China’s Latest Labor Movement

July 14, 2010

“The China Beat”, Where to Begin: New Perspectives on Chinese Labor by Mark W. Frazier, offers a long post about what’s taking place in China’s labor movement.

Frazier says, “It is clear that migrant workers have gained a level of organizational sophistication and political awareness to make demands for higher wages, better working conditions, and in some cases, elections for union representatives.”

There are several books mentioned in the post.

Against the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt by Ching Kwan Lee.

The Chinese Worker after Socialism by William Hurst

The China Price by Alexander Harney

Some Assembly Required by Calvin Chen

State’s Gains, Labor’s Losses by Dorothy Solinger

Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang.

The changes started with the land reforms under Mao, continued with Deng Xiaoping when he said, “Getting Rich is Glorious” introducing capitalism to China, then the growth of an urban middle class, and now capitalist exploitation of the worker while China’s Sexual Revolution is going strong.

However, what if the labor protests in China are from job losses caused by the global economic crises. People are angry.  After all, millions have lost jobs already.

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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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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Sexual Revolution – Part 1/5

July 14, 2010

The world’s biggest country is going through the world’s largest sexual revolution.  From the Internet to corner sex shops, China is changing. But lost in the mix, millions of single men can’t find a date much less a mate.

Changes are talking place as China goes through the West’s 60s rebellion.  Mao’s Little Red Book has been replaced with a black book filled with phone numbers and date info.

Mao’s taboos against capitalism and sex are gone. With these changes comes the dark side—drugs, prostitution, HIV and STDs.  Under Mao, sexuality was almost done away with.  Everyone wore the same baggy colored clothes.  Everyone had the same haircut. Couples that fell in love and were caught were punished. Today, cosmetics, perfume and stylish clothes have replaced Mao’s uniforms.

Millions are learning about romance and love. However, millions of others have been left with sexual, psychological problems and are very ignorant about sex. They were victims of Mao’s Cultural Revolution’s sexual repression.

Learn about how Adoptions in China Changing or go to China’s Sexual Revolution – Part 2

 View as Single Page

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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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The Coming Apple-Google War in China

July 14, 2010

No wonder Google backed down on their threats to pull out of China.  There’s much money to be made from China’s growing middle class, but Google’s headaches are not over yet thanks to Apple.

The China Tracker, Paul Denlinger, reports that Apple has opened its second store in China’s Shanghai Pudong district, and it features the world’s largest pieces of curved glass. In addition, Apple plans to open 25 more stores in China by the end of 2011 where computers, iPhones, iPods, and iPads will be sold.

Why does this mean war between Google and Apple? Because Google is selling its Android platform (mobile phones, etc) to the Chinese consumer, but Apple and other competitors have a sweater deal. You’ll need to read Denlinger to learn the details.

Apple’s edge comes from having most of its products assembled in China and a deal with China Unicom to buy its products so Apple has no risk since there is a no return policy. The risk belongs to Unicom.

In fact, Google’s decision to confront China’s government over censorship was not a good idea since it has tainted Google’s image in China while increasing it in the West where the Chinese consumer does not shop. Meanwhile, the winner will probably be the Chinese middle class when these two giants have a price war to see who wins.

See Doing Business in China

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning My Splendid Concubine and writes The Soulful Veteran and Crazy Normal.

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Google Blinked First

July 10, 2010

I read a Washington Post piece by Keith B. Richburg that Google’s license to operate in China has been renewed, surprising many—even me.  I thought China would punish Google for all the noise over accusations of being hacked by China and stirring the Western criticism pot about China’s Net Nanny.

“We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP license, and we look forward to continuing to provide Web search and local products to our users in China,” Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, wrote on the company’s blog.

To get this approval, it appears that Google stopped redirecting mainland Chinese to Google’s site in Hong Kong, where people wouldn’t have to deal with the mainland Net Nanny.

The Wall Street Journal Blogs – Digits reports that this is a step back for Google since the affair lost them market share in China. Digits also explains the reason Google backed away from its threats not to censor its search engine was due to future profits by staying in the largest Internet market in the world.

