The short record in the Analects of Confucius(論語) that Confucius starved severely when he was besieged between Jin and Chae had been amplified and embellished in many later literatures including from Mencius(孟子) and Hsun-tzu(荀子) to Mo-tzu(墨子), Lushi Chunqiu(呂氏 春秋), ShiJi(史記). The different descriptions in each literature of the same event stay faithful to representing ideology while some inherited Confucianism represented by Confucian and the others criticized it. Among them, there may not be any more disturbingly strange and shocking as the hypocritical Confucian who is described in ShiTi(豕蹄), modern age Chinese history conte, as a man who is struggling of his self conflicts within himself.
It is hard to find someone like Confucian whose name is on people’s lips for so long. The historical evaluation on Confucian defers from ‘the great saint’ to ‘the damned’ and it is still controversial. Nevertheless, the position as a saint Confucian has in many people is firm until today. Nowadays in many cases, the collective memories of the past and the historical lessons from the accumulated and stiffed experiences do not matter much. It is not possible to turn over the collective respect beyond borders or dogmatism, however it is also not able to stop the free imagination upon it. It is to be thought that the new translation of the classic depends on people’s humanistic imaginations. We have to focus on values in reading fun, attention drawing and imaginative Confucian in ShiTi rather than Confucian who makes people feel suffocating and stifling right at the moment they hear the name. History is translating historical facts by the historian and the fact that historical translation can vary depending on time or the historian tells us that these factions contain countless possibilities. We should never forget that many unknown factors could exist other than the historical facts that we already recognize. In many classics, conventional knowledge and opposite, and familiar facts and the opposite co-exist. Likewise, some may feel interested in conflicts on the conventional Confucian and the unfamiliar one and some may read the classic again because of the unexpected feeling or thought popping out from the combination of the two Confucian. This is another way for us, contemporary people, to get close and have a deeper understanding of the classic.