Confucius tells us how to live the happy life our hearts need, or so says Yu Dan. It is a message many in China want to hear. We are puzzled, confused and angered. Great gains have come but we also see corruption and vulgar displays of money everywhere, cut-throat competition, huge unemployment, absent social services, environmental decay. People feel uncared for and no one gives a damn. When we look for solace we find the much discussed "spiritual vacuum".

No wonder Yu Dan has struck a chord. Her book tells people how to achieve inner peace through the wisdom of Confucius and a medley of Buddhist, Daoist and Christian teaching. Some say she has given them "chicken broth for the soul". Her book has sold more than 10m copies in China, making her the country's "most famous woman".

Classical scholars, though, feel no such reverence. They have called her "an illiterate with a higher degree who takes pleasure in castrating traditional Chinese culture"; one turned up at a book-signing wearing a T-shirt that read: "Confucius is deeply worried".

I have to say that I cannot see the real Confucius in much of what Yu Dan writes. The essence of his teaching was not happiness, but how the individual should relate to his family, his friends, to society and, ultimately, to the emperor. It was about people knowing their place. No wonder China's rulers relied on it for 2,000 years, with one boasting: "With half a book of the Analects of Confucius, I can govern the Empire."

The Chinese government is now reviving Confucianism as part of its strategy to promote the "harmonious society", establishing Confucian MBA courses for the new rich and even setting up Confucian institutes around the world. It has distributed Yu Dan's book to teachers, students and civil servants. This is a far cry from the days when Confucius was reviled in national campaigns and his descendants' graveyard was ripped up by Red Guards (the ultimate humiliation for any Chinese). He stood for the feudal society and preached self-restraint when Chairman Mao wanted continuing revolution; I still remember the essays I had to write at school denouncing him.

Yu Dan is a professor of film and television studies, and her book started as a series of lectures on Chinese Central Television. Her brief was to make her talks suitable for 15-year-olds and it shows. In this rather flat translation, and deprived of the body language that made her such a lively broadcaster (she was called the "beauty scholar"), she comes across as an agony aunt, not the transmitter of a great tradition. And her prose can be breathtakingly banal. For example: "If a person's heart is free from worries, indecision and fear, they will naturally have fewer complaints about the world around them, and their ability to hold on to happiness will also increase." Indeed.

孔子是在告诉我们如何安贫乐道，或曰于丹如是解读。这是许多海内华人想聆听的教诲，因为我们困惑、迷茫、愤怒。国力大增，可我们目睹的依然是腐败、物欲横流、不择手段的竞争、失业大军、社会服务的缺失、环境恶化。民众有被漠视之感，不作为者却满不在乎。当我们寻求慰藉时，却见有人大谈“精神空虚”。

无怪乎于丹能引起共鸣。她的书告诉人们如何从孔子的智慧，以及佛教、道教和基督教的大杂烩里获得内心的安宁。有人说从她这里喝到了“心灵鸡汤”。其书在中国卖出了超过一千万本，她因此成为国内“知名度最高的女性”。

不过，研究古典文化的学者可没这么大的敬意，他们说她是“以阉割中国传统文化为乐事的高学历文盲”；有人穿了件T恤出现在她的签名售书现场，上面写着：“孔子很着急”。

不得不说的是，我难以从于丹作品中看到真正的孔子。孔子学说的精髓不是幸福，而是个人应该如何与家人、朋友、社会相处，以及——终极而言——与国君共事；所论之道是人要认清自身的位置。难怪中国历代统治者两千年来依赖儒学，自诩“半部论语治天下”者有之。

作为“和谐社会”的推广策略之一，中国政府正在振兴儒学，为财富新贵开设孔子MBA课程，甚至在世界各地建立孔子学院；政府向教师、学生和公务员派发于丹的书。孔子的待遇与红卫兵时代大相径庭，那时全国批孔，其后代被掘墓（这对任何中国人来说都是奇耻大辱）。毛泽东要继续革命，而孔子却维护封建社会，宣扬自我克制；我还记得上学时那些不得不写的批孔作文。

于丹是影视传媒学教授，其书是《百家讲坛》讲座的副产品。她的通俗讲座在电视播放，目标受众为15岁左右的少年；而书之译本则是平面的，不见了那些展现其飞扬神采（她有“美女学者”之誉）的肢体语言，她在字里行间表现得像一位激动的大婶，而非优秀文化的传播者。而且其文字之平庸可曰叹为观止，比如：“一个人内心没有了忧、惑、惧，自然就减少了对外界的抱怨和指责，也就增强了把握幸福的能力。”谁说不是呢。