The Huffington Post mentioned recent UFO sightings in China, “four lantern-like objects forming a diamond shape…hovered over the city’s Shaping Park for over an hour…. Last week, flights were diverted in Hangzhou, also in eastern China – after a mysterious object was seen hovering in the sky.”
In fact, Early Chinese texts tell of long-lived rulers from the heavens who flew in “fire-breathing dragons”.
In Tibet there is a book called the Kantyua, which means “the translated word of Buddha”. It tells of flying “pearls in the sky” and of transparent spheres carrying gods to visit man. Source: NetScientia.com
In 1947, a Chinese newspaper, the Commons Daily, reported that witnesses saw UFOs appearing over Wuhan.
Then in The Chinese Roswell by Hartwig Hausdorf, the author spent years in China uncovering tell-tale traces of an alien mind which may have passed that way millennia ago.
“It shouldn’t come as a surprise that many fascinating accounts of flying machines, unexplained celestial observations and close encounters with strange beings can be found quite extensively in historical and literary works from China.” Source: Open Minds
Conservative state-run newspapers and television media often report UFO sightings. China has a bimonthly UFO magazine devoted to UFO research, The Journal of UFO Research, which was launched in February 1981, circulation 400,000. Source: The Independent
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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.
There is no drainage in the grasslands. As it rains, the water saturates the soil and turns it into a swamp. Beneath the flowers and grass were hidden bogs that could swallow men and animals whole.
The temperatures were slightly above freezing. Food became scarce and was rationed.
When there was no food, the troops boiled the grass and added a touch of salt. Everyone was weak. Those who collapsed were left to die, because the survivors were too weak to help.
They could only cry.
The Red Army lost more troops in the grasslands than from the Snowy Mountains. A Nationalist army followed the Communists into the grasslands but turned back because of the difficulty and risks.
One reason the Nationalists turned back was that Chiang Kai-shek suffered from a lack of loyalty among his troops and generals. He even feared that one of his generals might kill him.
On the other hand, the loyalty of Mao’s troops was unquestioned.
However, the general of the Fourth Red Army argued with Mao and the two armies split.
Mao’s army was weak and still had hundreds of miles to go to reach safety. One obstacle remained—the dangerous Lazikou pass, which was also fortified by waiting Nationalist troops. Mao’s troops would have to fight to take the pass or return through the grasslands.
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.
G. E. Anderson, The China Tracker, takes a post from Computerworld about “China is getting ready to clean America’s technological clock,” and expresses an opinion that even if China graduates more scientists and technicians than the US, nothing is being done to nurture the kind of creative and critical thinking that produces innovation. He goes on to say that few in China have a passion for what they are learning.
Anderson is wrong.
The Chinese Collective Culture at Work
An example of cooperation!
The Chinese collective culture has a long history of innovation. The Chinese invented the compass, paper, the printing press, gunpowder and the multistage rocket. Without those Chinese innovations, I doubt the West would have the civilization it has today.
In December 2009, the Cornell Daily Sun reported that 45% of foreign students at American graduate schools are from India and China. In 2008, some 672 thousand international student attended U.S. colleges and universities. Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
Comparing the motivation of Chinese to American students is like comparing Red Delicious apples to Chinese dumplings. To a Chinese student, the pressure to measure up is always there, which explains why our daughter (my wife is Chinese and grew up in China during Mao’s Cultural Revolution) graduated from a US high school with a 4.66 GPA and straight A’s since she was five. Stanford University accepted her as a Biology major and she has plans to pursue a medical career. Since she speaks both languages fluently, she may take her skills to China one day.
Most American parents could care less and say, “Go have fun. Do what you want to do. Follow your passion.” If anything, this type of thinking will be the downfall of America. I know. I taught in the US educational system for three decades and this self-esteem cancer is still spreading.
Most Chinese students set goals and work “hard” to gain “face” for his or her family, while most Americans don’t set goals since they are too busy having fun and chasing passion. In fact, China has been a collective culture influenced by Confucius and Laotse for more than two thousand years.
While China graduates more than 30% in the sciences and engineering, America graduates that percentage in psychology and the arts and less than 5% in the sciences.
If creative and critical thinking isn’t being focused on in China, it is in the US and hundreds of thousands of Chinese students return to China each year after graduating from US institutions (mostly in the sciences), and many teach in Middle Kingdom universities imparting what they learned in the US to the next generation of Chinese.
For example, a Chinese immigrant friend of ours came to the US in the 1980s and earned his PhD in the sciences. Today, he is the department chair in the Chemical and Materials Engineering Departments of two universities—one in China and the other in the US. His innovative skills are so valuable that both universities cooperate so he can fly between countries sharing his skills and knowledge in NanoScience in Biomedicine. He’s published two books on the subject in both countries and languages.
If that isn’t enough, recently China built a super computer that equals what the US has and China is the only nation with a viable space program. On top of that, China is the leader in green technology (solar and wind) and has developed an all-electric car ahead of the US.
This all happened while the US has been mired in partisanship and Tea Party Politics while the children are out chasing their passions.
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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In June 1935, eight months and over three-thousand miles into the Long March, Mao’s Red Army moved into Western Sichuan Province. For a time, Mao’s troops were safe from Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists.
Meanwhile, the Japanese launched an attack on another northern Chinese province. The Japanese now occupied most of Northern China and the Chinese there knew little about the struggle between Mao and Chiang Kai-shek. Feeling abandoned, they were alienated from the Nationalist government.
However, the Red Army had to cross the Snowy Mountains with peaks as high as 15,000 feet. Because these mountains were so rugged and dangerous, the Nationalist Army stopped the pursuit and waited for the mountains to kill Mao.
Some historians believed crossing these mountains was a blunder, but Mao had no choice. Only defeat waited behind him. There was no turning back.
The thin air and the steep, snow-covered mountains exhausted the troops. A shortage of food, lack of firewood, snow blindness all contributed to the challenge. While crossing the mountains and linking up with the Fourth Red Army, thousands were lost. Once joined, the combined armies number 100,000 troops.
The next challenge was the deadliest obstacle of all—a high-desert grassland. There was no choice. All the easy routes were controlled by Chiang Kai-shek’s troops. Then heavy rains came, which turned the grassland into a swamp.
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.
The BBC reports that Bo Xilai, the man in charge of Chongqing, China, is prosecuting corrupt government officials in his province. Recently, a top justice official in the city was executed for corruption and many in his family went to jail.
In 2012 – Changing the Guard, I wrote about Bo Xilai and his crusade against crime and corruption, which has made him popular with the people.
To understand why Bo Xilai is popular, focus on the real reason workers started the Tiananmen Square protests. The workers who started the protest were concerned about crime and corruption.
The students, who have been given credit for a democracy movement, did not start the protest—they hijacked it.
The BBC said, “This (crime and corruption) worries China’s leaders, who are seriously concerned that public anger at levels of corruption is undermining support for the Communist Party.”
Considering the size of China, its population and the complexity of its multi-ethnic culture, this is a large challenge for China’s leaders.
Corruption also brought down the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911). In fact, the major cause of the collapse of most of China’s Dynasties is linked to corruption and moral decay.
Also, when the Ming Dynasty (1368-1643) collapsed, the last emperor hung himself because he had not done his job properly.
Why can’t we send the Bernie Madoffs of America to 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.
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