Understanding Conflict in Shakespeare’s Plays and Chinese Daoist Texts

This paper discusses how conflict is dramatized in some of Shakespeare’s plays and is implied in the Chinese Daoist texts. Within the framework of Geert Hofstede’s (2001) five independent dimensions of cultural theory, the paper specifically addresses the teachers of Shakespeare to adopt cross-cultural approaches to Shakespeare. My purpose is that teachers of Shakespeare’s plays might consider adding the introduction of Chinese Daoism into their class and unfold the understanding of conflict as more productive than disruptive. By bringing Shakespeare’s plays into an intercultural dialogue with the Chinese Daoist works, I hope that the study will open up new possibilities of understanding and interpreting conflict in the literary curriculum.


Introduction
In this paper, I focus on reading and understanding conflict in Shakespeare's plays and Chinese Daoism in the framework of Geert Hofstede's cultural dimension theory. Shakespeare (1564-1616) is acknowledged as representing the English culture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. His achievements in drama create "the common bond of humankind" (Greenblatt 1). Chinese Daoist culture and philosophy are based on the Dao De Jing (《道德经》) and the Zhuangzi (《庄子》). The text of Dao De Jing, supposedly written by Laozi (老子), originated in the Warring States period of China, approximately 475-221 BC. The text of Zhuangzi was supposedly written in the 4th century BC by Zhuang Zhou (庄周) and those who followed Zhuang Zhou's ideas. Shakespeare's production of drama and Chinese Daoist philosophy transcend time-bound beliefs and national boundaries. Shakespeare and Lao-Zhuang become signs that belong not only to a particular culture but to "culture" as a whole.
The word "culture" undergoes a significant change from "the cultivation of land" to "the cultivation or development of the mind, faculties, [and] manners" (OED). There is an intimate analogy between tilling the soil and cultivating the mind. Just as tilling the soil needs sunshine and water to breed plants, cultivating the mind also calls for traditional wisdom to slow down the fast pace of life in the modern society and contemplate problems that destroy our harmonious relationships with nature. As humans, we are a species and are confronted with internal and external conflicts. Conflict is ubiquitous and disruptive in nature. Shakespeare's art dramatizes conflict as one of the salient themes. Although conflict is treated differently in different plays, the general keynote that Shakespeare conveys is to embrace conflict as part of life. The Daoist texts also admonish people to treat conflict less harshly to keep body and mind in good health. This article specifically addresses the teachers of Shakespeare to adopt cross-cultural approaches to Shakespeare. My purpose is that teachers of Shakespeare's plays might consider adding the introduction of Chinese Daoism into their class, to enrich students' knowledge about the ancient wisdom of the other culture. My research questions are: What do Shakespeare and Daoist texts tell us about conflict? How is conflict addressed, treated, and internalized in some of Shakespeare's plays and Daoist texts? I hope that the article will help teachers to interpret the theme of conflict in Shakespeare's plays from a new lens. In an intercultural dialogue between Shakespeare and Chinese Daoist philosophy, teachers might help students understand the diversities and complexities of conflict and treat conflict with more respect. It is also my wish that students in the West who study Shakespeare might acquaint themselves with Chinese Daoist culture and develop a cross-cultural consciousness when they read Shakespeare's writing in a literature class.

Theoretical Framework
Geert Hofstede (Oct.2 nd , 1928-Feb 12 th , 2020) was a Dutch scholar in cross-cultural studies. His in-depth research delineates diversities of thinking modes and social behaviors that connect people in different cultures as well as separate them. In Culture's Consequences, he analyzes the elements of national cultural differences and categorizes them into five dimensions: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and collectivism, masculinity and femininity, long-term orientation and short-term orientation. They constitute the core of Hofstede's cultural dimensional theory.
The first dimension of Hofstede's cultural dimension theory is power distance. Although different cultures handle it in different ways, power distance is essentially concerned with human inequality. As early as in Homer's Odyssey and Plato's declaration of the status consistency, Hofstede points out, inequality has become "one of the oldest concerns of human thinking" (Hofstede 80). Despite Jean-Jacques Rousseau's belief in "all equal by agreement and by law" (81), one universal phenomenon in almost every society is that there are undernourished people and people deprived of basic education. It seems that there would be no society without the "integrated systems" (82) of one class presupposing other classes. Due to this paradoxical phenomenon, power is distributed unequally. Hofstede defines power distance as follows: The power distance between a boss B and a subordinate S in a hierarchy is the difference between the extent to which B can determine the behavior of S and the extent to which S can determine the behavior of B. (83) Hofstede cites Mauk Mulder's field experiments (1976,1977) and Kipnis's laboratory experiment (1972) as evidence to show that "inequality confirms and perpetuates itself" (83). The above definition presumes that there is a considerable difference in different cultures but an equilibrium is eventually established between B and S by mutual satisfaction. Before equilibrium levels off, conflict occurs incessantly due to the social hierarchies that separate people into classes, castes, and estates. Hofstede employs the power distance norm as a criterion to characterize one dimension of different national cultures.
The second dimension in Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory is uncertainty avoidance. Uncertainty about the future is a basic fact of human life. Due to this consciousness, human beings tend to resort to technology, laws, and religions to cope with anxiety towards the future. Though each of these institutions has its unique power in coping with the inherent uncertainties of living in the uncertain future, Hofstede proves that coping with uncertainties "belong[s] to the cultural heritages of societies" (146). He points out that uncertainty avoidance is not the same as taking risks and risk avoidance (148). Risk has a specific case in mind and arouses our fear toward it. However, uncertainty is a "diffuse feeling" (148) because we do not have a clear idea of what would happen in the future. Uncertainty is the "source of anxiety" (148), hence escaping from ambiguity is a feature of uncertainty avoidance. People living in an uncertainty-avoiding culture look for orders and institutions to make the future predictable and interpretable. A typical example is a Confucian society where people's view of the world and their behavior are manipulated by a set of strict moral norms.
