Why am I writing about China? Simple—many Americans do not respect the differences between cultures. They say they do, but I don’t believe them. During the 2008-2009 school year, our daughter returned home one day to tell us that her history teacher talked about China and said the people had to be very depressed to live under a totalitarian government like the Communists.
Retired citizens playing Chinese chess in a Shanghai park.
When our daughter attempted to disagree, the teacher and the entire class put her down, so she shut up. Now it is January 2010 (another school year), and she came home recently and said the same thing happened during another class discussion, but this time she stayed quiet and fumed.
I taught English and journalism in American public schools for thirty years. The high school where I taught was a spicy multicultural soup where I learned that teachers should know what they are talking about or keep quiet.
Our daughter, a senior in high school now, was born in Chicago and grew up speaking English. Her mother was born in Shanghai and survived Mao’s Cultural Revolution (which caused the deaths of at least thirty million). My wife came to the United States in the 1980s when she was twenty-eight. Our daughter has been to China sometimes twice a year during her eighteen years, and she speaks fluent Mandarin with no accent. She has also been learning Spanish since Middle School.
I wanted to educate that ignorant teacher with facts about China, but my wife and daughter said not to stir the pot (very Chinese). I’ve been to China many times and have never seen the people depressed as I’ve seen in the country of my birth. I was born in Southern California soon after World War II. My ancestors come from Ireland, England and Europe.
When in China, you hear little about the government unless you listen to the official, government media. The people are too busy enjoying life to be bothered by a government that is doing all it can to raise the standard of living for 1.3 billion Chinese. I see more depression and anger in America during more than six decades of life than I have seen in China the last ten.
There are seventy million communists in China and more than a billion people that love life and live it to the fullest without chasing one material thing after another with credit-card debt.
My wife has an American-born friend who broke into tears once because she couldn’t charge a two thousand dollar jacket–her credit cards debt was maxed out. I’ve never seen or heard of that type of behavior in China. I’m sure it happens, but I haven’t witnessed it. Most Chinese live simple lives in simple, but crowded, surroundings. Over the years, I’ve discovered that family, friends and gaining an education are more important to most Chinese than buying material junk.
______________
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.
I found this information from a 1967 documentary conceived and written by Theodore H. White to have half-truths about Imperial China. It is understandable that any American film from that era would be flawed since McCarthyism’s Red Scare took place in the US the decade before. Even today, Sinophobia infects almost half of America.
Author Theodore White lived in China for seven years and said that foreigners who lived in China during the crises often remembered it differently as if his opinions were correct and they were wrong.
The Roots of Madness unwittingly documents the lies and deceit that demonized the Empress Tsu Hsi when the narrator calls the empress evil. To discover the truth about the empress, I suggest reading Dragon Lady by Sterling Seagrave, who revealed the lies and deceit of Western journalists.
Nothing in China’s ancient culture could guide the Chinese to become part of the modern world.
Instead, China would experiment with different forms of government—a process that is still going on.
Although “China: The Roots of Madness” is a flawed production, there is enough accurate history to show why China is the way it is today.
British and American power controlled the wheels of industry in Shanghai, Nanking, Hankow and Chunking. In the steaming south, peasants, working like beasts, plant rice and speak languages most Chinese do not understand.
At the turn of the century, a three-year-old child was the emperor and the throne sat empty. On October 10, 1911, a riot took place that couldn’t be controlled.
Five weeks later, the Imperial government collapsed. The Qing Dynasty vanished and two-thousand years of Imperial tradition was gone.
The Chinese call this time the “Double Death”.
The British and Americans could not control what replaced the Qing Dynasty.
Students without weapons rioted in the streets.
Warlords that controlled armies divided China and the chaos and anarchy grew worse.
Life became so cheap, that death was like a bloody circus.
However, while the Chinese people suffered and starved, the foreigners live in luxury and controlled China’s industry while being protected by the Western military.
Chinese students demanded a revolt and Sun Yat-sen called on China to slay the dragon of Imperialism. He said China must start with nationalism, then democracy and finally socialism. The only country that offered to help was Soviet Russia.
