Bound Feet Women

November 7, 2010

According to historical accounts, foot binding appeared in China during the Sung Dynasty (960-1276 AD).

The process of foot binding usually started between the ages of four and seven. Feet were soaked in a blood and herb mixture. Toes were broken. Then the arch was broken.  There was extreme pain since no pain relief was used.  It is estimated that in a thousand years about two billion women went through the process.


What would you do for beauty?

The Manchu leaders of the Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1911) tried with little success to stop foot binding, and Manchu women did not bind their feet. Mostly Han (the majority in China) women continued the practice.

In 1928, the Nationalist government announced plans to do away with foot binding. This attempt to end foot binding met with mixed success.  In rural areas, large feet were still considered unattractive and unacceptable and the practice continued.

While working in China for National Geographic on a three part Marco Polo series, Michael Yamashita, a veteran photographer, went in search of women who had bound feet. He found them living in remote urban villages.

Even in 19th century San Francisco, there were Chinese girls and women with bound feet. Source: Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco

In most of China, social and sexual customs resist rapid change. For millions of women, the practice would continue until 1949 when the Communists came into power.

Then the popularity of foot binding to enhance a woman’s  beauty ended.

See You’ve Come a Long Way, Babe

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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.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Considering Changes to Immigration Laws

November 7, 2010

America is known as a nation of immigrants. There is even an Immigrants in the USA Blog.

I also found “Why do immigrants come to the United States of America, a post by Elizabeth Arizaga.

She says, “Immigrants chose to come for various reasons, such as to live in freedom, to practice their religion freely, to escape poverty or oppression, and to make better lives for themselves and their children.”

Then why are people immigrating to China?  After all, according to the Western media and millions of Sinophobes, China is an oppressive, brutal, totalitarian dictatorship.

In fact, President Obama’s half-brother, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo, lives and works in Guangzhou and nearby Shenzhen. Source: Time Magazine

However, he isn’t China’s only immigrant. There are others—thousands. The city of Guangzhou has become home to about 100,000 African immigrants, and some are marrying Chinese woman and raising families.

According to Al-Jazeera news, many Africans have immigrated to China happy that China’s booming economy offers them opportunities to work, do business and prosper.

However, China has inconsistent Visa rules and there are problems. Beijing is now working on the law to improve it.

Learn about China’s Labor Laws

 

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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. 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Following Tradition — Part 4/4

November 6, 2010

Deng Xiaoping was China’s George Washington. What he did was what Dr. Sun Yat-sen wanted. China is a republic that combines Western thought with Chinese tradition.

However, the task to create China’s Republic fell to the Communist Party so China is a Socialist Republic.

In China, Piety is important and advice from elders is often followed as if it is law. Due to this, elder statesmen such as Jiang Zemin have great power in the government even after they no longer have a political title.

After all, this is Chinese tradition.

The Economist mentioned disagreements among Chinese leaders over what the country’s priorities should be—both on the economy and on political reform.

Whatever the final decisions will be after 2012, the consensus will allow Chinese tradition to guide them and not Western thought.

The changes “some” want will not arrive in a hurry if the wisdom of the I-Ching, The Book of Changes, is followed, which says change should come slowly.

In fact, China has proven it is a republic because none of China’s first four presidents are the sons of previous presidents and eventually death removes the elders. China’s presidents did not inherit that title due to heredity as kings do or the leader of North Korea.

As Deng Xiaoping died, so will Jiang Zemin, who is the elder statement today.

If Hu Jintao lives longer than Jiang Zemin, he will be the elder statesmen offering advice from behind closed doors, which Deng Xiaoping must have done up until his death.

Return to China Following Tradition — Part 3

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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.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Two Worlds on the Same Planet

November 6, 2010

Martin Petty at Reuters writes an interesting piece about Suu Kyi in Myanmar (Burma) — not interesting as you might think but interesting in that it reveals an alien point-of-view.

China is mentioned four times and is referred to as Burma’s ally, a neighbor, between China and India, and that Myanmar could become “a province of China”.