The third dimension of Hofstede's cultural theory is individualism as opposed to collectivism. Hofstede defines this dimension as "the relationship between the individual and the collectivity that prevails in a given society" (209). The relationship affects not only the way of people living together in a family or a working place but also considerably affects how well human institutions function in the entire society. Hofstede's data research shows that the Chinese culture scores significantly lower on individualism than most Western cultures do. In a sense, Chinese people's emotional, cognitive, and motivational constructs differ much from those of Western culture because Chinese culture provides its people with an interdependent "self-construal" (210). In an individualist culture, the antithesis between "I" and "you" carries its distinct "inner-directed" (210) moral overtones. For example, people do not go by traditions but are guided in their behaviors by an inner "psychological gyroscope" (210) that is developed in their early education. In a collective culture, much respect is shown for the traditional wisdom. Collectivism does not mean a negation of the individual's stance in pursuing well-being. It is implicitly assumed that a collective identity makes personal interest possible. Hence, when a conflict arises, a pro-collective ethos cherishes the values of peer groups, while an individualist ethos attaches much importance to "personality". A convincing example is a lexico-semantic difference between the Chinese character " 人" (ren, meaning "man") and the English word "personality": the former carries both social and cultural connotations, while the latter refers to a separate entity that is isolated from social and cultural environment.
Hofstede's fourth dimension is concerned with the difference between the two sexes. Sexual differences between the male and female in the biological sense have significant implications for the different social roles that two genders undertake in society. Masculinity and femininity reference the social and cultural differences between the two genders. Anthropologist Margaret Mead (1950Mead ( /1962 argues that women attain "a sense of irreversible achievement" (qtd. in Hofstede 280) in childbearing, and men attain this sense of achievement in more physique-related activities, such as raising cattle, building gardens, killing game or enemies, etc. In short, women take tender work while men take tough work. The pattern of "the male assertiveness versus female nurturance" (Hofstede 280) establishes the male's dominant role in the family and in society. Hofstede also quotes Deborah Tannen's work (1992) to reveal that different ways of thinking and exchanging feelings are also manifest in two genders. "Machismo" is a term associated with masculinity and manliness. In feminine cultures, Hofstede argues, people look down upon macho behaviors (309), and the female is seen as combining qualities of "saintliness, submissiveness, and frigidity" (309).
The fifth dimension of Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory is long-term versus short-term orientation. In a society that cherishes the long-term orientation, "children learn thrift, … tenacity in the pursuit of whatever goals, [and] humility" (Hofstede 361). Children who grow up in a short-term orientation culture tend to chase "immediate need gratification" more than they respect traditions, hence an intense tension between need gratification and respecting 'musts'" (361). To put it simply, traditions are honored in a long-term orientation culture, while respect for traditions brings about feelings of guilt in a short-term orientation culture if self-gratification runs contrary to traditions that "must" be observed, such as tolerance for others and reciprocity of favors (361). Hofstede sees the Confucian culture as a long-term orientation culture because virtues, "such as education, frugality, and persistence" are taught "directed at the future" (363). Western religions, such as Christianity and Judaism, are based on the belief of a Truth, which leads to the "dissociation between spirit and matter" and "explains the opposing forces in short-term orientation cultures" (363).

Power Distance: As You Like It and the Daoist Outlook on Nature
In the "Teacher notes" of designing As You Like It (2010), the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency offers a detailed description of learning objectives and processes of teaching Shakespeare's As You Like It. In the introduction part, teachers require students to prepare a design proposal for a production of As You Like It. The proposal should show that students understand "the two contrasting environments in the play: the court and the forest" (Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency 2). From the line "I trust thee not" (As You Like It 1.3.49), students do a close study of life in the court and interpret the characters and atmosphere of the court. In contrast, teachers ask students to read closely life in the forest when they read "… [m]ore free from peril than the envious court" (AYL 2.1.4). Students work in groups and discuss which words or phrases stood out in terms of describing the forest and what effect have these words or phrases created (Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency 19).
In the pedagogy of As You Like It, teachers cannot ignore the issue of hierarchical social order in the family and in the dukedom. There are two plotlines in the play: Orlando is dispossessed of his father's property by his elder brother Oliver, and Duke Senior was banished by his younger brother Frederick. The conflict between two pairs of brothers is produced by the inheritance laws and social hierarchies. Shakespeare, in alignment with Spenser, Marlowe, Raleigh, and his contemporary playwrights in the Elizabethan period, resorts to the pastoral to criticize the social and political practice in the dramatic text. The pastoral is not only an idyllic form of poetry singing about the shepherds' lives but also a satirical critique of a hierarchical society. In the play, the desire to flee the corrupt urban court life is enacted by the men and women who possess innate goodness and gentility. Gilbert (qtd. in Garber 439) references Spenser's explanation of the word "savage" as etymologically associated with "wood". The play is brimming with images that carry the connotations of the woods and the rustics. For example, Orlando is kept at home "rustically" (AYL 1.1.6); Duke Senior removes to Arden with his followers where "they live like the old Robin Hood of England" (AYL 1.1.100); Rosalind and Celia utter a simple line when they flee the urban court: "Let's away, / And get our jewels and our wealth together" (AYL 1.3.127-128); the faithful old man Adam demonstrates what Orlando calls "the constant service of the antique world" (AYL 2.3.58); and finally in the isolated forest of Arden, every character writes verses that provide us not only with pleasure but also carry a comic irony of the selfish life in the court.
In the pastoral conventions, "savage" men living in the woods are nurtured in a way that nature is represented: natural, kind, civil, and genteel. As a contrast to the pastoral decorum that emphasizes the gentility and gentleness, the courtly decorum is featured by the Latinate speech and pompous actions to distinguish itself as a symbol of hierarchy and high values. With regard to the conflict between the two kinds of decorum, there are no heroic or chivalric actions in the play to rebel against the rank inequalities. Instead, music, dance, verse-writing, deerhunting, and sheep-tending are profusely used to emphasize the human's attachment to nature. The forest of Arden itself carries the connotations of simplicity, wildness, and recklessness in this socialized nature or naturalized society. Elizabeth Marie Weixel believes that the forest is "charged with myriad complementary and conflicting cultural connotations" (2). Garber argues that the forest "is a repository, and indeed a palimpsest, of earthly paradises from literature, myth, and personal history" (440). Consistent with their arguments, I contend that the forest of Arden, freighted with cultural and historical weight, functions as a way to deconstruct the power distance generated by primogeniture and estate inheritance, two integrated systems generated by civilized society as well as the source of familial strife and social unrest.