Death claims Sun Yat-sen (1866 – 1925) after he has accepted support from Soviet Russia. Soon, General Chiang Kai-shek (1887 – 1975), with help from the Communists, consolidates power in southern China.
Chiang is known to Westerners as a fiery nationalist and revolutionary. He mobilizes an army under Sun Yat-sen’s flag and marches north with a few divisions.
Meanwhile, the warlords have gathered half-a-million troops to stop him. Outnumbered, Chiang sends an advance group of nationalists and communists to call the peasants and workers to join his army.
Among those peasants and workers is Mao Tsetung (1893 – 1976).
While moving north, Chiang’s army raids foreign concessions, burns foreign buildings and tears down foreign flags.
Leftist leaders of the Kuomintang distrust Chiang Kai-shek and some want to assassinate him but others disagree.
In Shanghai, Chiang Kai-shek, now a dictator, strikes first on April 12, 1927. His troops kill anyone suspected of being a Communist.
In December, there is a Communist uprising in Canton. A battle rages for two days between the Communists and Kuomintang ending in the executions of most Communists, but Mao escapes and goes into hiding.
Chiang Kai-shek’s army is not ready when Japan invades Manchuria. He doesn’t have tanks, the artillery is old and the Chinese are learning about airplanes.
Meanwhile, the Communists that Chiang thought he had destroyed are back. Mao knew the peasants lived in horrible poverty. He promised land reforms and by 1932 has millions of supporters.
The language in this documentary describing Mao is not flattering.
Yes, when Mao ruled China, he was a dictator but that ended in 1976 when he died. Since then, China has had several presidents that the 1982 Chinese Constitution allows to lead China for two five-year terms and there is an impeachment clause.
However, Chiang Kai-shek was also a dictator. The only difference between Mao and Chiang is that Chiang converted to Christianity in 1929, and the West called him the president of China—not a dictator. Chiang Kai-shek was never elected by the people of a democracy to rule China or Taiwan.
Instead, he ruled Taiwan under martial law until he died then his son became president without a popular vote by the people.
Instead of fighting Japan, Chiang’s army bombs villages that Mao controls killing tens of thousands of noncombatants. Mao takes his ninety thousand troops on the famous thousand-mile Long March.
A year later, only a few thousand remain. Mao calls for unity to fight Japan.
One of Chiang’s generals, Zhang Xueliang, forces the Nationalist dictator to sit down with the Communists where Chiang Kai-shek agrees to fight Japan. As soon as Chiang returns to his capital, he breaks the agreement and throws Zhang in prison.
Meanwhile, Mao’s troops in the hills of Yunnan grow their own food. His army, dressed in shabby clothing wearing straw sandals, doesn’t look like a fighting force. Mao says the people are the sea and guerrillas are like fish that swim in the sea. Within a year, Mao’s army grows to 200,000.
Chiang Kai-shek’s army loses battles and cities to the Japanese. To continue fighting, his government and army moves to the deep mountain city of Chongqing in Sichuan province.
In 1939, the Japanese start bombing Chongqing 24/7.
When asked about the Japanese threat, Chiang says that the Japanese are a disease of the skin, but the Communists are a disease of the heart.
Then on December 7, 1941, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor and America enters the war.
War supplies start to trickle to China through India and across the Himalayas to Chiang Kai-shek’s four-million-man army.
However, his government is corrupt, his troops are poorly fed and morale is low. In fact, the peasants do not trust Chiang’s
troops or him.
Chiang Kai-shek is accepted as an equal among the West’s leaders while Mao works to keep up the moral of his Communist troops through political training—something Western leaders don’t understand and criticize.
Theodore H. White tells of an incident with Chiang Kai-shek’s troops when a Nationalist officer lies to peasants saying he belongs to Mao’s Communist army. When White asks why lie, he is told the peasants would not help if they knew the truth.
In fact, regardless of the suffering from Mao’s Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, this loyalty never wavers.
Joseph Stilwell, the commanding US general in China, is not happy with Chiang since he is not fighting Japan.
Chiang says he needs his troops to fight the Communists.
