SONG DYNASTY (960 – 1279 AD) – Part 4/6

September 28, 2010

Under the sands of a beach in the city of Quanzhou City in Fujian Province, a well preserved secret was discovered–a boat built during the Song Dynasty.

It is the oldest, fully intact wooden boat unearthed in the world with a load capacity of 200 tons.

It was not the largest boat constructed during that time. The largest had a load capacity of more than 1,000 tons.

Experts say the construction of these ships with hermetic compartments made safe navigation possible and these methods that were developed a millinea ago are still used today in modern ship construction.

During the Song Dynasty, the trading port of Quanzhou was considered one of the two largest in the world. Egypt’s Alexandria was the other one.

As an important seaport for trade at one end of the Maritime Silk Road, Quanzhou had close ties with Korea and Japan in the east and as far as  northeast Africa in the west.

At the time, the Indian Ocean was called the Western Seas, which explains the story of Zheng He’s Voyage to the Western Seas” in the Ming Dynasty.

There were two major kinds of trade goods–silk and porcelain. Some scholars say that porcelain should be considered the fifth great Chinese invention.

Return to Song Dynasty – Part 3

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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. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Democracy Equals Freedom – Think Again

September 28, 2010

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Source: US Constitution

I find it interesting that I had to read in the Guardian about a respected Mexican newspaper (across the border from the US) asking the drug cartels for guidance on how not to offend them so the drug cartels would stop killing newspaper reporters and photographers.

Freedom House’s annual survey of media independence in 195 countries and territories show that only 17% of the earth’s population lives in what is considered “Free”. 

Forty-two percent of the planet’s people live in “Not Free” and 41% in “Partly Free” countries, and Mexico, which is billed as a democracy is listed with the “Partly Free”.

Watch the video then visit Freedom House.org to discover that countries considered “Free” mostly have colonial links to Europe.

Although the video shows most of the world’s countries are democracies today, the results at Freedom House say it isn’t true.

 Even India, which is billed as the largest “democracy” on the planet is “partly free”.

China is listed as “not free”, which is among the planet’s majority, according to Freedom House, and China makes no attempt to hide that fact.

America and the rest of the “free” 17% of the world would be better off if the “free press” were required to tell the truth and nothing but the truth without exaggerations. Unfortunately, America’s Founding Fathers forgot that sentence.

The U.S. First Amendment also doesn’t protect freedom of the press from corporate CEOs or gangsters, and foreign companies own four of American’s six-largest media empires.

See Media Slugfest Using Taiwan

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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. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

SONG DYNASTY (960 – 1279 AD) – Part 3/6

September 28, 2010

Agricultural science during the Song Dynasty fertilized land that was not suitable for growing crops.

Then two or three annual harvests were possible leading to a green revolution, which supported the population of China to exceed one-hundred million—at that time the largest population in the world.

One scientist discovered that petroleum made better ink for writing and predicted that petroleum would be used greatly in the future.

Although China’s four greatest inventions came long before then, it wasn’t until the Song Dynasty that papermaking, the large-scale application of printing, the compass and gunpowder made their mark.

In fact, the German inventor Johannes Gutenberg wouldn’t invent his printing press until 1440 AD.

Before the Song Dynasty, the primitive compass invented centuries earlier was not accurate.

However, the compass was improved for navigation making it less likely for ships get lost at sea and allowed ships to travel farther from China.

To preserve these innovations, Shen Kuo published his Dream Pool Essays in 1088 AD, a huge encyclopedic book that covered a wide range of subjects, including literature, art, military strategy, mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, geology, geography, metallurgy, engineering, hydraulics, architecture, zoology, botany, agronomy, medicine, anthropology, archeology, etc.

Return to Song Dynasty – Part 2

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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. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Founding Fathers had it Right about the Death Penalty

September 27, 2010

Moans and groans abound in the West about the hidden numbers behind China’s death penalties. 

I’m often baffled how anyone who claims to be a caring person could fight to keep murderers, drug dealers, child molesters and rapists from getting a swift death penalty.

The Death Penalty Information Center says that when the Constitution was written, the time between sentencing and execution could be measured in days or weeks (as it is in China today).

Today, the typical death row inmate in America spends a decade awaiting execution. Some have been on death row for over 20 years. In California, keeping him or her alive that long would cost about one million and that does not include court costs. The only ones who win are the lawyers.

I read a post at error bank.com that offers concerns about the death penalty.

One issue raised was of innocent people found guilty in court then years or decades later, he or she is found innocent but by then it is too late. However, I’m sure more criminal types are executed than innocent victims. Many times, the so-called innocent victim was also a career criminal with a long arrest record.

As for the cost, Amnesty USA, while arguing against the death penalty, makes a case to return to the time of the U.S. Founding Fathers.

Amnesty said that in Kansas the cost of a death penalty case was 70% higher than the cost of comparable non-death penalty cases. 

However, Amnesty doesn’t mention that it costs more because of all the appeals that drag cases out for years.

The median cost for a death penalty case in Kansas was $1.26 million.

In Maryland, a death penalty case costs 3 times as much as Kansas, and in California, it costs $11.5 million for each case.

K.D. Koratsky touched on this topic in Living With Evolution. On page 182, he says this of career criminals, “Over time, by consistently eliminating those who could not get along with others, populations were eventually left largely with the genes that promoted non-kin biocultural coevolution. … nations with the strict codes of law enforced by strong state apparatuses (like China) tended to prosper over others, all else being equal.”

Although a few innocents might die, China may be getting it right be ridding its population of serious criminal types who reproduce leading to more violent crimes by his or her progeny.

Murder of “innocent” people is cruel and inhuman!

Rape is cruel and inhuman!

Child molesters are cruel and inhuman!

Selling hard, illegal drugs for profit is cruel and inhuman!

Destroying lives for profit is also cruel and inhuman!

See Cultural Differences and China’s Changing Legal System

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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. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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SONG DYNASTY (960 – 1279 AD) – Part 2/6

September 27, 2010

I’ve read many criticisms that the Chinese today cannot innovate without the level of freedom that exists in America and other Western republics and democracies.

If that were true, explain how the Chinese were so far ahead of the West for two thousand years while being ruled by autocratic, imperial governments where the law was often swift and harsh under legalism.

For example, during the Song Dynasty in 1092 AD, Su Song was the inventor of a hydraulic water powered astronomical clock tower. He was also known as a statesman, calligrapher and botanist.

In addition, fifteen hundred years ago, famous mathematician Zu Chongzhi calculated that the approximate value of pie was 3.1415926.

It would take a thousand years for a foreigner to break that record. In fact, China led the world in astronomy for more than a thousand years.

The world’s largest and earliest star chart is carved on a stele in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. Today’s astronomers find it incredible because it is so accurate and detailed.

During the Song Dynasty, a calendar was created that was as accurate as the Gregorian calendar used today—four centuries before the Gregorian calendar.

During the Song Dynasty, a new type of canal lock was invented. Four hundred years later in 1373 AD, a similar lock was invented in Europe.

Astronomical observations were used to help agriculture. Due to this, the Song Dynasty grain yield was ten to twenty times that of Medieval Europe.

Return to the Song Dynasty – Part 1

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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. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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