In English, there are words that sound exactly the same but are spelled differently. In Mandarin, there are words that are spelled the same in pinyin but have a slight difference in pronunciation due to the tones. There are also situations where the pinyin is spelled the same and has the same tones, but have different meanings and have different characters. The reason I bring this up was that I found it interesting how they didn’t use any tones in the words such as “li” or “ren” because they could mean so many different things in the Chinese language. Having a bit of knowledge of the Chinese language, I thought that the “ren” Confucius was talking about meant “people” or “person” until I read the comments from the translation by A. Charles Muller and realized that it actually meant the “inner, substantial goodness of the human being.”
One of the big main ideas I got about Confucianism is that for one to be a good ruler/government, they must have the trust and loyalty from ALL the people. As excerpt 12:7 states, if there is no alternative but to give up either enough food, enough weapons, or the confidence of the people, the confidence of the people should be the last thing they give up.
Another idea that was repeatedly mentioned was that one should treat one’s parents with respect, even if they have passed. I know that there is a Chinese festival called the Tomb-Sweeping Festival where the families pay respect to the family members that have passed. We would light joss sticks and place them right by the tombstone sticking out of the ground. We would bring and offer food and paper money before having people bow holding the money and then burning the money. We would then move on to the next tomb if there is another. If not, we would eat the food. Some families would place some flowers by the tomb.