In 1945, America invites representatives from Chiang’s government to take part in Japan’s surrender on the battleship Missouri but ignores the Communists under Mao.
An American ambassador urges Mao to join Chiang in a unified government. To bring this about, America offers Mao protection and there are face-to-face negotiations between Mao and Chiang.
During the negotiations, in secret, Chiang moves his troops to launch an assault on the Communists in Manchuria.
America urges Chiang to win the people by implementing Sun Yat-sen’s promised reforms.
Instead, Chiang’s war to destroy the Communists causes run-away inflation. Essential goods become too expensive. The people want peace, and Mao offers the peasants what they want—land.
In 1948, Mao attacks when his army leaves the caves and captures Manchuria
When Chiang Kai-shek’s northern army surrenders, modern American weapons and equipment falls to Mao’s troops.
Mao demands total surrender, but Chiang’s army boards ships for Taiwan taking China’s wealth and historical treasures.
In fear, western businessmen and missionaries flee China.
By 1967, when this documentary was produced, Mao had ruled China for 18 years and was still an inigma to most in the West. Nixon wouldn’t visit China for several more years.
Protected by America’s military and navy, Chiang was still in Taiwan serving as president for life (a dictator). He also had six-hundred thousand Kuomintang troops armed by the US, and the island people lived under martial law.
Theodore H. White says America does not understand Communist China. America could not predict the “Great Leap Forward” or the purges that followed.
White says the quality of life for the peasants had not improved (which is not true since the World Bank has reported that even under Mao the quality of life improved over what it had been), but they still had to work hard.
White’s documentary ends with words of fear for the world’s future because China has nuclear weapons.
There is no mention that America has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the earth a hundred times over and used two of them on Japan killing hundreds of thousands.
This revised post first appeared as an eight-part series starting June 8, 2010 at Roots of Madness – Part 1
______________
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.
To subscribe to iLook China, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.
Who would win in a fight: Mulan or Emmajin Beki or Teenage Angst, Mongolian-style? “Can you imagine, a mere girl fighting on the battlefield?”
The role of females in combat is a debate as timeless as war itself, and one that remains divisive and unresolved to this century.
While present-day arguments for and against allowing women in the military revolve around psychological and biological issues, back in olden times, one needed only cite “tradition” and “familial roles” to silence the detractors.
The teenaged heroine of Dori Jones Yang’s new 13th-century historical fiction novel, Daughter of Xanadu, is one such detractor, albeit immutable.
Often imagining herself on the battlefield, “the son my father never had,” Emmajin Beki, the granddaughter of Mongolian king (and emperor of China’s Yuan Dynasty) Khubilai Khan (1215-1294), learned to ride a horse before she could walk and can outshoot all her cousins in archery. She confidently and outspokenly aspires to emulate her female ancestors who assisted Chinggis Khan in conquering Asia (“the blood of all these earlier strong women flowed in my veins”).
Unfortunately, for this princess, “the days of strong women had ended once luxurious court life had begun.”
The Mongols, fattened, lazy and resting on their laurels, now prefer to tell stories of battles-past over lavish “orgies of excess” rather than engage in new wars, much to Emmajin’s restless discontent.
When she makes known her desire to “become a legend” like real-life women warriors Aiyurug Khutulun and Hua Mulan of China, the great Khan placates her by sending her on a secret mission to spy on a family of foreign merchants currently visiting the Mongol court.
The merchants’ young son turns out to be one Marco Polo, the now-legendary Venetian journeyer credited for introducing Asian culture to the west.
To Emmajin, however, he is just another “colored-eye man,” a court curiosity from Christendom whose gallantry and romantic gestures are as ridiculous to the manly Mongolians as his facial hair (“his beard was so thick I could imagine food sticking in it”).
Try as she might, however, Emmajin, caught in the peak of puberty, is unable to resist Marco’s western charm, and quickly finds herself enamored by his worldly vision (“I had learned to see the world through Marco’s eyes”) as well as his pelt.
“What would the hair on his arm feel like?” she often fantasized about at night.
