1582? Really. that’s your answer. And no one in 460 years, including 100 years of air travel, has come along and said, “ummm, that word there, you aren’t translating it right.” - Lausten
Matteo Ricci was the first white man to master the Chinese language well enough to debate religious philosophy with the Mandarins, those Chinese intellectuals at the imperial court. There is no translating it right. Do you realize that Lao Tzu's philosophy is only studied by academics and read by guys like you in the west? No one in China reads it because there is no watered-down version of the Classics for general consumption. I hired a well-known native Chinese who worked as a radio news broadcaster to recite all 81 Chapters of the Tao Te Ching. I wanted an audio recording in perfectly pronounced words in Mandarin. She had great difficulty despite being highly educated. She couldn't read many of the stanzas because she couldn't figure out what the hell they meant. Translation into English? Yeah, right. You have no idea what a dumb culture we have. And I don't mean our cowboy culture. I am talking about our Greco-Roman origin.