We do not konw a nation until we know its pleasures of life,
just as we do not know a man until we know he spends his leisure.
It is when a man ceases to do the things he has to do ,
and does the things he likes to do ,
that his character is revealed.
It is when the repressions of society and business are gone and when the goads of money and fame and ambition are lifted,
and man's spirit wanders where it listeth,
that we see the inner man ,his real self.
Life is harsh and politics is dirty and commerce is sordid,
so that it would often be unfair to judge a man by his public life .
For this reason ,
I find so many of our political soundrels are such lovable human beings ,
and so many of our fafutile bombastic college presidents extremely good fellows at home .
In the same way ,I think the Chinese at play are much more lovable than the Chinese in business.
Whereas the Chinese in politics are ridiculous and in society are childish,
at leisure they are at their best .
They have so much leisure and so much leisurely joviality.
These sentences are cited from My Country and My People, the auther of which is Lin Yutang , a famous writter of china. Lin (1895.10.3——1976.3.26)borned in Fujian province. He used to study Literature and Language in Harvard University and Universit t Leipzig , he was a genius at literature, not like me , haha . I searched his works on the web , and found he writted many books in English , including this My Country and My People .
I heard that Lin was animadverted on his attitude in wen ge (how to chuanslate?) .Of course , morality is a most important criterion to judge a person , but simplely judge from his accomplishment in literature , he was success . He winned my applouse at least . And from the list of his English works we can find most of his work's mathos is about China. And most of his viewpoint is very incisive , convincing and still educational to us in morden world . Too many chinese people , especially many politics cannot know themselves distinctly , and donot know what they are doing , I think Lin could be a good teacher for them , and they have no right to criticize Lin.
I am sorry for my poverty of English ,and Lin is a great writter.