“Death” has been a rarely discussed topic in Chinese culture and society, but recently seven senior high students at Shenzhen Middle School brought the subject into a seminar in two separate “Introduction to Western Philosophy” classes and exchanged views on it with their fellow students.

Under the advice of their philosophy teacher and a Harvard alumna Song Xiaoyu, the students divided the seminar into lectures and discussions in order to encourage more students to share their viewpoints. What does “being dead” really mean? Some believed there is a concept called “the death of the body,” which means someone is totally forgotten by the world; others thought there is a notion called “brain death.”

Following the initial discussions, students introduced to the class perspectives about the meaning of death from different religions and schools of philosophy, including Greek, Christian, Epicurean, Confucian, Buddhist and Daoist, which provoked heated discussions in the class. “This is the first time we’ve ever touched on the topic of ‘death’ in classes. We choose not to draw a conclusion on a certain topic, but instead, we’re trying to encourage students to think more and have their own observations on the value of ‘life.’”

The seminar was independently hosted by the students. In addition, they are currently devising a script of live action role playing which incorporates philosophical knowledge of life and death in an effort to fill the void of death-related education in China. (Yang Mei)