The Peasant Cult that Defeated the Yuan Dynasty

October 11, 2016

Religions, as Christians, Jews and Muslims practice them, have seldom played a major role in Chinese Culture and Politics. Even today, more than 800 million Chinese say they don’t belong to any religion and the largest religion in China is Buddhism with about 10% of the population.  Even during Imperial times, most members of government didn’t belong to organized religions. The same is true today with the Chinese Communist Party.

China’s struggle with pagan cults (for instance, the White Lotus Society) stretches back almost a thousand years. The White Lotus Society appealed to poor Han Chinese peasants and more so to women, who found peace in worshiping the Eternal Mother, Wusheng Laomu. It was believed that this Eternal Mother would gather all her children at the millennium into one family.

White Lotus Societies started out seeking tranquility through a combination of Buddhism with some elements of Daoism (Taoism) and other native Chinese religions. Even in the 12th century, the Yuan Dynasty was distrustful of the Yellow Lotus Society, which didn’t fit comfortably with Confucianism.

Persecution of the White Lotus Society started during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1271 – 1368 AD), the first dynasty that was not led by the Han Chinese. Due to this, the White Lotus Society changed from one of peace and tranquility and organized protests to violence against the Mongol rulers.

Since Yuan Imperial authorities distrusted the White Lotus Society, the Dynasty banned them, and the White Lotus went underground.  The White Lotus predicted that a messianic, Christ like figure would come and save them from persecution. That man was Zhu Yuanzhang, a Buddhist monk.

The White Lotus led revolution started in 1352 near Guangzhou before Zhu Yuanzhang joined the rebellion. But soon, he became the leader by forbidding his soldiers to pillage in observance of White Lotus religious beliefs.

By 1355, the rebellion had spread through much of China. In 1356, Zhu Yuanzhang captured Nanjing and made it his capital. Then Confucian scholars issued pronouncements supporting Zhu’s claim of the Mandate of Heaven, the first step toward establishing a new dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang liberated China from the Mongols and became the founding Emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1643). Known as the Hongwu emperor, he was cruel, suspicious, and irrational, behavior that grew worse as he aged.

Discover Wu Zetian, China’s only female emperor

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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 unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

#1 - Joanna Daneman review Updated August 26 - 2016_edited-2

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Marco Polo

October 5, 2016

As a child I was fascinated with Genghis Khan (1162 – 1227 A.D.) and his grandson Kublai Khan (1215 – 1294), who was the 5th Khagan (Great Khan of the Mongol Empire), and the 1st Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty in China (1271 – 1368).  He was the first non-native emperor to conquer all of China. This fascination is why I knew a little bit about Marco Polo. In fact, I’ve known about Marco Polo most of my life but not much detail about what he actually accomplished in China.

map-of-mongol-empire

Marco Polo lived in China for 17 years and loyally served Kublai Khan.  I’ve never seen the first television miniseries (8 episodes) originally broadcast by NBC in 1982, but I have watched season one of the recent Marco Polo series produced by Netflix.

Halfway through Seasons One’s Netflix series, I wanted to know how accurate this fascinating interpretation of Marco Polo’s life in China was and did some digging with help from Google.

In the Bonus material for the 1st season, there’s a thirty-eight minute documentary that I recommend watching before starting the episodes, so you have a better idea of who Marco was and what he did in China.  That way you won’t have to do what I did. Watching the documentary will help you separate fact from fiction while watching the series. I didn’t know about the documentary until I finished watching the episodes.

What I found interesting when I did my research about Marco’s years in China (1275 – 1292) was the show’s ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.  The thirty-three critics gave the show a rating of 4.7 out of 10, but the audience of 2,162 gave the show a rating of 9 out of 10. It was easy for me to side with the audience.

I bought the DVDs for Marco Polo Season 1 from Amazon where it has 4.6 of 5 stars from the 90 customer reviews.

Discover Wu Zetian, China’s only female emperor

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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 unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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The Eunuch Who Beat Columbus by Almost 90 Years

October 4, 2016

The New York Times reported, “The Chinese map, which was drawn in 1763 but has a note on it saying it is a reproduction of a map dated 1418, presents the world as a globe with all the major continents rendered with an exactitude that European maps did not have for at least another century, after Columbus, Da Gama, Magellan, Dias and others had completed their renowned explorations.”

The voyages of Chinese Admiral Zheng He’s armada were rediscovered in Fujian province in the 1930s. The story was etched in a pillar. By the final, seventh voyage, the fleet had covered over 50,000 kilometers or 30,000 miles and was comprised of three hundred ships and 28,000 men.

But when the Yongle Emperor died in 1424, China’s Hongxi Emperor stopped the voyages of China’s largest fleet. – BBC

A century later, about 1529, another Ming Emperor burned all records of the fleet. This decision to withdraw from the world may have resulted in China not being ready to confront the Western Imperial powers that arrived in the 19th century starting the Opium Wars that devastated China leading to a century of war and unrest.

For a comparison, Christopher Columbus set sale in 1492 with 3 small ships and 88 men. Erik the Red, a Viking explorer, also crossed the Atlantic in even smaller ships to build a settlement in Greenland around 1,000 AD. Some archeologists suggest that the Phoenicians may have reached the Americas before the Vikings and Columbus around 500 BC. Some even say as early as 1500 to 1200 BC.