In the civilized world, the insurmountable power distance leads to the courtly treachery and fraternal enmity, taking on a more ferocious visage than the harsh wind and coldness, the green snake, and the udder-dried lioness in the forest. The underprivileged men of worth -Orlando and Duke Seniorare forced to retreat to the marginalized world of the forest after they are banished from the mansion and their dukedom. The privileged men of evil -Oliver and Duke Frederickhave their souls magically and mysteriously elevated in the green atmosphere of Arden. While the high power distance in the court emphasizes the prevailing authority and demands deference from the people in the lower rungs of the social ladder, the forest of Arden manifests a lower power distance culture where power equality is bestowed upon dwellers. Forest dwellers are not concerned with which social status they are in. This world is "a golden world, an Eden, [and] an Arcady" (Garber 443). In the high power distance world of the court, Rosalind regards the court as a working place. She laments, "O how full of briers is this working-day world!" (AYL 1.3.9). In the low power world of the forest, she is in a happy mood, and says, "I am in a holiday humour, and like enough to consent" (AYL 4.1.59-60). The opposition of these two emotional states insinuates the heroine's eagerness for liberation. The play draws upon pastoral conventions to express people's fundamental needs for justice and equality. The conflict generated by power distance is addressed in the pastoral dreams and fantasies that the play enacts.
Chinese Daoist culture also attaches much importance to the significance of nature in healing people's thirst for power and authority. Nature is spontaneous and non-contentious. The Dao De Jing claims that seeking prominence, wealth, and social status as the means to achieve success brings catastrophe to the individuals and society as well. The wisdom of being artless, simple, and genuine as nature assumes prevails in Daoist culture. According to the Dao De Jing, to maintain a state of natural simplicity, one should be like an infant, a piece of ice, or a block of uncarved wood. Consider the following line from Chapter 8 of the Dao De Jing: The highest good is like water. The goodness of water lies in benefiting the myriad things without contention, while locating itself in places that common people scorn. (Lynn 63) Lin points out that water manifests the characters of humility, gentility, and seeking the lowly position (77). In the Zhuang Zi, water is described as "serv[ing] as our model, for its power is preserved and is not dispersed through agitation" (Lin 77). Water represents the sacred value in the way that it flows to lowly areas, does not compete against any others, and nurtures all that hinders its flowing as well as fauna and flora alongside the banks.
The image of the valley also evokes in us humility and tranquility. The Dao De Jing has terse verses on modeling ourselves to be valley or ravine in Chapter 28. "He who is a river valley for all under Heaven never separates himself constant virtue and always reverts to the infant" (Lynn 103). Wang Bi interprets these verses as follows: "The river valley does not solicit anything, yet things come to it as a matter of course. The infant does not use any knowledge of its own, yet it communes with the knowledge of nature" (Lynn 103). Much of Daoist wisdom comes from the ancient Chinese sages' observation of nature. The Chinese character "谷" (gu, meaning valley or ravine) occupies an important ontological status in our knowledge of the world. It is a place where all sorts of creatures start flowing and breeding. It is vast and formless. It generates life and movement without persuading others to grow and to follow. Thus chapter 28 of the Dao De Jing goes on to indicate that power does not assert one's honor and glory. It is obscurity, humility, or disgrace that has an eternal power that sustains our life. This is particularly a piece of advice to modern people who are constantly contriving for superiority, fame, and wealth: He who knows glory yet sustains disgrace will be a valley for all under Heaven. He who is a valley for all under Heaven is filled completely by constant virtue, for he always reverts to the uncarved block. (Lynn 103) The "uncarved wood" is used to refer to such a state as being simple, spontaneous and uncontentious. It is a state of ziran (自然, which means spontaneity). There is nothing more authentic or genuine than a piece of wood. We can change it into whatever we want it to bewe can cut it into a piece of a log; we can carve it into a delicate piece of furniture; yet the best state is its natural original state when it grows in the living tree.
The Yi Jing's interpretations of the Earth (坤, Kun) also carries the message of modeling ourselves after Mother Earth. The Yi Jing (《易经》), also translated as I Ching: The Classic Book of Changes, is a Daoist wisdom book in ancient China written over 2000 years ago. In this book, Kun is the name of the second Hexagram of the total 64 Hexagrams. It means Earth, opposite to and correlated with Qian (乾), the Heaven. The combination of Qian and Kun designates the Universe. Kun illustrates the nature of earth: dark, corporeal, receptive, and dependent. As Minford comments, "Kun has utmost Softness, greatest Capacity; there is nothing it cannot contain, nothing it cannot sustain … Earth is broad, its Potential Energy soft and pliant" (35). Mother Earth accepts whatever is poured down into the soil and completes the birth and growth of the seed, without hesitation, complaints, and contentions. In the human world, power produces arrogance and conflict, and eventually, misery and disaster befall to the parties concerned. In the natural world, Kun cooperates with Qian to make the process of life possible. Namely, Mother Earth compliances or accords with Heaven and willingly puts down herself into a state of docility. Like water and valley, Mother Earth receives whatever comes to itself and nourishes them in a subtle way. The second Hexagram of the Yi Jing describes Kun as "Mother of the Myriad things" (Minford 32). It goes on to say that "Kun's capacity is vast" (33); "Kun is soft, yielding, is steadfast" (34); "Kun, potential Energy of Earth. / The True Gentleman sustains matter through ample inner strength" (35).
Comparing Shakespeare's pastoral strategy and the Daoist wisdom of modeling us after water, valley, uncarved wood and Mother Earth, I find that it is interesting that both cultures are concerned with the role of nature in dealing with the conflict produced by power or hierarchies. Shakespeare's nature reconciles the distance between the authority of courtly life and the pristine nature of human existence. Daoist culture teaches people to imitate the fine qualities of natural beings, to see nature as holy, and restore our sense of reverence. In a swiftly changing age, we are inclined to prioritize the impact of science and technology and are convinced that humans, especially the greatest historical figures, are turning the wheel of history, pushing human civilization upwards and outwards. In this human-centered anthropocentric view, we obliterate in the experience of art something far more important to us. Through an interculturally informed pedagogy, teachers invite the student to think deeply about the conflict between the civilized world and the forest world in As You Like It and cultivate the sense of humility, gentility, and submission in students' consciousness, informed by the Daoist thoughts on the antianthropocentric view of the world.