But she was a Mongolian first, and reluctantly sacrifices her blossoming relationship with the foreigner to complete her spy mission (“He was not a friend but a source of information.”).
Authoress Dori Jones Yang is a Caucasian American, yet she is no stranger to writing from the perspective of conflicted adolescent Chinese girls, as evinced in her previous, award-winning novel, The Secret Voice of Gina Zhang.
In Daughter of Xanadu, she hones in even deeper into the physiological confusion and emotional conflictions that make youth such a joy, turning Emmajin into such a hormonal wreck that this male reviewer often found himself gritting his teeth in frustration at such contradictive revelations as, “if he had pursued me, I would have rebuffed him. By holding himself aloof, he challenged me to win back his esteem.”
Daughter of Xanadu is not all-teenage angst. As our protagonist matures, so does the content of the story.
Emmajin eventually persuades Khubilai Khan to allow her to train for war against the Burmese at the Battle of Vochan (present-day Yunnan province), where the embarrassment of getting her period in front of the all-male troops is a bloody omen for what’s to come.
Upon seeing her cousin slain, innocent Emmajin is transformed into a “mindless killer.”
Bloodlust unleashed, the young princess swings her sword indiscriminately (“the hatred pounded in my ears…killing him felt good”), resulting in hundreds of men dead by her hand alone.
One can only imagine all the Mulan vs. Emmajin fan fiction that this novel will inspire!
By story’s conclusion, Messer Polo, who witnessed and wrote about the Mongols’ real-life battle against the Burmese in his book, The Travels of Marco Polo, has elevated “Emmajin the Brave” into the living legend she wanted to be, though she now regrets it.
“These men needed a hero, but I no longer needed to be one.” She resigns her sword and rank, and departs with Polo back to Europe as the Khan’s emissary of peace, leaving the literary door wide open for a sequel.
Dori Jones Yang, who also penned the best-selling Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time, is a skilled historian.
In researching Daughter of Xanadu, Yang, fluent in Putonghua, traveled all the way to the ruins of Xanadu in remote Inner Mongolia, which this itinerant backpacker can personally attest is no easy journey.
The short chapters and brief sentences, edited with razor precision for a younger audience, along with a helpful glossary for ESL students, make reading Daughter of Xanadu a breeze, though adults will admittedly want to beg this book back afterwards from their tweens.
This post first appeared as a four-part (guest author) series starting April 17, 2011 at Daughter of Xanadu – Part 1
In 2008, I wrote a post about Tibet on another forum. Someone with a Tibetan sounding name left a comment in crude English calling me a “Communist rabbit”.
Name-calling seems to be popular these days. In America, people like Glenn Beck (FOX network), Rush Limbaugh (600 radio stations), Ann Coulter and the Tea Baggers have developed name-calling into an art form—not much substance but disguised racism, colorful and angry.
The Tibetan government in exile’s Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche was quoted in “Good” magazine’s May/June 2008 Issue that six-million Tibetan Buddhists still lived in Tibet. He also said that Tibet has never historically been part of China. That isn’t true. Tibet was ruled by three of China’s Imperial Dynasties.
Tibet was first ruled by China during the Yuan Dynasty (1277-1367). Then, when the Ming Dynasty (1368-1643) reclaimed China, a Ming Imperial army was sent to Tibet to drive out the last of the Mongols–holdovers from the Yuan Dynasty. The Ming emperor ordered his army to stay.
When the Ch’ing (Manchu) Dynasty (1644-1911) came to power, the Chinese empire expanded further and Tibet remained in China. Later, I’ll provide evidence from a 1912 National Geographic magazine as proof.
I previously quoted the Tibetan government in exile’s Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche claiming that six million Tibetan Buddhists still lived in Tibet.
China, on the other hand, reports that Tibet’s population was 2.84 million at the end of last year, 31,500 more than at the end of 2006. Among its permanent residents, more than 2.5 million, or 95.3 percent, were Tibetans. (Tibet’s population was 1.14 million in 1951.)
