November 11, 2011, Confucius Classroom Munich ushered in the fifth anniversary of its brand project --- "Cultural Salon" cum the 61th Jour Fixe activity. Culture Salon has been held monthly from 2007 till now, and its topics are various, involving Chinese culture, economy, humanity and other aspects. Up five years it has been warmly welcomed by many foreign friends who are interested in Chinese culture.

The theme of Culture Salon this time was on "the General YUE Fei and the Prime Minister QIN Hui ---- the "Loyalty" question. The two names,YUE Fei and QIN Hui, are very familiar to Chinese people. They are the two historical figures of diametrically opposed images , a great loyalty and a big evil. However, can"loyalty & disloyatlty" be classified entirely differently? What's the basis of historical judgment on them? Has it made people inadvertently overlook anything to judge solely on the result of "right" or "wrong"? The speaker, Mr. Jakob Pöllath, a German scholar of Sinology, expounded his views on these questions and made a discussion with the audience.

During his visit in Taiwan this year, Mr. Jakob Pöllath read a news that the Democratic Progressive Party innuendoed the ruling party as that year's treacherous court official QIN Hui, and it excited him to deep thinking. In the lecture, Mr. Jakob Pöllath did a brief review on the historical background of Song dynasty. And then he described the main historical reference for judging YUE Fei and QIN Hui and the different points of views of a number of historical documents and individual scholars on their political evaluation , good or evil.

The lecture lasted one and a half hour. After that, the audience asked some questions and discussed them with Mr. Jakob Pöllath. The speaker, Mr. Jakob Pöllath, had no intention to give a definitive answer to the"loyalty "question. He neither supported nor subverted the inherent images of YUE Fei and QIN Hui in the Chinese mind. He just stated a different sound and let the audience know or think about it by themselves.

In addition to the lecture itself, a question from the audience was of great interest. He asked: "Whom is history written for ?" This might provide a multi-angle for people to consider the "loyalty" or disloyatlty" of YUE Fei and QIN Hui. Once a judge said: "Freedom, that is the unsure spirit to the right." This is a manifestation of freedom of thought and is valuable. Through an objective discussion, people can learn more about different culture, history and life of different county. Thus, people can understand each other more and deeply . This is the significance of our Culture Salon.