VOLTING all of China into the 21st Century

May 9, 2010

For China to match the United States, a dependable supply of electricity is needed. Besides more power plants and running more lines to carry that electricity, it also means replacing the ancient villages from feudal times with homes built to modern standards.

China at night

Then rural China would have the same opportunities to live like the spreading urban middle class. To succeed, China would be starting the largest construction project in the history of humanity.  Once completed, all 1.3 billion Chinese would be able to buy and plug in washing machines and dryers for clothing, TVs, computers, air conditioners, electric heaters, refrigerators, freezers, etc. 

What is it going to take rural China to catch up with urban populations?

It is estimated that each American uses about 11,000 kilowatts a year.  Since the United States produces 4.062 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity a year, China would have to produce almost 18 trillion kilowatts so everyone in China could plug in the same number of gadgets Americans do. Source: EIA

America at Night

For the Chinese to match the American middle class example, China’s sky would have to look like America at night. Of course, while all this construction and relocation was going on, the Western media would be reporting how horrible China’s government was to force those rural people to give up their old, feudal lifestyles.

Read more about the next super power.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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3 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese middle class, economy, environment | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Electricity is the Key

May 8, 2010

For rural Chinese, electricity is the key to a modern middle-class lifestyle.  Currently, much of China outside the urban areas does not have a dependable supply of electricity.

However, China is currently working to deliver that dream to the 800 million have-nots in rural China. According to The Economist, by 2012, China should produce more power annually than America, the current world leader.

Electrical Generation Projections for China

I have read about the wide gap in living standards between rural and urban areas of China.  The main reason for that is the lack of electricity and a fast, efficient means of transportation to get around in a country with more rugged terrain than the United States.

To improve transportation in China, a grid of electrical powered high-speed rail will soon crisscross China.  China Railways operates a network of some 86,000 kilometers, which is intended to increase to 110,000 in 2012 and a massive 120,000 by 2020.

Learn more of the urban-rural gap in China

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

6 Comments | business, China, economy, environment, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Not One Less (1999)

May 8, 2010

In the movie Not One Less, a thirteen-year-old girl is asked to be the substitute teacher in a small Chinese village.  The teacher tells her that when he returns, if he finds all the students there, he will pay her ten yuan—less than two American dollars.

Although money is involved, it isn’t much. When one student, Zhang Huike, stops coming to school, Wei Minzhim, the thirteen-year-old substitute, follows him to the city.

There are several themes in this movie. The most powerful to me were the value of an education and not losing face. If Wei loses Zhang, she will fail the responsibility the teacher gave her. To succeed, she must keep all the students and teach them.

Confucius taught the Chinese that an education was the great equalizer and the key to leaving poverty behind. Most Chinese believe this with a passion.

Zhang Yimou was the director. He says, “Chinese culture is still rooted in the countryside. If you don’t know the peasant, you don’t know China.” Because of this, there is a strong message in this movie about the urban–rural divide, which is being addressed as China sews the nation together with high-speed rail and electricity.

This a powerful movie about children, education, and poverty that shows the challenges China faces in lifting the lifestyles of almost eight hundred million Chinese, who don’t live in the cities. The challenge is to do this without losing the values that made China what it is.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

His latest novel, Running with the Enemy, was awarded an honorable mention in general fiction at the 2013 San Francisco Book Festival.

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1 Comment | China, Chinese Culture, Confucianism, education, family values, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Second China Quiz

May 8, 2010
The answers may be found anywhere in the first three hundred posts for this blog.  The first person to answer all the questions correctly will win a free copy of either My Splendid Concubine or Our Hart.

This prize will be open until the first person answers all the questions correctly. Write your answers in a comment to this quiz.  Make sure to number the answers so they match the questions and provide an e-mail address for me to contact you. Each question has a link that will take you to where you may find the answers.

China

1. What does the First of all Virtues mean?

2. What is the Chinese attitude toward health care?

3. What was the life expectancy for the average Chinese person before the Communists won China in 1949?

4. What was the debate on salt and iron about?

5. Chinese Internet users are _____________ as likely to have blogs as Americans. (fill in the blank)

6. (From Similar “Oily” Interests) What is Wahhabism and where does the money come from to pay for this?

7. What happened during Deng Xiaoping’s Beijing Spring?

8.  What happened to Deng Xiaoping’s son when he spoke out against the Cultural Revolution?

9. What vital key does China hold for humanity’s future?

10. How does Communist China treat its minorities compared to the way minorities have been treated in the United States?

11. Who was Faith Dremmer and what happened to her?

12.  What did Peter Hessler say about happiness?

13.  How many of the world’s smokers live in China?

14.  What is the name of China’s Oprah and how large is her audience?

15. What is the difference between China’s labor laws and United States?

16. What did Lin Yutang say about the Chinese and Christianity?

17. What did the first emperor of China consume that contributed to his madness and death? (This answer is in one of the nine linked posts in a series about Qin Shi Huangdi.) Why did Qin Shi Huangdi do this? (must answer both questions for # 17)

18. When the “Cult of the Dead Cow” gains access to your computer, what do they do?

19. Which issue of National Geographic magazine provides proof that Tibet was part of China for centuries before Mao’s invasion and reoccupation?

20. What is the name of the all-electric car being manufactured in a joint effort between Chinese and California partners?

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning novels My Splendid Concubine and Our Hart. He also Blogs at The Soulful Veteran and Crazy Normal.

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6 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Great Generations

May 7, 2010

America and China both have a generation that matured during tough times.

I wonder if the American generation that survived the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, the Great Depression and won World War II, would riot like these Greek mobs. 

My parents were from the Great Depression generation. At fourteen, my dad went into the mountains near Los Angeles to fill fifty-pound bags with oak leafs for a nursery, and he mucked out horse stalls at Santa Anita. At fourteen, my mom was a server in a coffee shop in Eugene, Oregon. She supported her mother and younger sister from the tips. Mom and dad weren’t perfect. They had vices.

Japanese invasion of China, World War II, Chungking

What happened to America after World War II is happening in China today. The Chinese who are turning China into a super power are the ones who fought the Japanese during World War II, who won the revolution to free China from Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang dictatorship and threw off the yoke of Western Imperial colonialism. They also survived the deprivations and repressions of the Cultural Revolution under Mao.

Hardships breed survivors, who do not riot when economies collapse. They work for less at any job. They eat yams, rice and soybeans instead of ice cream, candy, French fries, drinking sodas or Starbuck’s lattes.

People from the great generations did without TVs and iPods. They survived without phones and the Internet. They saved and paid with cash instead of using credit cards.

Discover more from Deng Xiaoping’s 20/20 Vision

Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning novels My Splendid Concubine and Our Hart. He also Blogs at The Soulful Veteran and Crazy Normal.

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