1 «NANDE HUTU» 难得糊涂 or «THE ART OF BEING MUDDLED»: FROM ANCIENT PHILOSOPHICAL WISDOM TO PRAGMATIC «PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE» IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA Introduction The calligraphy Nande hutu 难得糊涂 1 is without doubt one of the most well- known works of art of Qing-calligrapher and official Zheng Banqiao (1693–1765). The calligraphy can be translated as «It is hard to be muddled», but behind this paradox a high wisdom of life rooted in traditional philosophy is hidden. This high wisdom finds its source in the Daoist ideal of the sage as a fool. However, after more than 250 years, this ancient spiritual ideal seems to have given way to a pragmatic, rather instrumental interpretation of the saying. This paper attempts to show how in contemporary Chinese society the high wisdom of the saying has become a popular strategy for dealing with stress and disappointment. In this attempt, some in the academic and popular discourses on the calligraphy frequently used expressions exemplary for respectively the ancient-philosophical and the popular contemporary meaning of the saying will be discussed 2 . The paradox of «difficult to obtain muddledness» When Zheng Banqiao wrote the saying in 1751, he also added a postscript to it, which goes as follows: «Being smart is not easy. But it is also difficult to be muddled. If you start out being smart, it is even harder to be muddled. Let go! Step back for once! Present peace of mind consists of not planning for future rewards» 3 . At first sight, the saying merely seems to give advice on how to obtain peace of mind, namely by taking some distance and letting things go instead of pursuing future faim and gain. Letting go should not be interpreted as a way of «giving up» or «abandoning», but as a way to take a detached though not completely disengaging approach to life, especially in situations that are bound to bring one down otherwise such as conflicts, moral dilemmas, and feelings of powerlessness. 1 Chinese characters will only be added at their first occurrence in the text. 2 This paper presents a part of my PhD research which deals with the saying «Nande hutu» in all its different dimensions: traditional philosophical, cultural, social, psychological and moral dimensions based on extensive academic and popular discourse analysis. The term discourse here should be understood in «its most open sense <…> to cover all forms of spoken interaction, formal and informal, and written texts of all kinds» [Potter & Wetherell 1987: 7]. The academic discourse includes personals interviews with academics, scientific books and articles on related topics; the popular discourse includes opinions derived from different sources such as personal interviews, blog-discussions, magazine articles, a small survey and popular books on the wisdom of life as expressed in the saying. 3 «Congming nan, hutu nan, you congming er zhuanru hutu geng nan. Fang yi zhao. Tui yi bu. Dang xia xin an, fei tu houlai fu bao ye» («聪明难，糊涂难，由聪明而转入糊涂更难. 放 一着，退一步，当下心安，非图后来福报也»).