Yu Chung Yan

The old Confucian saying, “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, (do no evil)”, now epitomized by the titled emoticons, tells us to look and shy away from, and not to speak of anything against 禮 (lai5). 禮, usually meaning “politeness” nowadays, really means propriety here. Thus anything immoral or detrimental to the society, should be just ignored and turned a blind eye to.

It seems then, according to these “words of wisdom”, the best way for our society to function was to run away from her problems. When nobody wants to talk about, hear about or even look at the problems that exist, then, there would be no problems. Ironically but more sadly, such is the case again today. What we should do, really, is very simple, the opposite.