Life is a Miracle – a movie review

August 4, 2011

Life is a Miracle with Zhang Ziyi (twenty-two films including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – 2000, and Memoirs of a Geisha –2005) and Aaron Kwok (45 films) was released in China 2011 and as a DVD in the US. For those interested in seeing what life is like in a remote area of China, I recommend this movie but as a film about HIV/AIDS it fails compared to Philadelphia (1993 – Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington).

The film, adapted from a novel, tells a tragic love story between two AIDS-afflicted lovers. Kwok develops a crush on Zhang Ziyi’s character, also an AIDS patient.

Changwei Gu (the director) did not capture the horror of HIV/AIDS in this film.  However, in Philadelphia the true reality of HIV/AIDS is depicted dramatically through Tom Hanks’ character.  In Life as a Miracle, the stars are just as healthy and sexy at the end as they were early in the film.

Instead, the film seems to be a story of two thirty year olds spurned by their spouses and the healthy villagers. The two turn to each other to fulfill the need for companionship, love, youthful lust and much sex.  If you enjoyed Zhang Ziyi in Memoirs of a Geisha and her other work, then you may enjoy watching her in this film. She does not disappoint.

There was one obvious flaw in the film. The only people infected with HIV/AIDS got it while sharing the same needle giving blood.  The symptoms of the disease then come on so fast, that their spouses were never infected. This is unrealistic since HIV often hides for years or decades before it becomes AIDS.  For most, it would have been impossible to realize they carried the virus until it was too late and their spouses were infected, which is the main reason the disease has become a global epidemic.

I also found that the subtitles were too small and difficult to read. However, I managed to understand what was going on.

I easily get teary eyed in films that tug at the heart. In fact, my wife and daughter know me well enough that when a dramatic scene of this nature comes on screen, they usually glance in my direction to see if the “compassion” bug has kicked in.

That didn’t happen once while watching Life is a Miracle. In addition, when I lose interest in a movie, I often fall asleep.  That did not happen with this film.  For me, the rural Chinese setting and the supporting actors mostly carried the movie.

Discover Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, another Chinese film

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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.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

1 Comment | China, Chinese arts and music, Chinese Culture, Chinese men, Chinese women, cultural differences, environment, family values, health care, media | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Democracy Risk

August 3, 2011

That “old” friend of mine, the neoconservative, evangelical Christian libertarian (NEO-ECL), sent me an e-mail with a link to a post by Mark J. Perry on Carpe Diem.

NEO-ECL is a man of few words.  His average e-mail is usually a one-line opinionated statement with a link to another opinion as support. This e-mail was no different.  NEO-ECL wrote, “Imagine how much better we’d do if the U.S. did what Chili did.”

I clicked on the link to Mark Perry’s post and read it.  Perry’s conclusion, “The ‘Chilean economic miracle’ demonstrates that free market capitalism and free trade are the best paths to prosperity and a long life.”

Perry based this theory on the fact that Chileans increased life expectancy from 57 to 78.7 years in half a century after signing free trade agreements with more than 50 countries around the world.”

Any fool can take numbers and use them to fit any foolish theory.  To prove my point, I am going to offer a foolish theory too.

I asked NEO-ECL to explain why Greece, which is a country that is financially on the rocks, has a life expectancy of 79.5. I also threw in China. Under Socialist Maoism between 1949 and 1976, life expectancy in China went from 35 to 64.3 and by the time China threw open its doors to capitalism that number was above 66 and has continued to climb steadily to where it is today at about 73.

Under Maoism, life expectancy in China improved 84%. However, under capitalism with its influx of fast food and the American middle class lifestyle (McDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC, etc), life expectancy only improved 13.5%.

And what about crime? If we look at INTERPOL data for Chile, we soon discover that between 1998 and 2000, crime increased dramatically after Chili became a multi party participatory democracy.

The murder rate increased by 39.3%, rape by 13.9%, robbery by 53.6%, burglary by 16.5% and larceny by 30,771.4%.

In conclusion, in a democracy such as the United States we are protected from persecution by our government due to our First Amendment freedom of expression rights but have a much higher risk of being a victim of private sector crime such as larceny.

In fact, for each of these crimes, the rates were higher in America and the US has the largest prison population in the world and brought us the 2008 global financial crises leading to more than $40 trillion in global losses.

Usually, I provide links to all the data I use to support my opinions. However, since Mark J. Perry only had one link in his post to support his opinion, that is all I will provide. But, if anyone searches for the facts to see if what I used is real, I’m not worried.

Discover Dictatorship Defined

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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.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

Leave a Comment » | America, China, crime, legal system, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Damage Viral Lies and Rumors may Cause

August 1, 2011

Jeff Cole at PR 101 asked, “Why do people believe everything they read on the Internet?” Then Cole cites two examples in his PR 101 post to make a point.  In both cases, what people read and believed without checking the sources led to a panic and may have caused children to suffer and die.

If interested in more details, click on the link in the first paragraph to read Cole’s post.

His conclusion was, “Many people will believe something no matter how outlandish it might seem.”  He said, “People seem more willing to believe bloggers and others using social media without checking,” and he asked, “Doesn’t anyone check the source?”

