The First Cinderella was Chinese

August 7, 2012

Since I wrote about rural children living alone yesterday, I thought I’d write about a fairy tale today and let you know that the first known literary version of Cinderella in the world was published in China.

There is a myth that an earlier version existed in Egypt around the first century. If true, since Egypt did not have printing presses then, this may have been an oral story told around camp fires.

However, in 850 AD during the Tang Dynasty, the Chinese version of Cinderella was about a girl called Yeh-hsien. Source: Tales of Faerie

Although this video claims the Chinese Cinderella had bound feet, according to Bound Feet Women, foot binding didn’t appear in China until the Sung Dynasty (960-1276 AD), more than a century after Cinderella was first published.

The French version of Cinderella wouldn’t be published by Charles Perrault until 1697 — more than eight centuries later.

Another version of Cinderella would appear in 1867 and again in 1894 in England.

In 1945, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow would present the premiere of Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet of Cinderella.

Walt Disney wouldn’t publish a version of Cinderella until 1946, more than a thousand years after Cinderella first appeared in China.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. 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.

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Note: This edited post first appeared December 23, 2010

2 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese literature, history | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Beyond Latchkey Kids

August 6, 2012

In rural China, more than 100 million migrants have left their homes to find work in the cities. By 2025, it is predicted that another 243 million will migrate. The benefit for these rural to urban migrants is increased income, access to education and a higher standard of living.

However, not all have the money to take their children with them. Some children stay behind — alone.

“Researchers estimate that at least 58 million — nearly a quarter of the nation’s children and almost a third of its rural children — are growing up without one or both of their parents, who have migrated in search of work. More than half of those were left by both parents.” Source: Rural Life in China

In the US, we call such children Latchkey Kids. In fact, Jareb Collins at Associated Content says as many as 77 percent of American youth are Latchkey Kids. If accurate, that adds up to more than 57 million American children.

In addition, in 2009, there were about 18.1 million children in the United States living in single-mother families. Source: prb.org

In the video, Xie Xiang Ling is one of those children in China that lives alone. She is twelve and tells her story to Al Jazeera.

Ling says she lives alone in rural Anhui Province.

Her parents work in the city and she takes care of herself. Sometimes her parents come home on the weekend and sometimes are gone for months.

Ling said there are too many people in the city where her parents sell fruit, tea and nuts.

When Ling visited her parents in the city, she had trouble sleeping nights because the city is so loud and there are so many cars.

Back home, Ling does her own cooking and eats fruit.

At times, she helps on her aunt’s farm and pulls the vegetables from the ground.

In school, she loves language class and math but does not like the English class since the teacher always screams at the students.

Ling wants to go to college and earn good money but her family cannot afford to send her to college.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. 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.

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Note: This revised and edited post first appeared December 30, 2010

1 Comment | business, capitalism, China, Chinese Culture, economy, family values, parenting | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

August 3, 2012

Innocent until proven guilty — I agree.

 

I’ll bet that not many people know that thanks to all the Olympic gold, silver and bronze he has won, Michael Phelps is worth about $45 million through good old capitalist endorsements. Now that China is a hybrid/ capitalist/sort-of-socialist country, I wonder if Ye Shewin will find endorsements lining up for the Chinese market. If so and she soon finds herself worth millions, what can we expect the Western media to say about her?
In fact, I read that Gabby Douglas’ London gold may be worth as much as $10 million in the next four years through endorsements.

seniledelinquent's avatarSenile Delinquent's Blog

When 16 year old Ye Shewin of China won the gold medal for the 400 m Individual Medley in London, it didn’t take long for the doubters to crawl out of the woodwork. John Leonard, executive director of the USA Swimming Coaches Association told the Guardian newspaper that her record breaking performance was “disturbing” and “suspicious”. Other athletes and officials climbed in, saying her performance was “interesting” (meaning I can’t prove it, but I know she cheated), or “insane” ( as in if you think she did this on her own, you’re crazy). What made her swim more amazing was that in the final 50m of her event, she swam faster than Ryan Lochte did in his gold medal performance at the same event.

So, reading between the lines of these comments you come up with these arguments. Firstly she’s a girl, and how can a 16 year old, 5’7″girl…

View original post 857 more words

2 Comments | China | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The real “INFAMOUS” role model of scandals and corruption- Part 3/3

August 1, 2012

The top three scandals that come to mind, as I finish writing this post, is the Watergate Scandal, which involved President Nixon leading to his resignation, and the Iran Contra Scandal that involved President Reagan’s White House and last the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal with President Clinton.

In addition, if you want to learn of political murders in the United States, I refer you to Wikipedia’s list of Assassinated American Politicians.  At the bottom of this list are links to United States federal judges killed in office and US Congress members killed or wounded in office.

Meanwhile, can we believe everything we read or hear from the media since conservative Republicans often let us know that the media in the US, especially when it reports on corruption and scandals of Republicans, is controlled by a liberal bias, and the GOP does not mention that it was Republican President Ronald Reagan that vetoed the Fairness Doctrine that would have required the media to balance its reporting by allowing both sides of an issue equal space/time to explain each respective point of view.

Then in 1991, another Republican President, George H. W. Bush, threatened another veto if Congress attempted to bring The Fairness Doctrine back.


You Can Buy and Sell Anything!

When the Fairness Doctrine was in place, citizen groups used it as a tool to expand speech and debate. For instance, it prevented stations from allowing only one side to be heard on ballot measures. Source: Common Dreams.org

What does this teach us about politics and honesty in the United States?

And last, the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota reported on a comparison of false statements during political campaigns in the United States and said, “PolitiFact assigns ‘Pants on Fire’ or ‘False’ ratings to 39 percent of Republican statements compared to just 12 percent of Democrats since January 2010,” which may indicate that Republicans lie three times more than Democrats but both still make false statements.

In conclusion, if we follow the advice of Jesus Christ when he confronted the mob that was ready to stone a woman accused of adultery, then the United States as a nation with almost 247 million Christians does not have the right to condemn China as the cover of Time Magazine’s May 14, 2012 issue did with “The People’s Republic of Scandal – Murder. Lies. Corruption. Can China face the truth?”

The real question should be, “Are most American’s capable of facing the truth and dealing with it?”

What do you think?

Return to The real “INFAMOUS” role model of scandals and corruption – Part 2 or start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. 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.

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15 Comments | America, American culture, capitalism, China, Chinese Culture, Christianity, Communism, crime, democracy, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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