Uncertainty Avoidance: Hamlet and the Daoist Outlook on Mindfulness
In this part, I compare Hamlet's interior monologues with the Daoist wisdom of practicing mindfulness in tranquility, with the intent to examine how uncertainty is viewed differently in Hamlet and in Daoist culture and what measures they take to cope with the inner conflict which is the outcome of anxiety. Revenge and forgiveness are highly focused in the teaching of Hamlet (Styslinger 26). Wolfsdorf, a high school teacher, asks his students in the Hamlet class: "What happens if the Danish prince does not contemplate his own mortality?" (39). Hamlet's interior monologues are the starting point and the key to understanding and interpreting his inner conflict.
In the play Hamlet, Hamlet's interior monologues, or soliloquies, along with his melancholy, exemplify his preoccupation with anxiety. Entangled in a web of uncertainties and ambiguities, Hamlet wants to either take revenge against his uncle or to commit suicide, yet he finds himself more engaged in "desir[ing] to throw off the burden of his inner conflict" (Paris 155-184). Recognizing that the world he dwells in abounds with evils with which he feels disgusted -"the oppressor's wrong," "the proud man's contumely," "the pangs of dispriz'd love," and "the law's delay, the insolence of office" (Hamlet, 3.1.73-75), Hamlet wishes for moral justice and laws to guarantee a secure life for Danish people. When a possible murder twists his heart and cannot fulfill his revenge, Hamlet retreats to his inner world: he contemplates the relationship between dreaming, sleeping and dying; he meditates on the full sense of "being" while having to live with "a sea of troubles" (Ham. 3.1.61). He eulogizes the divine workmanship in "What a piece of work is man!" (Ham. 2.2.294). He also expresses the equally weighty lamentation of "this quintessence of dust" (Ham. 2.2.298). Man's spiritual highness and corporeal lowness are constantly brooded over in his philosophy of life and death, being and not-being. Through his soliloquies which focus more on philosophical meditations than on his security, Hamlet ponders over the essence of being. Compared with Gertrude's remarks that death is "common" because "all that lives must die, / Passing through nature to eternity" (Ham. 1.2.71-72), and gravediggers' corporeal view of death as a vulgar descent into decay, Hamlet's insight into death is closer to Heidegger's concept of authentic Being. Authentic Being means that one's awareness of death focuses attention on the self and goes deep into the individual Dasein. Hence the attitude to death is not the fear of death but the anxiety about death. The anxiety about death reveals a sense of Nothingness. In his lecture What is Metaphysics, Heidegger asserts that Nothing is the very home of ours (qtd. in Zhu, Yong 235). Hamlet utters a strong sense of Nothingness in his soliloquies. In the face of the pestilence-ridden world of Denmark, this feeling of Nothingness becomes manifest. Heidegger's philosophy tells us that the more one experiences the anxiety, the more one perceives the essence of the Nothingness, and the more one maintains his truthfulness and naturalness (qtd. in Zhu,. Hamlet has no fear of death. It is his insight into the essence of Being that he appears to be sickly meditative. Different from Hamlet's uncertainty about the future and anxiety about death, Daoist culture embraces a peculiar paradigm on how to ensure a person's well-being and a state's stability. As far as an individual is concerned, the Daoist teachings focus on practicing mindful meditations by closing one's eyes and taking a deep breath. The more one inspects the inner world in mindfulness, the more worldly burdens will be unloaded, and closer and closer one walks toward a true self. Sun Buer (c. 1119-1182) was a famous female master in the history of Chinese Daoism. She outlined fourteen steps to concentrate on one's heart/mind as consistent with the Daoist concept of quietude and vastness. These steps, such as collecting Heart/Mind, Cultivating Qi ( 气), Moving Energy, Embryonic Breathing, and Facing the Wall, emphasize the transformation of three basic elements in the human body: Jing (精, literally translated as essence), Qi (气, literally translated as energy), and Shen (神, literally translated as spirit) (Wang 286). Both the Dao De Jing's emphasis on quietude of the mind and the Zhuangzi's focus on the fasting mind indicate the interconnectedness between the body and the mind. If we are trapped in anxiety, the body, which engages in a reflective mind, would be severely harmed. Qi circulates in our body, and the meditation in tranquility enables the mind and the body to work together synchronically and dynamically.
Daoist culture extends the individual's well-being to the state's longevity. The Dao De Jing calls prohibitions, laws, regulations, and statutes "sharp weapons" because they increase men's cunning and hypocrisy. The more they are used in a state, the poorer the people will be, and the more benighted the land will grow: The more all under Heaven are beset with taboos and prohibitions, the poorer the common folk grow. The more common folk are beset with sharp instruments, the more muddled the state becomes. The more people have skill and cleverness, the more often perverse things will happen. The more laws and ordinances are displayed, the more thieves and robbers there will be. (Lynn 159) It is too much calculative expediency in the knowledge of laws and statutes that harm a state's stability. Too much expediency would increase the ruler's anxieties, and even more merciless and unrelenting statutes would be enforced to prohibit crimes. Due to these anxieties, the Dao De Jing reads: I engage in no conscious effort, and the common folk undergo moral transformation spontaneously. I love quietude, and the common folk govern themselves. I tend to matters without conscious purpose, and the common folk enrich themselves. I am utterly free of desire, and the common folk achieve pristine simplicity by themselves. (Lynn 159) These four pointsengaging in no conscious effort, loving quietude, tending to matters without conscious purpose, and being desireless (Lynn 159)encompasses the wisdom of enhancing the growth at the branch tip. If the ruler could adopt this wisdom in the governance of the state, bloody combats and antagonism would be avoided, and he would not be trapped in the unknown anxieties.