Wanting another source on this topic, I searched further and discovered a Pew Internet Study (the first national survey of the use of social networking sites by adults) and read, “the typical internet user is more than twice as likely as others to feel that people can be trusted.”

After learning how gullible people are when it comes to reading something on the Internet, it should come as no surprise that China’s only national Red Cross society is fighting to keep the public’s trust after a scandal erupted when Guo Meimei, a 20-year-old woman, claimed on a Blog to have a link to China’s national Red Cross.

Guo bragged online about her luxurious lifestyle and triggered concerns among the Chinese public that money donated to the Red Cross in China was being misused.  Source: China Daily

After bragging, Guo Meimei became a hot topic on China’s major micro blog website, Weibo.com.  Her fans jumped from a few hundred to more than 108,000 within a short period.

Five days later, Shanghaiist.com reported that Guo was stopped at a Beijing airport from leaving China to visit Australia with her mother.

Shanghaiist‘s Robert O’Connor wrote, “Guo continued to deny connections to the Red Cross Society and asked reporters and internet users to “stop fooling around”.

When was the last time you believed something you read on the Internet without checking to see if it were true or not? A good place to start might be Snopes.com.

Discover What is the Truth about Tiananmen Square?

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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.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

2 Comments | America, China, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China, the source of high-tech products – for now

July 31, 2011

The June 2011 National Geographic Magazine (NGM) is sitting on my desk reminding me to write a post about THE SECRET (Chinese) INGREDIENTS OF (almost) EVERYTHING.

In fact, today, China supplies 97% of the world’s rare earth needs.

NGM’s Folger tells us, “Although China currently monopolizes rare earth mining, other countries have deposits too. China has 48 percent of the world’s reserves; the United States has 13 percent. Russia, Australia, and Canada have substantial deposits as well. Until the 1980s, the United States led the world in rare earth production …” Then China entered the competition and soon dominated the global market.

How important are these rare earth minerals to our modern high-tech world?

The U.S. military depends on these minerals for night vision goggles used in combat, and to help control Predator drones, and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

MRI medical scans need a rare earth mineral to work while hybrid cars would not exist without them and wind turbines used to generate an alternative source of energy requires hundreds of pounds of one rare earth element while compact fluorescent light bulbs use another rare earth to light up.  Even our smart phones, flat-screen televisions and sunglasses (to protect our eyes from UV light) use rare earths.

Folger reveals that there is currently a shortage of rare earths with global demand about 60,000 tons. However, China will only be exporting 24,000 tons this year, since its growing middle class demands the same high-tech toys that many Americans and Europeans take for granted.

To have a better idea of how this demand of rare earths will grow in China, the McKinsey Global Institute predicts China’s middle class will reach about 612 million Chinese by 2025 to become the world’s largest population of consumers. This will change ‘made in China‘ to ‘sold in China‘ possibly creating markets for luxury goods made in the USA.

Does this mean that soon Chinese may be complaining about US workers stealing jobs from China?

Meanwhile, other nations (such as the US) are rushing to develop rare earth metals until the US is capable of producing enough to supply the demand in America for high-tech gadgets.

Discover more from Keeping the Rare Earths 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 that Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

2 Comments | America, business, capitalism, China, economy, environment, science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Facts about Education — China and the world versus America – Part 3/3

July 30, 2011

Myth:  “American Universities Are Being Overtaken.” (concerning research and development)

ANSWER: “NOT SO FAST.”

Wildavsky says, Asia’s share of the world’s research and development (R&D) spending grew from 27 to 32% from 2002 to 2007, led mostly by China, India, and South Korea.

However, R&D spending worldwide massively surged in the last decade from $790 billion to $1.1 trillion, up 45 percent, and in 2007, the U.S. spent $373 billion (up from $277 billion in 2002) on R&D, which was very high by global standards totaling more than all Asian countries’ combined ($352 billion was spent on R&D in Asia).

Myth: “THE WORLD WILL CATCH UP”

ANSWER: “Maybe, but don’t count on it anytime soon.”

While the global academic marketplace is without doubt growing more competitive, the United States doesn’t have just a few elite schools as most of its foreign competition does, and the U.S. spends about 2.9 percent of its GDP on postsecondary education, about twice the percentage spent by China, the European Union, and Japan in 2006.

If this three part series of posts sparked a curiosity to learn more on this topic, I urge you to take the time and click over to Foreign Policy magazine‘s Website and read all of FP’s Think Again: Education written by Ben Wildavsky.  It’s always nice to discover the facts before you form an opinion or believe someone that does not know what they are talking about. After reading Wildavsky’s piece in FP, it is obvious that America’s schools are not failing and have never been failing and are actually either holding their own or slowly improving.

That doesn’t mean the US should stop working at improving the public education system.  It means that many of the opinions and claims you may read or hear are probably wrong and the key to improving education in the US rests with the parents and not the teachers.

Considering the handicaps and competition teachers in the U.S. public schools face from the average child/adolescent’s poor lifestyles choices while eating horrible diets along with lack of proper sleep and spending far too much time dividing his or her daily hours (more than 10 hours a day on average) watching TV, playing video games, social networking on sites such as Facebook, and sending endless text messages instead of reading and studying, the evidence says American teachers are doing an incredible job.

Return to Facts about Education – 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.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

2 Comments | America, China, education, parenting, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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