Middle Kingdom on Fashion Fast Track

September 4, 2010

Three decades ago, blue, black, gray and green clothing dominated Chinese streets. Today, individuality is the rule.

Since China is the hub of worldwide manufacturing, it is no surprise that fashion is alive and well there too. In fact, urban Chinese consumers are highly brand conscious. Even luxury brands like Christian Dior are in demand.

Fashion in China is more than a 40 billion (in US) dollar growing industry.

Forbes’ China Tracker, Avery Booker, writes about the fashion competition in China and points out that foreign retailers like H&M are wading into the Chinese market and doing well.

Meanwhile, Chinese retailers find innovative ways to compete with foreign companies by going into Chinese markets that foreign companies have not reached.

Attitudes to domestic brands have changed because state owned companies have been privatized and are producing better quality products. 

What’s interesting are the foreign faces Chinese retailers are using to sell their fashions—like Wentworth Miller of “Prison Break” as well as actor Orlando Bloom and model Agyness Dyn.

In order to promote the development of China’s fashion industry, super-model beauty contests have also blossomed.

See Disneyland Chinese Style

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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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China’s Changing Face – Farmers’ Friend the Organic Way – Part 3/3

August 30, 2010

“Farmer’s Friend” started in 2005 and today what they are doing is supported by the central government’s ” Urban Support for Rural Development“.

Zhou Jinzhang, the founder and president of “Farmers’ Friend”, once worked in the advertising industry.

In 2007, he quit his job and opened an organic restaurant in Liuzhou City. Forty percent of the restaurant’s profits are used to purchase organic agricultural products that support rural peasant farmers.

The cost of the organic rice is more than four times that of rice grown with the use of pesticides, which allows the farmers to earn more.

The members of “Farmers’ Friend” work together helping peasants develop organic farming and breeding.

Their goal is to have people enjoy the original tastes of food again.

“Farmers’ Friend” also continues to expand organic farming in urban areas near Liuzhou City. 

Unfortunately, too many farmers still use pesticides and chemical fertilizers seeking short-term profits over healthier long-term goals. There are still many challenges to overcome during the rush to modernize China.

See The Reasons Why China is Studying Singapore

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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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China’s Changing Face – Farmers’ Friend the Organic Way – Part 2/3

August 29, 2010

The members of “Farmers’ Friend” decided to work with the poorest peasants near Liuzhou City in Guangxi Province. 

The village they selected was Nashe, a three-hour drive from the city that was far from the urban pollution.

The president of “Farmers’ Friend”, Zhou Jinzhang, talked to the senior caption of Nashe, Wei Xiuqing.

It wasn’t easy convincing Wei that organic farming could be profitable for everyone. To encourage the peasants, “Farmers’ Friend” agreed to be responsible for any economic losses.

With this guarantee, Wei agreed to work with “Farmers’ Friend” to set up the duck-rice system.

The ducks would eat the insects and pesticides would no longer be needed. 

Soon after starting the project, there were problems. Some of the ducks died from pesticides used by other farmers.

“Farmers’ Friend” also brought in experts to help create better pig breeding programs. The result was that the urban people enjoyed healthier food and the peasants earned more income.

Now Wei has a dream to become prosperous enough through organic farming to attract the young people who left to work in urban factories to return home to the village.

See Deng Xiaoping’s 20/20 Vision

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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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China’s Changing Face – Farmers’ Friend the Organic Way – Part 1/3

August 29, 2010

China uses more pesticides than any other country. 

To prove a point, Greenpeace conducted an experiment and sent 45 samples of fruits and vegetables from rural Chinese peasant farmers to an independent laboratory to find out how serious the problem was.

Five of the samples had no pesticides on them. The other 40 samples had 50 different kinds of pesticide on them.  Source: Greenpeace

This video is about a group called “Farmers’ Friend”, professional urbanites from Liuzhou City in Guangxi Province, who wanted to have healthier food to eat that was pesticide free. 

To achieve this, these Chinese professionals connected with peasants in rural China with goals to encourage organic farming that would offer higher incomes to the peasants and healthier food to urban people.

“Farmers’ Friend” wanted to work with the poorest peasants in the poorest rural areas.

Since 1980, hundreds of millions of rural people had moved to urban China to work in factories. This resulted in demands on peasant farmers to grow more food to feed the country, which results in heavy pesticide and chemical fertilizer use.

In 2006, the central government announced a policy of urban support for rural development. However, by then, “Farmers’ Friend” had already taken its first step in 2005 to encourage organic farming in rural areas.

See Women in Science & Business

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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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China’s Got Talent Too

August 28, 2010

There is America’s Got Talent and most of us know who Susan Boyle is from Britain’s Got Talent.

Now, from China comes an inspiration. Liu Wei lost both his arms when he was 10 after touching a high-voltage wire during a game of hide-and-seek.

At 23, on China’s Got Talent, he stunned people across China and brought tears to some when he played piano with his toes.

Many in the West may not be aware of how much China has changed.

China’s Got Talent is a British-owned Chinese reality show screened by Dragon TV in Shanghai.  It features performers of all types and ages competing for a performing contract with Fremantle Media and Sony Music Entertainment. Source: Cultural China

See Impressions of Liu Sanjie

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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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