By comparison, Hamlet's meditative soliloquies resemble the Daoist mindfulness in the way that they focus on their inner world without disturbance. A physical, tranquil setting is what they need, because at this moment Hamlet and the Daoist practitioners enter their mind and heart in a spontaneous way, having a conversation with their souls. Hamlet is pondering over the essence of being and not-being when he is pushed to the brink of uncertainties by the kinds of "statues" he encounters. One of the "statues" is the religious prohibition on suicide. He laments that God has "fixed his canon 'gainst self-slaughter" (Ham. 1.2.131). Religion is central to his anxiety because suicide is prohibited as a sin. His anxiety also comes from the prevalence of evil in the world of Denmark. Hamlet is called the "fair expectation of the state," (Ham. 3.1.151) or a potentially good king in his later years. His counterpart Fortinbras may bring stability to the state infected by his uncle's crime. However, his persistent reaction against evil "contradictorily and mysteriously destroys much that is good as well" (McEachern 3). Hence a strong but tragic sense of waste evokes spontaneously in our heart. It seems that evils are able to be "overcome only by self-torture and self-waste" (Cunningham 11). Beset by the heavy anxiety, Hamlet wishes for a high uncertainty avoidance society where justice and laws rule his state. Daoist culture, however, does not resort to laws and statutes to confront anxiety and uncertainty. Instead, it emphasizes the intimate relationship between the body and the mind, and by practicing mindful meditation, we introspect behaviors in tranquility. Eventually, it outlines a Utopia society where people live from day to day with less fear for tomorrow and less fear of the unknown (Hofstede 176), which is the characteristic of the lower uncertainty avoidance countries.

Individualism versus Collectivism: Romeo and Juliet and the Daoist Outlook on Pu and Jie
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a good example that enacts the devastating power of we-group fighting against the invasion of the they-group. Both families, the Montagues and the Capulets, two names that are symmetrical even in dactylic rhythms (MON-ta-gue and CAP-u-let) (Garber 199), are alter-ego households within which patriarchism expects respect, obedience, and filial piety. Their stubborn and recalcitrant feuds are parallel and hierarchical in structure. Their feuds are hierarchical in the sense that fights are ranked from servant to master. In Act 1, scene 1, Gregory and Sampson, two servants of Capulet, display their obedience to their master by fighting for their family names. In Act 3, scene 1, Romeo kills Tybalt, right after he doffs his name in the famous balcony scene, to resume his identity as a scion of Montague. In Act 5, scene 3, the swordfight between Romeo and Paris in front of Capulet's monument puts an end to the feuds by each of them defending any kind of invasion from the outside. These three fights, with male characters wielding their sword which "is seen as a sign of manliness" (Garber 191), tellingly illustrate the devastating power of protecting family honor within the restrictive we-group or in-group concept. That Romeo dies in the Capulet's family monument and Juliet uses Romeo's dagger to kill herself becomes an ironic dislocation.
The passionate love between Romeo and Juliet sets them against the honorable values of their families. The complex intertwining of honor, property, dignity, and filial piety that family name demands make the young lovers' marriage incompatible within the family order of things. A familiar scene that manifests this incompatibility is the father of Juliet's blind rage when Juliet thwarts his authority in the matter of marriage arrangement. Romeo finally abandons the code of his family identity to enter the graveyard of Juliet's ancestors, and Juliet asserts her identity as Romeo's wife unequivocally. The individualist ethos in a family attempts to impose its will and power on their children, only to be thwarted by the ever more extremes in clandestine marriage and final suicides. Friar Laurence's homily on herbs seems to function as a reasonable summary: an individualist family, just like the herbs' double-ness that have both poisonous and meditative effects, endorses the family honor and property, yet meanwhile buries the passionate love and life, very much like the misapplied herb "stumbling on abuse" (Romeo and Juliet 2.2.20).
The "ancient grudge" in the play's beginning sonnet predicts the constant combats between the two individualist households, and Friar Laurence intends to use Romeo and Juliet's love to resolve the conflict between them. By contrast, Daoist culture adopts the wisdom of Pu (朴, which means sincerity and genuineness) and Jie (节, which means both separateness and connectivity) to designate the necessity of living in a world of collectivity. As noted above, the Chinese word "人" (ren, which means "man") carries both social and cultural meanings in its reference to an individual self. This non-differentiated state of man is not much influenced by any sort of pretensions.
A man of Pu is not an absolute entity of an individual that alienates himself or herself from society. Identity is ascertained by one's engagement with the sentient and non-sentient creatures. The Zhuang Zi describes a man of Pu as below: … lov[ing] one another without knowing that to do so was benevolent. They were sincere without knowing that this was loyalty. They kept their promises without knowing that to do so was to be in good faith. They helped one another without thought of giving or receiving things. Thus, their actions left no trace, and we have no records of their affairs. (Chang 105) From this passage, it can be understood that virtues such as benevolence, generosity, truthfulness are moral codes that a man of Pu would not put on his behaviors deliberately. Like the uncarved block that the Chinese word 朴 (pu) indicates, the person is totally muddled together with all others and lacks his own existence. He is nameless, tiny, but reflects the constant movement of Dao. As Wang Bi explains the lines of Chapter 32 of the Dao De Jing, the analogy of the nameless uncarved wood consists in its profound meaning that it "is similar to the way streams and tributaries respond to the river and the sea" (Lynn 109). According to Wang Bi's interpretation, "The relationship between streams and tributaries and the river and the sea is such that it is not because the river and the sea summon them but because streams and tributaries gravitate to them without being summoned or sought" (Lynn 109). Every single one of us is a stream or a tributary that will wind our way into the collectivity of the sea, in the course of which our own identity seems to have been lost, yet it is within the collectivity that we assert our existence. This might be what the man of Pu prognosticates to us.
The Yi Jing offers a similar analogy in Hexagram 60 about "节" (jie, literally translated as "Notch"). The Chinese character "节" (jie) means bamboo notches which not only separates sections of bamboo but also connects them into a whole. It denotes the idea of one's individuality and social connections to other beings. Interestingly, it also refers to one's regulation and moderation, much like the meaning that Friar Lawrence's herbs implicitly convey to Romeo. This hexagram is a combination of two symbols putting together in a vertical way: abyss above lake, which means that the lake will overflow if the water flows into it exceeds its capacity (Minford 461). The idea of this hexagram is that whatever we do should be in tune with the equilibrium of society. Just as notches are joints of bamboo, we should also connect ourselves to nature and to society. Likewise, just as notches have limits, our conduct should also be moderate, which means restraint of individual selfishness.
