Asia on Pitara Kids Network

Confucius: The philosopher-teacher who taught kings how to govern

Wed, 20 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC):

When the world thinks of traditional Chinese philosophy, they think of Confucius. He was the philosopher-teacher who taught kings and officials on how to govern. He was the man people turned to understand how to be good human beings.

Some may think Confucius was a traditional old man. After all, he was the master of rituals and believed deeply in their value. But Confucius wasn’t so simple. According to him, ritual and music were a way to learn values. For example, when we follow the rituals of mourning, we learn the value of life, and the reality of death. We mourn the dead and celebrate their life, through rituals.

Bruce Lee

Sat, 25 Jan 1997 19:04:12 +0000

The Chinese American actor Bruce Lee, was born in San Francisco on November 27, 1940. Born a sickly child, he was named Li Jun Fan a female name by his mother to ward off evil spirits. His dad an Hong Kong opera singer returned back to Hong Kong along with his family in 1941.

As a kid martial arts and bodybuilding were his only preoccupation, studies didn’t interest him. In 1946 he appeared in first of many films as a child actor. He appeared in 20 movies and rarely in school. He soon became involved with a gang and his mother shipped him back to America before his 18th birthday so he could claim his dual-citizenship and avoid winding up in jail.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Mon, 19 Nov 2001 04:16:32 +0000

Aung San Suu Kyi was born on June 19, 1945 as the daughter of national leader General Aung San (assassinated July 19, 1947) and Daw Khin Kyi. She was educated in Rangoon, Burma until she was 15 years old. In 1960 she accompanied her mother to Delhi, India on her appointment as Burmese ambassador to India and Nepal. Kyi studied politics at Delhi University. She earned a BA in philosophy, politics and economics from St. Hugh’s College, Oxford University. She worked abroad for the next several years during which time she was married to Dr. Michael Aris and had two children.

Dalai Lama

Thu, 12 Jul 2001 15:45:12 +0000

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet was born in 1935, soon after the 13th Dalai Lama passed away. He was the fourth son of a poor peasant family in Takster village, Amdo province in eastern Tibet. The line of Dalai Lamas, spiritual and temporal rulers of Tibet since the 13th century, is a succession of incarnations. In accordance with tradition, search parties were sent to find the successor to the thirteenth Dalai Lama. Two years later, following the various signs and portents, a government party was led to Takster, where they found the infant Lhamo Thondup. After a series of tests, the child (later named Tenzin Gyatso) was recognized as the 14th incarnation of the Dalai Lama.

Ho Chi Minh

Sat, 22 Apr 2000 12:44:00 +0000

Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Vietnam revolutionary nationalist party of Indo-China, which struggled for independence from France during and after the second world war, was born Nguyen Sinh Cung on May 19, 1890 in a village in central Vietnam. The French through a puppet emperor indirectly ruled the area during that time. Inheriting his father’s rebellious bent, Ho participated in a series of tax revolts, acquiring a reputation as a troublemaker. In 1911 he left Vietnam to work abroad. Toward the end of World War I he went to France where he joined the Socialist Party. In 1919 at Paris Peace conference, he unsuccessfully agitated for civil rights in Indo-China. Rebuffed, Ho joined the newly created French Communist Party and visited the USSR to study revolutionary methods. Soon Ho was roaming the earth as a covert agent for Moscow.

Mao Zedong

Thu, 30 Mar 2000 05:19:58 +0000

Mao Zedong was chairman of the Communist Party of China and the principal founder of the People’s Republic of China. Along with Karl Marx and V. I. Lenin, he is regarded as one of the three great theorists of Marxian communism. Mao’s greatest achievements were the unification of China through the destruction of Nationalist power, the creation of a unified People’s Republic, and the leadership of the greatest social revolution in human history. This revolution involved collectivisation of most land and property, the destruction of the landlord class, the weakening of the urban bourgeoisie, and the elevation of the status of peasants and industrial workers. As a Marxist thinker and the leader of a socialist state, Mao gave theoretical legitimacy to the continuation of class struggle in the socialist and communist stages of development. Although Mao was criticized after his death for the failure of his economic policies and the revolutionary excesses of his later years, his basic foreign policy was continued and his theories, particularly those on the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, remained influential in the nonindustrialised Third World.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

Fri, 06 Aug 1999 21:12:22 +0000

The Ayatollah (Arabic, “Reflection of Allah”) Ruhollah Khomeini became leader of Iran in 1979 by forcing the overthrow of the shah and Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar. Born in Khomein, Iran on May 27, 1900, the son of an ayatollah of the Shiite sect, he studied theology and by 1962 was one of the six grand ayatollahs of Iran’s Shiite Muslims. Exiled in 1964 for his part in religious demonstrations against the shah, he was expelled from Iraq in 1978 and moved to France, where he emerged as the leader of the anti-shah movement. In January 1979, after the shah left Iran, he returned to lead the country, becoming faqih (supreme religious guide) for life of Iran’s Islamic republic in December.