The Relationship between Chinese Culture and Assyrian Culture Management

Prof. Eden Naby

Ph.D., Columbia University

The great advantage of Chinese culture for the understanding of the management of cross-cultural currents in Asia is the fact that China is a highly literate culture.  Record keeping in the rest of Asia has been haphazard or subject to destruction.  Therefore, it is very difficult to know how, historically, cultures that lie between China and westward toward the Mediterranean, even along the land trade route famous as the Silk Road, have effected or been incorporated into the existing cultures. 

In my brief remarks today, I wish to look at the relationship between Chinese culture management and the culture of the people of whom I am a descendent, the ancient Assyrians. Today the Assyrians are a minority Christian community in the Middle East on the verge of disappearing from their native land, the Iraq/Syria region of the Middle East. But 3000 years ago, the Assyrians formed the first great empire of the Middle East, one that stretched form Egypt to the borders of Iran.  The Assyrians introduced the Aramaic language and its writing system to the Middle East.  All written languages of the region from the 8th century BC to the introduction of Arabic in the 7th century AD.  Because Arabic entered the cultural domain as a “holy” language (of the Koran and Islam), it spread wherever Islam went to overcome the influence of Aramaic.

Aramaic today is the language of most indigenous Christians in the Middle East. This group is fast emigrating from the Middle East due to known pressures.

Like the Chinese scribal system, the ancient Assyrians also kept detailed records, sometimes on clay tablets, sometimes in inscriptions and sometimes only on rock relief. 

However, it is difficult to ascertain whether the ancient Assyrians had any direct contact with the culture of China. Yet we know that some time later, in the 6^th century, Christianity entered China through these Aramaic speakers.  Evidence exists in physical objects, the Xian-fu stele which remains to this day in both Chinese and Aramaic Syriac, and evidence in Chinese writing and painting of the arrival of these Christians from the west. 

This evidence for the cross-cultural contact is well known.  We know that the Tang emperor favored these Christians.  We also know that they assimilated their religion to Chinese habits of thought and philosophy.  We know that the Aramaic language disappeared after a flowering of the culture briefly.  So the Chinese habit of assimilating this western culture persisted.

What is less well known is what, besides religion, these travelers from the west brought to China.  For example, is the weeping willow that graces Beijing’s parks today, the variety known as “babylonica” a product of this contact?  Babylon is part of the homeland of the Assyrians.  Did these 6^th century Assyrians introduce the willow and its medicinal uses to China?  Did this tree then become part of Chinese medicine, art and poetry to such an extent that many of us internationally associate this tree almost exclusively with China?

This tree, plus a variety of herbs like cumin (Ziran), which have their roots in the hills and mountains of the ancient Assyrian empire, has become assimilated to Chinese culture. 

Briefly then, the management of culture in China clearly speaks to adoption and assimilation.  It would take a careful study of sources for Assyrian culture of the ancient and modern periods, and Chinese records to understand the extent and means by which certain beneficial aspects of cross-cultural contact were incorporated into Chinese culture.

This assimilative trait of Chinese cultural management makes it flexible, adaptive and ultimately successful once it breaks free of those customs that make many cultures brittle, therefore breakable and unsuccessful. 

For the 21^st century as for the 6^th century – adaptive management techniques will lead to success.