Columbia.edu says, “From 1405 until 1433, the Chinese imperial eunuch Zheng He led seven ocean expeditions for the Ming emperor that are unmatched in world history.” To learn more about the seven voyages, click the link in this paragraph.

In fact, many layers of myth surround China’s ancient mariner. According to Kenyan lore, some of his shipwrecked sailors survived and married local women in Africa. DNA tests have reportedly shown evidence of Chinese ancestry and a young Kenyan woman, Mwamaka Shirafu, was given a scholarship to study Chinese medicine in China.

Discover China’s First Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, the man that unified China more than 2,000 years ago.

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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 unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

#1 - Joanna Daneman review Updated August 26 - 2016_edited-2

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Eating Bird Nests

September 28, 2016

The idea of eating soup made from bird saliva gives me the shivers. However, there is a history behind this Southeast Asian delicacy and there may be health benefits but also some degree of danger for a few people.

Myths say the Chinese have been eating bird saliva for 1,500 years since the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). But another myth says China’s most famous eunuch, Admiral Zheng Hi, brought these nests made from bird saliva back to China in the 15th century.

What we do know for sure is that the Chinese have been making soup from imported swiftlet nests from Southeast Asia for centuries.

A few comprehensive scientific studies in Asia and China in the 1990s revealed that this particular bird saliva appears to play a crucial role in major normal cellular processes and may help resist the effects of aging.

However, the Malaysian Society of Allergy and Immunology reported that for a few people there is a major risk of an allergic reaction after eating Bird’s Nest Soup that might cause death.

To be fair to the birds and their saliva, eating peanuts, tree nuts, milk, soy, shellfish (Medical Daily), and getting flu shots (CDC) can also end in allergic reactions with severe symptoms for a few.

Discover Wu Zetian, China’s only female emperor

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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 unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

#1 - Joanna Daneman review Updated August 26 - 2016_edited-2

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

U.S. Per Capita Pollution is more than 2x that of China

September 27, 2016

If the population of the United States was the same size as China, America would be pumping out 22,722,840 kilotons of CO2 emissions – more than twice the carbon dioxide emissions of China. A kiloton is equal to 1,000 tons, and one ton is 2,000 pounds. Do the math.  But because the U.S. has about 319 million people to China’s 1.36 billion, China looks worse than the U.S. when the total CO2 emissions are compared: 10,540,000 (kt) versus 5,335,000 (kt) for the U.S.

To me, this is mind boggling. The U.S. calls itself a democracy and many of its citizens never miss a chance to brag about their country’s power and the freedom offered to its citizens. Then why is China, an alleged totalitarian country without much freedom, as critics such as Liu Xiaobo’s claim, allowing Greenpeace to operate there without harassment from China’s central government?

Greenpeace is the leading non-governmental organization working in East Asia to fight climate change. Greenpeace has offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Taipei and Seoul and is serving the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

And if democracies are so desirable, why did Japan send two Greenpeace activists to jail for one year after exposing widespread corruption in the Japanese government’s Southern Ocean whaling programme?

In fact, in China, efforts to combat climate change demonstrate that China’s government acknowledges the challenge as well as the responsibility of China to tackle them. In addition, if China’s Communist Party didn’t want Greenpeace, they wouldn’t be there.


Listen to Greenpeace China’s Tom Wang in Tianjin calmly being honest about China’s pollution challenges.

In 2006, Greenpeace China was the only NGO to be consulted on an early draft of renewable energy law by China’s National People’s Congress.

Has the US government consulted with Greenpeace? I’ll let Greenpeace answer that question.

China has also allowed two Greenpeace expeditions to China’s Himalayan region in 2006 and 2007 where evidence was discovered of the dramatic retreat of glaciers, which was reported in National Geographic Magazine.

One Greenpeace China campaign focused on stopping Monsanto, a US-headquartered biotechnology giant, from patenting a Chinese indigenous soybean variety. Discover what Monsanto is doing to contaminate the world’s food supply?

How has China reacted to Monsanto GMO soybeans? Sustainable Pulse.com reports, “According to a statement last week by Beijing Food Safety Volunteers the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture has confirmed to them that Monsanto’s RR2 Xtend GMO soybeans have not been approved for import, despite the company’s claims earlier in 2016.”

Greenpeace campaigns in China have also focused on food, agriculture and electronic waste while highlighting the dangers of PVC in children’s toys.

I admit finding this information about Greenpeace China surprised me because all I’ve heard in the Western media of Greenpeace is that they are a gang of dangerous activists doing crazy things to get attention.

Until reading about Greenpeace in China, I didn’t know what a positive force it was for cleaning the environment.

Now I want to know why the US isn’t doing more. But I already know the answer: big oil and the Koch brothers, who fund ALEC, the climate change denial effort, and own many members  of the U.S. Congress and state legislature are doing all they can to block ridding our environment of carbon emissions. Source Watch.org lists as many of these bought and paid for elected representatives as possible, because ALEC is cloaked in secrecy, and that is not how a democracy and/or a republic works.

Discover Wu Zetian, China’s only female emperor

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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 unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

A1 on June 22 - 2016 Cover Image with BLurbs to promote novel

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