However, Petty only mentions briefly (nine paragraphs into the piece) that Western sanctions on the Myanmar regime have failed because Myanmar’s neighbors China, Thailand and India and other Asian nations have been pouring investments into the resource-rich country.

Why didn’t Petty mention that one of those other Asian nations pouring investments into Myanmar is Singapore — one of America’s staunchest Southeast Asian allies and trading partners. 

Singapore is also rated by Transparency.org as one of the world’s least corrupt nations tied with Denmark and New Zealand for the number one spot, while the United States is ranked twenty-two with a score of 7.1 ( a C-) to Singapore’s score of 9.3 (an A).

It isn’t as if Reuters didn’t know what was going on. 

A 2007 Reuters piece says that Singapore was one of Myanmar’s biggest foreign investors with more than one billion dollars in trade that year.

Then later in the 2007 piece, Reuters says that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) admitted Myanmar as a member in 1997 even with international criticism.

Just what does “international” mean when the nine founding members of ASEAN do business with Myanmar.

Is “international” another way of saying “Western” or “America”?

Here’s the ASEAN list — Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.  I didn’t see China or India on that list, and India is often touted as the biggest democracy on the planet — both trade with Myanmar.

In fact, South Korea, another democracy, also trades with Myanmar. In 2009, South Korea granted imports duty free and quota free on 253 goods from Myanmar. Source: People’s Daily

Then The Myanmar Times reported that trade between Myanmar and Japan (another democracy) increased about 33% in 2006-07.

Taiwan also trades with Myanmar. Source: The China Post

Not wanting to miss out on the potential profits, Australia is on that trade list too (up 160%). Source: Democratic Voice of Burma

It is a fact that all of these Asian nations that trade with Myanmar were either occupied or victims of Western Imperialism going back to the18th century and lasting until the middle of the 20th century. 

During this era, Western nations imposed Western values and religions on all of Asia and China.

However, all of Asia (except for Australia) has roots reaching back more than two millennia to Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism and Taoism.

Western nations and the Middle East have roots to the three Abrahamic Religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Is it possible these different cultural trees are worlds apart on the same planet?

Instead of trying to understand those differences, the West keep thumping its hairy chest and roaring when the other world doesn’t behave with Western moral expectations and beliefs.

Learn more about The Collective Culture versus Individualism

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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.

Leave a Comment » | Buddhism, China, Christianity, Confucianism, cultural differences, Islam, media, politics, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Following Tradition — Part 3/4

November 6, 2010

In Part 2, I explained why China was not a monarchy or a dictatorship. In this post and the last one in this series, I will show why China is becoming a republic as Dr. Sun Yat-sen wanted by combining Western thought with Chinese tradition.

After Mao died, The Communist Party worked for several years to draft the 1982 Constitution, which included term limits of two five-year terms.

If you have read the Chinese Constitution carefully, it is obvious that America’s Constitution was used as a model.

However, these two documents are not the same as many Western critics and Chinese activists claim regarding freedom of the press, speech and religion.

If the Party leadership is not happy with China’s president, he can be removed after one five-year term. There is even an article of impeachment in the Constitution.

China’s first president was Li Xiannian (1983 to 1988). He served one, five-year term. Then he stepped down.

From 1988 to 1993, Yang Shangkun would be China’s president for one five-year term. Deng Xiaoping (born 1904 – died 1997) was the Chairman of the Communist Party from 1983 to 1993, which was ten years—what China’s 1982 Constitution calls for.

Due to how the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 was handled, Yang had to step down at the end of his first, five-year term. The only other way to remove him would have been through impeachment.

In 1993, Jiang Zemin became President and Chairman of the Communist Party.

Then in 2003, Hu Jintao became President and Chairman of the Party. His term ends in 2012.

China has now had four presidents serve out their terms according to China’s 1982 Constitution.

Return to China Following Tradition — Part 2

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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.

Leave a Comment » | America, China, Chinese Culture, Communism, cultural differences, government | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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