The play Romeo and Juliet displays the conflict between two households who assert their honorable existence above the other. They are a miniature of the individualist culture. Daoist culture is a portrayal of the collectivist culture. A person whose conduct is guided by the wisdom of sincerity (pu) and moderation (jie) will be expected to sustain his/her life in kinship with others. In the teaching of Romeo and Juliet, teachers could invite students to think deeply about how Dao sheds fresh light on reading the conflict between two families. For example, the Daoist doctrines of sincerity and genuineness, connection, and moderation might reduce the loss of love, family discord, and crimes that youths experience in their coming-of-age.

Masculinity versus Femininity: Antony and Cleopatra and the Daoist Cosmology of Yin-Yang
It is interesting to compare Shakespeare's views about gender differences and the Daoist concept of Yin-Yang. In Shakespeare's time, masculine culture and feminine culture were in a hierarchical relationship. Men were considered as higher in a gender hierarchy based partly on readings of the Bible. But Shakespeare liberates his heroes and heroines from whatever restricts them from the boundary of gender labeling. Othello is subdued by uncontrollable emotions, and his eyes overflow "a woman's tears" (Othello 4.1.240); Juliet wishes she had the prerogative of being a man to articulate her love. These and many other dramatic characters attempt to break out of culturally circumscribed gender stereotypes of their societies. The Rome-Egypt conflict, as well as the correspondence between masculinity and femininity, is a salient fact in Antony and Cleopatra. Roman values are concerned with virility, rivalry, and war, and Antony is "the firm Roman" (Antony and Cleopatra 1.5.43) and the "man of steel" (Ant. 4.4.32). Although Antony is also perceived as falling into luxury in Egypt and seen as abandoning his manliness to make love to Cleopatra, images of swords and horses are found in the play to associate Antony's manhood with conquest and the chronicle of heroic history in Sir Thomas North's English translation of Plutarch's Lives, which has an account of Antony and Shakespeare draws his source from. Antony's sword "quartered the world" (Ant. 4.15.58), and he envisages his name and his sword earning a place in history, "I and my sword will earn our chronicle" (Ant. 3.13.177). The horse that bears Antony in Cleopatra's imagination (Ant. 1.5.19-33) stands for uncurbed passion and male virility. Antony's masculinity and his Roman identity are also asserted through his emulous bond with Caesar. According to Coppélia Kahn (Kahn), homosocial rivalry defines masculinity as a heroic presence, and Antony's rivalry from Caesar also differentiates himself from the female Other (116).
As a counterpart of the moral and martial qualities of Roman virtus, Egyptian values are concerned with more feminine principles, which are represented by the Nile river's procreating power. When the Nile river floods, serpents, and weeds are produced. "Serpent" is the symbol of an absolute Evil in Christianity, and a symbol of wisdom as well, as shown in the Bible's line, "be ye therefore as wise as serpent's" (Matthew 10:15). In this play, the serpent is a symbol of fertility, which is identified as the Mother of all creatures inhabited on the Egyptian soil. It is a very queer creature having no arms and legs and inhabiting the dark soil and the muddy water. The Nile itself resembles the serpent in the way that it nourishes Egypt for fertility and the proliferation of the nation. Alongside its self-breeding attribute, the serpent is destructive and devouring, as displayed in the final scene of Cleopatra's death. Demonic and chaotic, it destroys whoever is enticed to its magic power and whoever is curious about its knowledge. Its selfrenewing power is inevitably bound up with its fatal power.
On the play's dynamic map of shifting power between Roman masculinity and Egyptian femininity, Antony's martial virtus fittingly corresponds to Cleopatra's nurturing power. A horse would be to Rome what a serpent would be to Egypt. They evoke a feeling of awe more than a feeling of fear. There is no antagonistic conflict between them. In more than one place, we see how Antony is reduced to an infant version of "the serpent of old Nile" (Ant. 1.5.25). Cleopatra is metamorphosized into a maternal existence feeding her baby and Antony is like a son to be loved and nourished. We also read lines about Cleopatra's "marble constant" (Ant. 5.2.236), the most telling example shown in her untying the "knot intrinsicate of life" (Ant. 5.2.295) in death with steady will power. The tragedy presents masculinity and femininity not in uncompromisable antithesis but in an interacting and interplaying relationship, as represented in the Daoist "Yin-Yang Fish" gyre. As Daoist culture indicate, each contains the other and each being dependent on the other. They are in a state of flux to achieve reconciliation. This sort of Daoist fluidity and reversal is, in one way or another, enacted by Antony and Cleopatra.
The Yin-Yang cosmology occupies an important position in the Chinese Daoist culture. As two cosmic forces, Yin and Yang are in constant interaction and complementation. OED defines Yin as "the feminine or negative principle characterized by dark, wetness, cold, and disintegration", and Yang as "the masculine or positive principle characterized by light, warmth, dryness, and activity". Although they are in constant conflict, they produce the phenomenal world as we perceive it. Yin holds the elements of Yang and vice versa. They are mutually included and each has a vital need for the other. In chapter 42 of the Dao De Jing, we read: "The myriad things, bearing yin and embracing yang, form a unified harmony through the fusing of these vital forces" (Lynn 135). It can be seen that the union of yin and yang creates harmony. Yin is at the back while Yang is in front. It does not necessarily refer to the gender difference that the male stands before the female. It includes the myriads of things under heaven. In his commentary on the Hexagram Six of the Yi Jing, Wang Bi writes, "It is always yang [male] that starts singing and yin [the female] that joins in. Yin is never the one to take the lead" (qtd. in Lynn 68). In his commentary on the Hexagram 49, Wang Bi maintains, "The character of yin is such that it is incapable of taking the lead and instead should be an obedient follower" (qtd. in Lynn 68). A very important idea in the Yi Jing is that "[t]he reciprocal process of yin and yang is called the Dao" (Lynn 59).