More evidence that is interesting comes from the CIA World Factbook. It seems that there are about 80,000 Tibetan refugees living outside Tibet/China. Wikipedia estimates about 5,000 to 9,000 live in the United States. The rest live closer to the Tibetan government in exile.
There were no Tibetans in America prior to the 1950s. Chinese first immigrated to America in the 18th century, and Chinese Americans make up the largest Asian population in America today—more than three million.
The most damaging evidence against Rinpoche’s claims come from the October 1912 issue of The National Geographic Magazine (I have a copy—it cost me $20 on e-bay). Since the earliest evidence of Communists in China was about 1920, and it wasn’t until 1949 that the Communists came to power under Mao, there is no way the Chinese doctor who wrote that 1912 piece could have lied for the Communists.
In the 1912 issue of The National Geographic Magazine on page 979, Dr. Shaoching H. Chuan wrote, “Tibet is governed by the Dalai Lama as politco-religous head and two “Ambans” as the political dictators. The Ambans are appointed by the Chinese Emperor every four years. All governmental affairs have to undergo examination by the two Ambans, and all government policy must be sanctioned by them before it can be put into operation. Literally, the Dalai Lama is under the authority of the two Ambans…” (Page 979)
From recent news, it appears that rough times may be ahead for the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In China sees US as hedge for Taiwan, Tibet (Asia Times) by Peter Lee, the author says, “After the Dalai Lama is gone, there is a strong possibility that motivated and organized pro-independence activists (militants) will be able to win power in the Tibetan government in exile.”
Militant Tibetan separatist groups have not been happy with the Dalai Lama’s call for autonomy talks with China instead of calling for a fight to gain independence. Tibetan militant groups want Tibet to break from China even if it means taking a violent path—one the Dalai Lama does not advocate.
What would Tibet be like if the separatists had their way and broke free from China?
Would they return to the system of landowners and serfs (slaves)?
Would the Tibetan Buddhists require that every family send at least one son to become a Buddhist monk as before?
Would mandatory schooling (as we have in the United States) be shut down so the literacy rate would plummet from the high 90% back to a single digit like it was prior to 1950?
Would the wealth and the land be returned to the one percent that had it all before Mao’s troops occupied Tibet?
Regardless of the evidence that proves the Tibetan government in exile is not telling the truth about Tibet being part of China for centuries before declaring independence in 1913 (when the Ch’ing Dynasty was collapsing and the British Empire urged Tibet to break free for political reasons), the Dalai Lama and his Prime Minister represents less than 100,000 Tibetans outside China.
If Rinpoche’s figure of six million is correct, that means the Tibetan government in exile represents about 1% of the Tibetan population. If China’s 2.5 million is correct, the percentage goes up to 3.2%. Not much of a base to wage a violent rebellion. There are more troops in the PRC’s army than the entire Tibetan population inside and outside of China.
I also wonder if that 1% in exile were the Tibetan landowners. Did they leave most of the serfs/slaves behind when they fled?
Maybe the Tibetan separatists/rebels (whatever term you like), with help from the CIA, should join the American Tea Bagger movement and gain the support from the likes of Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.
They could sit around the campfire during protests and sing hymns about marching into battle to take back the wealth and return to the good-old-days, which would be the opposite of Robin Hood. In this case, the landowners that fled old Tibet (1% of Tibet’s population) would take back what they owned when they left and restore Tibet to the way it was.
In fact, The steady improvement of health care and living standards has raised the average life expectancy of Tibetans from 36 years in the old Tibet to the present 65 years.… It is recorded that during the 150 years before Tibet was (returned to China) there were four pandemic outbreaks of smallpox, one of which, in 1925, killed 7,000 people in the Lhasa area alone. Outbreaks of typhoid fever in 1934 and 1937 carried off some 5,000 people in Lhasa. Source: China-un.ch, which is supported by the facts in the 1912 piece published in the National Geographic Magazine.
Here is a suggested slogan for the Tibetan separatists (former landowners) living in India. “Freedom for landowners, illiteracy for serfs and life expectancy of 36 again!”
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 love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
Subscribe to “iLook China”! Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.