The message I read at The Technology Liberation Front (cool name) is that it is important for American companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to stay in China. If they leave, their influence on China becoming a politically and economically freer nation would not exist.

The result, future profits defeated idealism.

See Google Recycled

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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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Goodbye traditional China — Hello New-world Glamour

July 10, 2010

About China’s TV Program, Red Mansion
Guest Post by Hannah in China

These days, Chinese TV is showing the all-new version of Red Mansion (Hong Lou Meng, which is directed by Li Shaohong). Red Mansion is based on the well-known Qing Dynasty novel (also known as Dream of Red Chamber) written by Cao Xue Qin. The story is about the feudal noble family’s rise and fall from prosperity to decline. But to the Chinese, the most fascinating parts of the book are the sad love story, which happens to the three main characters: Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai.

Lin Daiyu

Red Mansion is one of four Chinese classic novels. The other three are the Journey to West, Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. So, these four stories are constantly made and remade into Chinese TV shows or movies since television first became popular in China in 1980s.

Jia Baoyu

Before this new version of Red Mansions, there’s the most popular one made in 1987, which is the best accepted and beloved by all the Chinese people from young to old (Find the 1987 version of A Dream of Red Mansions at Amazon.com). Even till now, when people talk about the Red Mansion, all we can think of is the 1987 version. These original actor and actress really conveyed the souls of the book’s character and never can be performed or interpreted by anyone else as well as they did. The producers from 1987 spent YEARS to pick out from millions of people in the country these actors and also took a year to train them and naturally develop into the characters, then took another year to film the show. That’s why the 1987 production is the best and the classic.

Xue Baochai

Now China has new technologies and enough material to make all the beautiful scenes for the same shows. But are we Chinese still pure enough to make the real GREAT shows?

There are hidden rules in all the entertainment these days—talent does not matter anymore. So new actors must have connections or money. Maybe that’s why the first director left the new production of Red Mansions and was replaced by Li Shaohong. Truthfully, I like Li Shaohong a lot because of the great show Palace of Desire (Da Ming Gongci) about Tang Dynasty. Dream-like beautiful scenes are the trademark of Li Shaohong, but in the new version of Red Mansion, all the actors are too young and glamorous compared with the original, traditional cast from 1987.

naked legs in the modern TV production

Viewers of the new version comment on their blogs that the new show sometimes feels like a ghost show because it tries to shock us so often. And they say the new female leads dress and wear makeup more like girls from a modern brothel than an ancient royal court. They show too much of their legs and thighs in every scene. They are liked whores.

Lin Daiyu - naked and dead in the modern production

And it seems even the director Li Shaohong cannot understand the true meaning of the Red Mansion story. First, she doesn’t like the book (she admitted this in an interview). Second, she made Lin Daiyu naked in her dying scene, explaining that she aimed to shock the audience by doing this. This is an insult. The Qing Dynasty was very conservative and women were not allowed to show skin. How can a noble, elegant young girl be naked?

Also, there’s a funny mistake in a scene on the Qing-era boat. There are rubber tires on the boat!!!

rubber inner tubes on an 18th century Chinese boat

I don’t know when or where rubber was invented, but certainly not in ancient China.

 (Note from this Blog’s host: The invention of rubber has been traced to the ancient Mayans of central America to 1600 BC. There is no record of rubber tires reaching China at the time “A Dream of Red Mansions” was written by Cao Xueqin [1715-1763]. In fact, Charles Goodyear invented the first vulcanized rubber in 1844 and it wouldn’t be until 1888, that John Dunlop invented air-filled tires for bicycles.)

modern production - the one with nudity

So, on and on are my criticisms of the new Red Mansion TV show. It’s more like watching the new world, but maybe that’s what China’s government-run media wants—everything new and glamorous. 

See Hannah Travel Adventure (Chinese) or Hannah China Backpacker (English)

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Lloyd Lofthouse, the host of the Blog, 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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