The male virility in the sense of potency is not shown in toughness or stiffness. A man's virtue (德, de) harbors within himself, manifesting the virtue of softness and pliability. The Dao De Jing uses the metaphor of the infant to describe the man of perfect virtue: "One who has profoundly internalized virtue is comparable to the infant… His bones are soft and sinews pliant, but his grip is firm" (Lynn 155) The male infant is free of desire and contention, yet he is fully energetic. Wang Bi interprets it as "the man of perfect virtue does not contend with others and employ hard, aggressive behavior and policies (yang and male), thus he never 'gets broken' and so preserves his wholeness intact" (qtd. in Lynn 157). Be soft and pliable is the virtue of the femininity. The male who models after the female's character always puts himself in the rear, takes on the lower positions, and maintains quietude and tolerance. He will give birth to and nourishes myriad things under heaven. This functions as the opening and shutting of the gateway of Heaven, as the Dao De Jing states in the chapters 6 and 10 respectively: "[G]ate of the Mysterious Female is referred to as the 'root of Heaven and Earth'" (Lynn 62); "The gateway of Heaven, whether it is to be open or shut: can you play the female?" (Lynn 66); "The female always responds but not acts" (Lynn 66). The Daoist epistemology of the feminine draws a picture of the interaction of Yin/female and Yang/male in complementation and cooperation.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) describes a great mind as "woman-manly or man-womanly" and maintains that "a mind that is purely masculine cannot create, any more than a mind that is purely feminine" (qtd. in Zhu, Gang 248). Both Antony and Cleopatra and the Daoist epistemology of the feminine demonstrate the interrelationship between two genders. The male creates, and the female produces. The order of nature brings everything into existence by the interfusion of Yin (male, Heaven) and Yang (female, Earth). The mutual interdependence of Yin and Yang could be incorporated into the pedagogy of Antony and Cleopatra. To help students understand that Rome and Egypt in the play do not stand in opposition or in absolute dichotomy, teachers might draw upon the Daoist Yin-Yang cosmology to elaborate harmony, fluidity, and correspondence in the two independent entities.

Long-term Orientation versus Short-term Orientation: The Tempest and the Daoist Outlook on De
In the dimension of long-term orientation versus short-term orientation, both Shakespeare's The Tempest and Daoist culture highlight the importance of virtues and show respect for education, though in different ways. The Tempest does not encourage rivalry and strife to solve the immediate human conflict. Prospero, with the terrible wrong wrought on him by his brother, holds virtue as nobler than vengeance. Forgiveness is a virtue in a Christian sense. When seeing that the courtiers are undergoing a moral regeneration because they are "pinched" (The Tempest, 5.1.74) with "remorse and nature" (The Tempest, 5.1.76), Prospero goes through a process to reach forgiveness. Forgiveness prevails over his vindictive motives. In Act 5, scene 1, Ariel describes the sufferings and remorse of the "court party" and touches Prospero's deepest chords of being a man: ARIEL: … Your charm so strongly works 'em That if you now beheld them your affections Would become tender. PROSPERO: Dost thou think so, spirit? ARIELl: Mine would, sir, were I human.  Ariel's "Mine would, sir, were I human" has a magic effect on Prospero. He breaks his magic stick, burns his magic books, and finally achieves the highest moral virtue of forgiveness.
The play displays another virtue of compassion in Miranda. Growing up in an island of enchantment and bred by her father, she exhibits "the very virtue of compassion" (Tmp. 1.2.27). Prospero holds onto his conviction that human creatures, due to their moral consciousness, could be cultivated to a virtuous man with proper husbandry and learning. Just as proper husbandry prevents the ferociously growing weed-like buds, learning is believed to whet the raw human nature better. Miranda is full of compassion when the roaring sea is threatening to overflow the boundary and engulf the feeble creatures. Prospero also teaches Miranda the virtue of restraining desire through his "art". He warns Ferdinand twice of the necessity of tempering the lust. If desires unheeded, calamities will befall. His teaching lies in his belief that human beings are creatures with noble reason and that knowledge of temperance and continence could make self-discipline possible. The relationship between raw nature and nurture, as suggested by the play, is that man's nature needs nurturing through learning and husbandry. The three virtues that distinguish humans from Caliban are oriented toward the future, which is the characteristic of a long-term orientation culture.
The Dao De Jing also gives important implications for 德 (de, which means inner virtue). A sage's virtues are as deep as the ravine of the universe. Laozi encourages the men to withdraw, to be low, and to maintain a heart of timidity in whatever situations they find themselves in. The difference between Dao and De, maintains Lin Yutang, is that Dao "is the unembodied principle", while De "is the principle embodied" (Lin 173). " [D]ao is unknowable, while [De] is knowable" (Lin 173). The Dao De Jing distinguishes "superior virtue" from "inferior virtue": A person of superior virtue is not virtuous, and this is why he has virtue. A person of inferior virtue never loses virtue, and this is why he lacks virtue. A person of superior virtue takes no conscious effort and so acts out of something. When a person of superior benevolence takes action, he acts out of nothing. When a person of superior righteousness takes action, he acts out of something. When a person of superior propriety takes action and no one responses, he pushes up his sleeves and leads them to it. Therefore one resorts to virtue only after losing the Dao, resorts to benevolence only after losing virtue, resorts to righteousness only after losing benevolence, and resorts to propriety only after losing righteousness. Propriety consists of the superficial aspects of loyalty and trust and is thus the beginning of disorder. (Lynn 119) It can be seen from this passage that the Daoist view of cultivating virtue does not specify what virtues to nurture in human beings but emphasizes where one attains virtue. One obtains virtue from Dao. Confucius teaches us the virtues of humanity, benevolence, justice, and propriety. However, these Confucian virtues are means of affectations and lead to chaos, according to the Daoist view on them. As far as virtue is concerned, Daoism lays much emphasis on our inner goodness, goodness that is spontaneous in us without motives and pretensions. When inner goodness is rigidly motivated, then it means a deviation from Dao.