Most people outside China only know of Beijing (once known as Peking) as the capital of China. However, another city was China’s capital for more than a thousand years.
In fact, Chang’ an (Xi’an) served as the capital for twelve dynasties, including the Western Zhou, Qin, Western Han, Sui and Tang dynasties, spanning more than eleven hundred years. It was also the cultural center of the Silk Road.
In 2008, the last time we visited Xi’an, subway construction was running behind schedule due to a law that does not allow the destruction of historical sites such as the tombs of emperors. There are so many of these tombs below ground that the subway tunnels must be diverted to avoid them resulting in delays.
With such a long history, the Discovery Channel produced a documentary of Xi’an (Chang’ an) called China’s Most Honourable City.
To discover Xi’an’s long history also teaches us much about China’s civilization. Discovery Channel’s Neville Gishford will take us on this historical journey leading to the present.
Gishford says, “It (Han Chang’ an) was more powerful than Rome. If any Roman army had actually gone there, they would have been absolutely annihilated.”
Han Chang’ an (Xi’an) was larger than Constantinople and richer than Egypt’s Alexandria. It was a fortress so powerful that even 20th century artillery could not knock its walls down.
In addition, the massive city wall is more than six hundred years old and longer than 12 kilometers. Cracks are appearing and an engineering team keeps close watch and makes repairs
However, the Xi’an of today was first build over two thousand years ago and has been three cities—not one. The Han Dynasty built the first city (Chang’ an), which is close to the modern city of Xi’an and the old eroding walls are still visible.
At 36 square kilometers, Han Chang’ an was more than one and a half times the size of Rome.
Earlier, I mentioned the subway system that was under construction in modern Xi’an.
For an update, Travel China Guide.com says, “The Xi’an subway system is scheduled to have 6 lines, with a total length of 251.8 kilometers… While the first phase of subway Line 2 has been in use since Sep 16, 2011, the other five lines are designed to be finished in 2018 in sequence.”
When the second phase is completed, the full length of Line 2 will be 26.64 kilometers (about 16.5 miles).
The population of Xi’an has also increased since Neville Gishford hosted the documentary for China’s Most Honourable City. Today, there are more than 8 million people living there.
This segment of Gishford’s documentary starts with Archaeologist Charles Higham, a world famous authority on ancient Asian cities.
Higham says, “A delegation of jugglers from Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180 AD, who is regarded as one of the greatest emperors in Roman history) traveled and performed in the Han Court of Chang’ an.”
More than two thousand years ago, the walls of Chang’ an (Xi’an) were made of rammed (compressed) earth and much of the city from kiln fired clay bricks, which was a revolutionary building material at the time that changed the history of architecture.
The builders of Han Chang’ an (Xi’an) used this new technology in revolutionary ways such as building an underground sewer system connected to the moat that surrounded the city.
From the Qin to the Tang Dynasty, 62 emperors ruled China from Chang’ an (Xi’an). The China Daily says in and around Xi’an, there are about 500 burial mounds where the remains of emperors and aristocrats rest.
The largest tombs mark the passing of Emperors Qin Shi Huangdi (259 – 210 BC), Tang Gaozong (628 – 683 AD), and his wife Empress Tang Wu Zetian (624 – 705 AD).
When we left Neville Gishford‘s documentary, China’s Most Honourable City, in Part 2, Chang’ an was the capital of the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 AD) with a population of over a million — six times the size of ancient Rome.
The Daming Palace, where the Tang Emperors ruled China, was 800 years older and nearly five times larger than Beijing’s Forbidden City. This huge palace was built in one year.
However, it wasn’t the Daming Palace that made Chang’ an (Xi’an) powerful. Long before Manhattan, Hong Kong, Paris and Dubai, Chang’ an was where the world came to shop.
Over a thousand years ago, the wealth of the West poured into China (and it is happening again) and arrived at Chang’ an over the Silk Road.
But wealth wasn’t the only thing China gained. Major religions also arrived in China at this time.
Islam was barely a century old, when Silk Road traders brought this religion to Chang’ an. In another post, A Road to the Hajj from China, I wrote, “The ancient city of Xi’an in Shaanxi province is home to about 60,000 ethnic Chinese Muslims.”
