Questions for Essay Seven

Following the prompts below, present your thoughts on cultural differences and the uneven developments in world history. No less than 500 words.

As an average person, what is life’s purpose and meaning for Fu Gui going through the stages of modern Chinese history as reconstructed in the film: the Civil War in the 40s, the land revolution in the 50s, the Great Leap Forward in the 60s, and the Cultural revolution in the 70s？

Do you think the attitudes of Buddhism and Taoism as revived in the film relevant today：reincarnation, karmic retribution, being and non-being? Are the ups and downs in fortune, the rise and decline of a nation the results of the cyclical changes in the natural universe, or the expressions of zeitgeist in human development?

Does history (human activities) have to have a purpose and meaning? Is the so-called history the manifestations of the spirit if the age as Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Hegel would believe, or expressions of a neurosis as Norman Brown would contend?