Changing China through its Youth – Part 2/5

January 31, 2011

In Part 1 of this series covering a PBS Frontline documentary of how China’s youth is changing the country, we ended with  Ben Wu who had been away for more than a decade gaining a business education in the US and New York.

Recently, a Chinese-American friend returning from China after a long visit complained of the younger people (under 30) not saving money and using credit cards running up debt to buy consumer items (what I call mostly junk).

What Neil Genzlinger of the New York Times wrote of this Frontline series was true. “Soon it becomes clear that everything about them (the younger Chinese) is just like us. …” Learn more of The University Influence from the US and Europe.

This is scary since Money-Zine.com says, “The total amount of consumer debt in the United States stands at nearly $2.5 trillion dollars – and based on the latest Census statistics, that works out to be nearly $8,100 in debt for every man, woman and child that lives here in the US.”

Imagine what would happen to the world if China and America both had economic meltdowns equal to what started in the US in 2008? Instead of $64US trillion lost globally, the numbers would have been much higher.

Anyway, back to Ben Wu and his venture to start up an Internet cafe franchise. After months of living on caffeine and cigarettes (working two jobs–one to earn money and the other starting up the cafe), he opened for business.

By then it was probably 2005 or later. Soon after opening, Ben Wu reported, “The cafe is doing very well. It’s pretty much what I estimated.”

The next Chinese youth Frontline focuses on is Wang Xiaolei, a Chinese rapper using his music to express “his” dark view (opinion) of China’s new boom times.

In my opinion, Wang Xiaolei’s ignorance is on display. Since he doesn’t know how dark it was in China before the economic miracle, he has no idea what he is talking about. His own music says he’s never been to the US but it is apparent that he must have a gold plated perception of the US.

Facts say otherwise. Even the CIA reports that only 2.8% of China’s population lives in “absolute poverty”.

Meanwhile, in the US, the latest Census numbers reported by the Associated Press say “The number of poor people in the US is millions higher than previously known, with 1 in 6 Americans (almost 17%) – many of them 65 and older – struggling in poverty…”

Wang Xiaolei says, “There is a lot of discrimination in China. Like, if you don’t have money, people look down on you.”

How is that different from the US?

Try walking the streets of downtown Berkeley, California and see how many homeless beggars ask for money. Then drive around San Francisco and see if you can keep count of the homeless that live on the city’s streets.

In fact, “There is anecdotal evidence that many Americans complain about the presence of homeless people, blame them for their situation, and feel that their requests (begging) for money or support are unjustified.” Source: Wikipedia

Several years ago in this report, Frontline said that 70% of Chinese had no medical insurance. That was before current plans to improve medical services in urban and rural communities from 2011 to 2015. Source: Xinhuanet.com

What Frontline doesn’t say about health care in China is also important and puts the situation into perspective. The CIA reports that life expectancy in China for total population is 74.51 years. In 1949, life expectancy was a meager 35 years.

Return to China Changing through its Youth – 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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China Changing through its Youth – Part 1/5

January 30, 2011

There is a difference between the Chinese that lived through Mao’s time and those born around or after 1980.

Frontline says, “They are a new generation breaking from tradition and transforming China.”

The Mao generation suffered through the Chinese Civil War (1925 – 1949) between the Communists and the Nationalists in addition to World War II (1937 – 1945).

Then there was the Great Leap Forward and Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

From 1925 to 1976, more than sixty million died due to these events. The Chinese that survived were willing to sacrifice by working harder for less so their children would have a brighter future. Now those children are coming of age.

PBS’s Frontline went to China in 2004 and spent several years following nine young Chinese to see how they were changing China.

Neil Genzlinger of the New York Times wrote, “For an American viewer it’s interesting at first because of the ‘just like us’ factor … But soon it becomes clear that everything about them is just like us. …”

There is a businesswoman pressured to choose between motherhood and her career; an Internet entrepreneur thirsting for a more spiritual life, and a young woman searching for the mother she barely remembers.

Their stories are of love, of family, ambition and sacrifice and the conflict between the past and the future. These stories come from a society changing faster than any in history.

Watching this Frontline documentary caused me to question why anyone is pressuring China to change any faster than it already is.

The first person featured was Lu Dong, 32, who returned to China after a decade in another country. He returned because of the opportunities that China now offers.

The narrator says so many Chinese are returning from other countries that the Chinese call them Returning Turtles.

In fact, few in the west realize how many educated Chinese are returning home.

My wife and I know of one man born in China and educated in the US that became the department chair of a university mathematics department in America.  Today, he is a department chair in one of China’s most prestigious universities.

Another man, Ben Wu, also returned to Beijing where he spent his childhood. He was gone from China for more than a decade and has never worked there before.  Now, he’s back to learn. He works two jobs—one for himself starting a new franchise Internet cafe using the knowledge he learned from a business school in New York.

Learn of Foreign Entrepreneurs in China

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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

“Cupping” – Another element of Traditional Chinese Medicine

January 29, 2011

I’ve been aware of “cupping” for some time since I married into a Chinese family and one of my wife’s sisters uses this method of Chinese medicine.

However, I didn’t pay much attention to “cupping” until I wrote the piece about Gwyneth Paltrow Popular in China, which appeared on January 7.

