Zhuang Zi, a One-of-a-kind Philosopher (I)
We have not updated our blog for quite a while. I have had a crazy start to this year both at work and home. Sorry about the long wait! Without further ado, let's jump right into today's topic. We'd like to introduce you to a truly magnificent ancient Chinese philosopher, my all-time favorite, Zhuang Zi (aka Chuang Tzu or Chuangtse, 庄子). He lived in roughly the same time as Confucius during the Spring and Autumn Period (771 - 476 BC). Zhuang Zi was a brilliant prose writer of the time. Unlike the dry moralizing of any early Chinese thinkers including Confucius, Dr. Lin Yutang described Zhuang Zi was "a humorist with a wild and rather luxuriant fantasy, [a fair] for [superb] exaggeration and for the big. One should therefore read him as one would a humorist writer knowing that he is frivolous when he is profound and profound when he is frivolous." The mystic creatures he imagined in his work became so well known and widely used in the Chinese language through