to understand words. If you stubbornly pursue the exact meaning of every word, it is unnecessary. Sometimes, I will tell him that many of China's philosophies are literary expressions, and it is not appropriate to use Western analytical methods to determine the text inch by inch. "

In Bei's mind, Liu should be paid for studying ancient Chinese, but he declined politely. "This is another cultural difference: China people pay attention to respecting teachers and doing something for teachers, which is a way of showing respect and cannot accept remuneration. On the other hand, Westerners clearly distinguish between academics and economics. " Liu said:

"The teacher later solved this problem in a more Chinese way, that is, invited me to dinner." Liu said with a smile: In order to be fairer, Betannine also came up with a good idea: teach her to read the English translation of The Doctrine of the Mean. Soon they found that there were many misunderstandings in foreigners' translation. For example, China's translation of "Cheng" used to be "Chuang". "Mr. Bei will certainly agree with us. At the same time, I also realize that there are many inaccuracies in the translation of western philosophy we read. "

Even his wife Song Bing admits that it has become more and more "China-like" in the past two years. He lives with his mother-in-law's family and gets along better than many traditional China families. Some students praised him as handsome. He doesn't shrug his shoulders and say "thank you" with a smile like westerners, but shyly lowers his head and whispers, "Where, where."

At first, Betannine was shocked when she saw students plagiarizing English textbooks. In his view, this is a flagrant violation of intellectual property rights. However, he soon realized that the living expenses of overseas students in China were only about $50 a month, and they simply could not afford the original books. If you copy them, a book only costs a few dollars. After understanding this, Bei Tanning simply took out his book and lent it to the students for copying.

He is now used to calling his colleagues "teachers" instead of calling them by their first names like western scholars. He no longer keeps the Oxford way of "tearing each other to pieces". Like his colleagues in China, he will politely "add a few words" after the other party's speech, which is actually criticizing the other party's views and defending his own.

After living in China for several years, Betanin returned to Canada to visit relatives. When he left, his mother stopped looking at him at the door, and he wondered for a long time. "Why don't you take me to the airport?" It turns out that he has long been accustomed to the way people in China bid farewell at airports and stations. Only from the details of life such as playing ice hockey and not eating overnight bread can others see the traces left by the western lifestyle on him.

"Teachers in China, especially professors in famous universities, have a high social status, and the aversion to intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution seems to have become a thing of the past. This is change! " Bei Tanning wants to see more changes in China society, so he plans to live in Beijing permanently. He even plans to open a quiet little restaurant near Tsinghua. "It must be a place where you can read, discuss academics and enjoy food with friends." Bei Tanning thought with relish, "Just like my doctoral thesis, it is not in an appropriate paper format, but two people in a cafe in Paris, eating sauerkraut stew and discussing communitarianism."