Researching the Gwyneth Paltrow post, I discovered that she believes in Chinese medicine and has used “cupping”. She even told Oprah, “It feels amazing and it’s very relaxing, and it feels terrific. It’s just one of the alternative medicines that I do instead of taking antibiotics.”

The history of Chinese cupping dates from 281 AD. It was an ancient Taoist medical practice and was widely used in the courts of Imperial China at the time.  Its administration was first recorded by Ge Hong in an ancient tract called Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies.

In fact, medical education in China was elevated to a higher standard in 443 AD when Qin Cheng-zu petitioned Emperor Wen of the North and South Dynasty period to appoint physicians to teach medical students.

By 493 AD, the Imperial Academy had expanded to include lectureships and chairs for teaching Chinese medicine. Source: Shen-nong.com

Chinese medicine from the beginning focused on prevention to avoid illness where Western medicine has always focused on cures for illnesses after a life is threatened by diseases such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease.

However, the focus of western medicine may be changing with programs such as the Dr. Oz TV Program leading the way.

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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

Trouble from China — Is Amy Chua Chinese or Chinese-America?

January 27, 2011

In China, Amy Chua is being criticized for writing that Chinese parenting is superior to soft Western methods.

The criticism from China comes from the deep cultural roots of Confucianism and Taoism that one does not force his or her beliefs, opinions and lifestyle on someone else as being better. It is considered improper to preach. It doesn’t mean most Chinese disagree with her.

However, Chinese parents may preach to their children.

Have you ever met a Confucian or a Taoist going door to door touting his philosophy and warning you are doomed if you do not convert?

In her memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Chua proudly says, “My family comes from southern China’s Fujian Province, which is famous for producing scholars and scientists.”

Then sometime around 1925 as China descended into Civil War, World War II, chaos and anarchy for the next fifty years, her grandparents moved to the Philippines where her father was born. Chua’s mother was born in China in 1936.

In 1960, her parents met in Boston, which means Amy Chua’s mother was really Chinese.

Amy Chua learned from her parents how to be strict and demanding, which explains why she wrote, “Chinese parenting is better at raising kids than Western ones.”

Parents I call SAPs (the Self-esteem arm of Political Correctness) believe that any effort to control a child, burden her with rules and guide him toward a goal is child abuse. The SAP method is to encourage children to follow his or her dreams and be happy all the time.

This is how the “average” American parent has been raising children in the US for decades.

Since I was criticized for writing the average American parent is a SAP as if I meant, “all” Americans, Princeton.edu clearly says, “average people”; “the ordinary (or common) man in the street”. Another site says, “around the middle of a scale of evaluation“.

The word “average” doesn’t mean “all”. Unexceptional and exceptional people don’t count in the average, but studies say SAP parenting is average (common) in America.

The SAPs of America have evangelized this soft parenting method for the last fifty years converting many to this religion.

If Chua had written, “Chinese-American parents are better at raising children,” she wouldn’t have been criticized in China — just in America from the common SAP.

After all, Amy Chua is Chinese-American and has been influenced by America’s evangelical atmosphere of preaching and converting others. The competition is fierce since there are thousands of Christian sects, Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, neoconservatives, Republicans, Democrats, SAPs and now Tough Love parents — unless the SAP mob forms an alliance with one of the other religions and lobbies for a law to make Tough Love illegal.

SAPs have already been very successful in the SAP war against spanking children as a last effort to correct an unacceptable behavior. Instead, parents are required to bribe kids the SAP way with a TV, video games, a Facebook page, sugary foods, toys and trips to Disneyland.

Discover my Review for Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother where I got in trouble for writing “average”.

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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

Shanghai Scams – Assisted Shopping – Part 1/3

January 26, 2011

While researching another topic, I discovered the Shanghai Scam Series produced by a 30-year-old expatriate that goes by the on-line name of Serpentza.

Although I’ve been to China many times, I’ve never experienced the scams the narrator of this series talks of.

However, to be fair, the reason I haven’t experienced these scams is that I don’t drink (gave it up years ago) and do not frequent the popular nightclubs and bars.

In fact, my wife is Chinese and usually warns me of suspicious behavior. It also helps that I’m the distrusting sort.

In Serpentza’s video, he takes us for a walk in the rain in Shanghai to show us how the”assisted shopping scam” works.

He says, while shopping, you will be approached by a number of people who speak English that will tell you where the best bargains are.

Hmm, this has never happened to me. Do I look that forbidding? While in China, my wife isn’t always with me. I have gone shopping alone and no one has asked if I needed help and I do not buy anything from street vendors.

However, I have been approached by street vendors selling watches, which Serpentza warns of, but I don’t wear a watch and don’t want one.

On one trip, a Shanghai street vendor followed me for several blocks trying to sell me watches, wallets, dark glasses, etc.  He didn’t know what the word “NO” meant even when I used the word in Mandarin my wife taught me. Maybe he didn’t speak Mandarin. After all, there are about 60 different, spoken languages in China.

Had to go into a bank to get him to leave me alone.

I even found a trip advisor Website warning of Shanghai Scams, which says, “The majority of these scams happen at tourist spots around People’s Square, on Nanjing Pedestrian Street and at the Bund.”

General rule: Shanghainese are very friendly and always willing to help if you ask them, but they would seldom approach a foreigner without being asked (as probably anywhere in the world).

On his Blog, Serpentza calls himself “forever an expatriate”.

Discover Shanghai

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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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