The Daoist wisdom of superior virtue is intimately associated with the worldview of 无为 (wuwei, which means not taking deliberate action). A ruler of inferior virtue seeks a good reputation and keeps his people in order by taking conscious action but acts out of nothing in the end. With conscious action, one values applications of benevolence, righteousness or propriety. He appears to be loyal and trustful, but he lacks sincerity. This is what is meant by saying "[one] resorts to benevolence only after losing virtue, resorts to righteousness only after losing benevolence, and resorts to propriety only after losing righteousness" (Lynn 122). If one does not take pretentious efforts, the Confucian virtues of benevolence, righteousness, and propriety will have no esteem and are more manifest. By holding fast to Dao, one does not necessarily take conscious and deliberate actions, yet is spontaneously encircled by beauty and power.
Confucian virtues are described by Hofstede as "directed at the future" (363). It is a long-term orientation culture. Confucian virtues also bring modern people a sense of guilt when these virtues crash their immediate selfgratification. The Daoist superior virtue is concerned with the inner goodness and enhancing the root so the branch flourishes. Insofar as Daoist culture imbues us with the teachings of thriftiness and humanity, it is also a long-term orientation culture.
To help students understand and interpret "virtue" in the play, such as Prospero's forgiveness and humanity and Miranda's compassion, teachers might explain what virtue is regarded in the Daoist epistemology. The Dao De Jing advocates that by holding on to Dao, De will prevail under heaven without artfulness, with which human kindness, morality, ritual, loyalty, and other virtues will ensue successively and naturally. Moral transformation, in this sense, does not require too many artful actions but to follow the laws of nature to realize self-cultivation. Shakespeare's play The Tempest applies the tempest metaphor to echo the moral change that is taking place in the courtiers' heart. Moral transformation is more like "a dreamlike dissolution of tempest clouds" (Palmer 172). Both resort to the power of inner goodness in nature. The Tempest dramatizes the important role of nurturing and husbandry in cultivating virtue. Daoist culture makes it clear that Confucian virtues of benevolence, righteousness, and propriety are embellished. Superior virtue is a great thing accessible to Dao. Both of them are attributes of long-term orientation cultures.

Conclusion
My discussion of some of Shakespeare's plays and Chinese Daoist culture in this paper is an inter-cultural dialogue within the framework of Hofstede's cultural dimensional theory. Hofstede's research, conducted in the late 1960s, includes his years of observations and quantitative data collected in IBM companies. Drawn from the outcome of his research, my article focuses on the interpretation of conflict in Shakespeare's plays and the Daoist texts, and hence is qualitative in nature.
Hofstede's cultural studies inform me that the dialogue between cultures, either literally or statistically, sheds fresh light on the different ways of thinking, behaving, and modes of feeling that different cultures have. This interesting enterprise inspires me to go back to classical works, eager to find out what lies in the cultural root that separates us as different nations and meanwhile connects us as humanity.
Conflict is a perplexing issue and we are prone to regard it as disruptive and negative. The most direct response to it is how it originates, how we encounter it, and what measures we can take to make a compromise with it or to overcome it. This intuitive response to conflict makes sense insofar as there are numerous cases of bullies in schools, enmities among peers, the inner conflict of teenagers, broken-up relationships when a misunderstanding arises, and different forms of combats, competitions, and rivalries at all levels of educative institutions. I take up this issue not to strengthen its destructive power. As Apple asserts, conflict is not "disruptive factor", but is "productive of vitality" (Apple 110). Shakespeare's plays and the classical Daoist works address the positive and the negative aspects of conflict in different ways.
Hofstede's cultural dimensional theory encompasses five dimensions that exhibit similarities and differences in the value system. In the first dimension of power distance that is basically human inequality, I find that nature plays an important role in both cultures to address the conflict. Shakespeare adopts pastoral strategy in As You Like it and Daoism invites us to the model after water, valley, uncarved wood, and Mother Earth. The second dimension, uncertainty avoidance, urges a desire for laws. Hamlet's meditative thinking forms a contrast to the Daoist meditation in tranquility. Hamlet is more entangled in inner conflict, and uncertainties about being and non-being intertwine in him to such a degree that the conflict looms as roaring sea or stormy rain in his heart. Daoist culture, by contrast, teaches us to practice mindfulness to relieve ourselves from inner burdens. The third dimension is individualism versus collectivism. Romeo and Juliet reveals an individualist culture due to the antagonism between two households, the we-group in opposition to the they-group. The Chinese Daoist culture emphasizes the kinship of individuals with others through the images of uncarved wood (朴, pu) and bamboo notches (节, jie). Hence it is more of a collectivist culture, where people seek solutions and agreements when conflict arises. In the fourth dimension of masculinity versus femininity, I discuss Antony and Cleopatra's distinctive features in dramatizing Antony's martial manhood and Cleopatra's nurturing power. The conflict between Rome and Egypt is metamorphosized into mutual need and interdependence. The Yin and Yang modes in Daoist culture also negate the absolute conflict between the two genders. The Daoist epistemology of the feminine metaphorically illustrates the complementation and cooperation between the Yin/female and Yang/male. The fifth dimension, long-term versus short-term orientation, is directed about the future when people consider the weight of traditions. Since a long-term orientation culture lays more emphasis on education, I find it interesting that both The Tempest and Daoist culture values virtues. In the play, nurturing and husbandry plays an important role in cultivating such virtues as forgiveness, compassion, and continence. In the Dao De Jing, superior virtue differs from Confucian virtues of benevolence, righteousness, and propriety. Cultivating superior virtue requires a mind that takes non-deliberate action. Inner goodness cannot be tainted with the pretentious efforts that Confucian virtues accompany. Because both cultures are attributed with longterm orientation features, conflict is viewed with a generous heart and reduced to the minimum.
To conclude, culture is an interesting and complex phenomenon. Eurocentrism and alterity of Eastern culture have entailed many dangerous outcomes. It might be helpful to the development of the English Language Arts curriculum if the pedagogy of Shakespeare's plays could be laden with other cultural coding and ethical values. My reading experiences inform me that both Shakespeare's plays and Daoist culture inquire about our lived life and critique the human-centered anthropocentric view that western philosophies have upheld for centuries. The Daoist epistemology of the feminine, interrelated images and concepts, as well as "virtue" education, among diverse understandings, hold views against the anthropocentric landscape. Shakespeare's plays also depict a panorama of gender identity, cultivation, and husbandry, human images as related to nature, among other root issues in human development. Their similarities and differences make the intercultural dialogue between the East and the West possible in the Shakespeare class.