The splendid Chinese civilization is a crystallization of both the material and spir-itual civilizations created by the Chinese people through their long history, an out-standing civilization that, in the cultural traditions of a country with an ancient civili-zation, struggles without fault zones to get its existence, continuance, enrichment anddevelopment. It embodies the Chinese people's labour, contributions, painstaking ef-forts and wisdom, incorporates and digests the cream of foreign civilizations, andkeeps rolling on incessantly like the Yangtze River and the Yellow River. History hasproved that it was the place where the powerful life-and solidifying-forces came from,by which the Chinese people strived to resist powerful foreign enemies, to unitethemselves to go all out to make their country strong and to have a peaceful life. Theprosperity of modern China, the exemplary conduct and nobility of character and thehigh-spirited morale demonstrated by the people in their vitalizing China, also have aclose relation to the fine Chinese cultural traditions. Not only the Yan and Huang's de-scendants both at home and abroad are deeply proud for, but people of insight in theworld also think highly of, the Chinese civilization.
In the Chinese civilization, the Qilu Culture occupies an outstanding position,Shandong-the area where the ancient states of Qi and Lu located in -is one of themajor birthplaces of China's ancient civilization. It is here where the ancient sages ofConfucius and Mencius were born in. The Taishan culture zone was formed already inremote antiquity. In this zone the Beixing Culture and the Dawenkou Culture werecreated and developed. In the early Neolithic age, the glorious Longshan Culture wascreated, and the exquisite and ingenious world-fafous black pottery, which was “asblack as lacquer, as bright as mirror, as thin as paper, and as hard as shell”， alsosurprized the modern man. Especially, the establishment of such enfeoffed states as Qiand Lu made the cultural development in this area more typical in reality as well as inname. During the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 B.C.), the Confucianism, withConfucius as its founder and leading exponent, growed vigorously. While it has aprofund influence on present world, it runs through the ancient and modern times andhas become the core of traditional Chinese civilization. And as a master and sage ofbroad and profund knowledge seldom seen in the world, Confucius himself was recog-nized as the best of the ten eminent persons of historical culture in the world. Disciples
of the Schools of Confucianists, Mohists, Logicians, Legalists, Huang-Laoists, andthe Positive and Negative Forces gathered in the Learning Hall of Jixia.It was therewhere they elaborately engaged in scholarship, set forth new ideas, argued with andcomplemented each other and aired their own views. With their distinguishedoutstandingly real knowledge and deep insights they filled and enriched China′scultural treasure-house at one hand,and started the contending of a hundred schoolsof thoughts at the other, thus forming an academic atmosphere of tolerant harmonyand equal contending that has been looked up for generations.The Confucianism ofConfucius and Mencius and the schools of Jixia emptied as two fountainheads gushingunceasingly into the endless flow of Chinese civilization. Many great masters afterConfucius of literature, history and the study of Confucian classics came from Qi-Lu.They made a great contribution both in and to philosophy, history, politics, militaryscience, science and technology, literature, arts, education, medicine andarchitecture. There were tremendous amount of books and master-hands ofknowledge. As we are looking through the ancient books and records, making on-the-spot investigations and wandering about unhurriedly in the rich atmosphere of QiluCulture, we would feel that how high the sky and how broad the earth is, that how freeand delighted we are, and a desire of “To see all the unheard-of grand sights so as tounderstand the immensity of the universe” would well up in our hearts、Qilu Culture isan important part, indeed, an essential part, of Chinese civilization, while it has itsown distinguished features. Throug it, one may analyse and penetrate the Chinese civi-lization more profundly, more elaborately and more seientificly, to the effect of ab unodisce omnes.
It is the grand Qilu Culture, its all-dimensioned and multilayered penetration inand influcence on people′s lives, intellegence, creation, labor, customs and ideas, itsimportance to and affect on our nation′s development in the past, at the present andeven in the future, that constitute our motives and inner drives to compile this diction-ary. Our nation, our ancestors and pioneers of elder generations created such a splen-did culture that attracted a worldwide attention, naturally the successors areduty-bound to inherit and carry forward it. We should respect the historical culture,pay attention to it, and inherit it with effective measures. This is necessary to the en-couragement of patriotic thoughts, the promotion of national spirits, the enhancementof self-confidence and cultural quality of the nation, and the acceleration of the mod-ernizing construction、Only the developer and creator standing at the top of historicalculture could be a giant, while the person calling for development and creation in thedesert of historical culture could only be a dwarf. Historical culture is the root of mod-ern culture. It has a restricting and standardizing impact on the basic features anddevelopmental trends of modern culture. Our inheriting of the historical culture, ofcourse, should inherit and incorporate its essence rather than everything . For the tra-ditional culture formed through the long historically accumulation has both a positivevalue-its main and basic aspect, and a negative value-its secondary aspect. Its histori-cal limitations and negative elements may have a hindering and binding function to thedevelopment and modernization of culture. Including Qilu Culture, the Chinese civili-zation should not be seen as a unchangeable and inherent pattern, but a moving anddeveloping historical process, a continuing and expanding life-force and the soul ofour nation. It exists not only in ancient cultural relics , in ancient books and records ,and , in simple and unsophisticated folk customs, but also in the multiplication andlives of the Chinese people, in the derivation and creation of new cultural ideas. Thepurpose of inheriting the cultural tradition is to enrich and develop it, to carry forwardthe national spirits and to promote the modernization of culture.
“Examining the antiquity in order to understand the present-day, Clearing thepast in order to anticipate the future.” Facing with the historic task of vitalizing China,prospering Lu (Shandong Province) and enriching its people, we must creat materialand spiritual civilizations that are not a shame to our ancestors and our era. In order toenrich the cultural lives, mould the noble sentiments, adjust the intellectual structures,and carry forward the national spirits, scholars and ordinary people explore and dis-cuss from different points of view and in different ways the mysteries and essence of na-tional cultures, thus forming the “culture craze” both at home and abroad. This is in asense a major trend of historical development. Gratifying achivements have been madein this field, with a lot of treatises, books and dictionaries on culture being publishedsuccessively. Yet there is still no comprehensive works that can encompass and embodyQilu Culture. For this reason, we have determined to develop this wasteland, to fillthis empty land. Many famous experts and scholars from various subjects and experi-enced practical works from many units within Shandong Province have been invitedto join the project. On the bases of demonstrating repeatedly, drawing up the strategyfor compiling and writing entries by classification, we will do our best to make the dic-tionary scientific, precise, complete, systematic, novel and stable. It will be the thefirst complete and accurate encyclopedia of Qilu Culture.
The compiling of this dictionary is a heavy project. Owing to the absence of amodel to be used for reference and the limitation of the time, data and ability that wehave, it perhaps is impossible to encompass every field of Qilu Culture and to have athorough knowledge of the emergences and developments in every layer and aspect ofQilu Culture for thousands of years without mistakes and omissions. We eagerly hopethat experts, scholars and the reading public not stint their criticism and that, in itssecond edition, the dictionary be enriched and corrected aciording to the criticism.
We sincerely contribute this book to the 40th anniversary of the founding of thePeople′s Republic of China.The Editorial Board of Dictionary of Qilu Culture May, 1988 Jinan |