Xi’an claims it has a Muslim history going back thirteen hundred years when Islam was first introduced to China in 650 AD.
In fact, the oldest mosque in China was built in 685-762 AD in Chang’ an during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty.
Although Christianity and Islam were both introduced to China during the Tang Dynasty, Buddhism had deeper roots in the culture since it first arrived in China from India about 200 BC.
Christianity arrived in China in 635 AD (more than eight centuries after Buddhism and only a decade before Islam), when a Nestorian monk named Aluoben entered the ancient capital city of TangChang’ an.
Then in 629 AD, the Buddhist monk Xuanzang left Chang’ an against the emperor’s orders to travel the world in search of enlightenment. He went west toward India along the Silk Road with a goal to find original Buddhist scriptures. He traveled 10,000 miles over three of the highest mountain ranges in Asia and was gone 16 years.
When Xuanzang returned in 645 AD, he had 1,300 scrolls of Buddhist Sutras, and requested the building of a pagoda, which became the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda—nearly 65 meters tall (more than 213 feet). It was made of rammed earth, and the pagoda would collapse more than once and be rebuilt. No one knows exactly how the Tang Dynasty engineers managed to build a structure that tall of rammed earth.
Neville Gishford‘s Discovery Channel documentary, China’s Most Honourable City, reveals the answer to a mystery when a hidden crypt beneath the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda is discovered using ground based radar. When The Tang Dynasty collapsed due to rebellion, the city was destroyed, but the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda was left untouched.
Gishford reveals that even though TangChang’ an was destroyed, the city was copied throughout Asia and one city in Japan, Kyoto (formally the imperial capital of Japan – 794 to 1869 AD), was a scaled replica of Tang Chang’ an.
In fact, in 1974, the modern city of Xi’an and Kyoto formally established a sister-city relationship.
However, this was not the end of Chang’ an (Xi’an). It would be rebuilt a third time. In 1368, nearly five hundred years after the fall of the Tang Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1643 AD) would rebuild the Great Wall in addition to Xi’an as a defense against the Mongols that had conquered and ruled China during the Yuan Dynasty (1277 – 1367 AD).
During the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1643 AD), China mostly isolated itself from the world by rebuilding the Great Wall and a string of impregnable fortresses to protect China’s heartland from Mongol invasion.
One of those fortresses was a new military city built on the ruins of Tang Chang’ an, and the Ming named this city “Western Peace”—which in Chinese/Mandarin is “Xi’an”.
Xi’an was one-sixth the size of Tang Chang’ an, but nearly six hundred years later, its walls are still standing.
Charles Higham says these walls are the most extraordinary, largest, best-preserved set of defensive walls in the world.
The last segment of Neville Gishford‘s Discovery Channel documentary, China’s Most Honourable City, introduces Zheng Canyang, the engineer responsible for preserving Xi’an’s walls, and Zheng explains how the walls would have been defended.
History records that when the walls of this third city faced its first attack, they stood firm, but the attack did not come during the Ming or Qing Dynasties. It came five hundred years later from April to November 1926.
As China bled from the Civil War between warlords, the CCP and the KMT, a powerful Chinese general by the name of Liu Zhenhua attacked Xi’an with a large army and modern artillery.
However, the 20th century artillery rounds only dented the walls, and after months, Xi’an’s walls still stood and Liu Zhenhua’s army retreated.
The siege was part of an anti-Guominjun campaign lasting from late 1925 to early 1927, which raged across North China and had nothing to do with the civil war between CCP and KMT, explaining why this military campaign received no coverage in the popular media or academic circles. Source: A Study of the Siege of Xi’an and its Historical Significance by Kingsley Tsang
The newest enemy to Xi’an’s ancient walls comes from modernization and the millions of inhabitants of the city. As the water table below the city is sucked dry from so many people, this has caused the earth to sink, which is pulling down the walls, and engineers and scientists work to discover ways to save them.
______________
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.
Subscribe to “iLook China” Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page.
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse 
iLook China 