What do Chinese people think of this description of China? This is the closing paragraph of the introduction to the general characteristics of Chinese civilization in the University Textbook I am reading at the moment. I'd love to know what the Chinese people make of it. China does not know the transcendent truths, the idea of good in itself, the notion of property in the strict sense of the term. She does not like the exclusion of opposition, the idea of the absolute, the positive distinction between mind and matter; she prefers the notions of complementarity, or circulation, influx, of action at a distance, of a model, and the idea of order as an organic totality. She does not have recourse to exhaustive inventories after the fashion of the Mesopotamian world or to the neatly boxed classifications in the Indian style; for Chinese thought, the order of beings and of the world is best translated by systems of variable, dynamic symbols. Her logic does not proceed from an analysis of language. It is based on the handling of signs with opposing and complementary values. Perhaps Chinese writing is not unconnected with these deep-rooted tendencies which have ended by giving a privileged position to the written sign at the expense of the spoken word. (Taken from 'A history of Chinese Civilization' by Jacques Gernet.) Thoughts, comments?