Ancient Chinese philosophical term for an ideal person
The word junzi (Chinese: 君子; pinyin: jūn zǐ; lit. 'person of high stature' or "Son of the Vassal, or Monarch") is a Chinese philosophical term often translated as "gentleman," "superior person",[1] or "noble man."[2] Since the characters are overtly gendered, the term is frequently translated as "gentleman", but "gentry" is a better non-gendered translation. However, also in recent years, western scholars have been using the term without the gender component, and translate the term as "distinguished person", "moral person", and so on. The characters 君子 were employed both the "Classic of Changes" 易經 (I-ching),[3] attributed traditionally to the Duke Wen of Zhou and by Confucius in his works in order to describe the ideal human being.