Enough, Already!

December 2, 2010

Christopher Bodeen of the Associated Press reported that a Chinese father was punished for food safety activism.

The AP wasn’t the only Western media to go ballistic with this story.

Amnesty International jumped in along with BBC News, Forbes, and CBS News among others. 

In the West, this type of story sells newspapers and boosts ratings for the five and ten o’clock news.

Be assured, this story will be “milked” for all it is worth.

The father of a three-year old child that was sickened by melamine-tainted milk, Zhao Lianhai, was convicted and sentenced Wednesday to 2 1/2 years in prison for inciting social disorder (in China), his lawyer said.

Bodeen’s lead in the AP piece was a masterpiece to appeal to Western anger. “A father who organized a support group for other parents whose children were sickened in one of China’s worst food safety scandals was convicted and sentenced…”

However, if you grew up in a Western culture and are capable of not seeing red, I suggest you read the rest of Bodeen’s piece before you start shouting. 

It also helps to understand how the Mandate of Heaven has affected Chinese civilization for more than two thousand years. Chinese history is filled with bloody rebellions and insurrections that were allowed to get out of hand.

In China, it is often better to make a mistake by throwing someone in jail than risking another Cultural Revolution or Taiping Rebellion where an estimated fifty million died.

What the government did sounds more like “Enough Already!”  The guy just wouldn’t get the hint and had to be hit upside the head.

After all, the event happened in 2008. Lianhai has had almost three years to protest before the government sent him to jail to shut him up.
 
In fact, there was a trial for the people behind the tainted milk and justice was served.
 
Three people got the death penalty.
 
The general manager and chair woman of Sanlu, the company at the heart of the scandal, was given a life sentence.
 

Dozens of officials, dairy executives and farmers were punished for allowing the contamination to take place.

When this type of tainted food scandal happens in the US, few go to prison and sometimes there is no justice even in court.

What China should do is free Linahai and send him and his family to the US where he can protest all he wants about tainted American food.

In fact, we need Linahai here.

Sarah Francis at MomsRising.org says that each year in the U.S., more than 76 million people get sick and more than 5,000 die from food-borne diseases.

The problem is that there are so many people protesting in the US, few listen unless you belong to the Tea Party.

______________

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. 

Leave a Comment » | America, American culture, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese food, cultural differences, food, legal system, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Selfish, Narcissistic Children

December 1, 2010

A friend forwarded a link to me of Dr. Mark J. Perry’s China’s Single-Child Adults Too Selfish for Marriage?

It appears that the question mark indicates Dr. Perry is asking a question of his virtual audience. Here’s my answer.

Dr. Perry sites an NPR All Things Considered report by Louisa Lim’s Lightning Divorces Strike China’s ME Generation.

Lim says Beijing has the highest divorce rate nationwide, with 39 percent of all marriages ending in a split.

One Beijing woman, Cheng, tells Lim of her six-month marriage that ended as fast as it started. She blamed the divorce on belonging to the generation of spoiled singletons, known as the post-1980s generation.

One answer may explain the change in China’s divorce rate is that eight years ago, a married couple needed permission from their work unit to divorce. Today, couples have the freedom to divorce without asking.

However, Dr. Perry, a professor of economics and finance in the US, seems to think that the upsurge in China’s divorce rate is because of the selfish and narcissistic generation of spoiled one-child children in China.

My question is how does China’s one-child generation compare to the US’s self-esteem generations?

A study by the Pew Research Center, in association with Time magazine says that 44% of Americans age 18 to 29 say marriage is obsolete. Forty-one percent of the next age group (30 to 49) says the same thing. Source: Washington Post

This pretty much covers America’s self-esteem generations since that method of child rearing began in the late 1960s.

Data from a US Census report says about 50% of first marriages in the US for men under age 45 may end in divorce.

In fact, China National News reports that one in five marriages in China ends in divorce — that’s 20%.

The interesting fact is that there has always been exemptions in China’s one-child policy, and the rules are changing all the time.

China’s 56 minorities, which adds up to more than one hundred million people, have no restrictions to the number of children a family may have and many rural Chinese may have two children due to the need for more hands on the farm.

Recently, due to changes in demographics, married couples in Shanghai that grew up as one-child, may have two children, and anyone in China may have more if he or she can afford to pay the fine, which means many of China’s rich and famous have started a trend by having an average of three.

It appears that China may easily reverse any damage the one-child policy may have caused in much of urban China, but the US seems stuck in “self-esteem” mode no matter what research shows us about the trend to grow up as a selfish narcissist when raised this way.

In 2001, the New York Times reported there were three withering studies of self-esteem released in the United States, all of which had the same central message: people with high self-esteem pose a greater threat to those around them than people with low self-esteem and feeling bad about yourself is not the cause of our country’s biggest, most expensive social problems.

Discover how some Avoid China’s “one-child” Policy

______________

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.

Leave a Comment » | America, American culture, China, Chinese Culture, cultural differences, family values, parenting | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Guqin means Ancient Musical Instrument

November 30, 2010

Chinese history is rich in calligraphy, music, poetry and painting.

Legend says that the Guqin has a history of 5,000 years. Chinese writing dates it to nearly 3,000.

The body of the Guqin is a long and narrow sound box made of Catalpa wood with two holes, one large and one small. The large hole is called the” phoenix pool” and the small one the “dragon pond”.

UNESCO says the Guqin represents China’s foremost solo musical instrument tradition.

This seven-stringed instrument was played by noblemen and scholars and was not intended for public performances. Twenty years of training were often required to become proficient.

Since it is known that Confucius played the Guqin, the instrument is sometimes referred to by the Chinese as “the father of Chinese music” or “the instrument of the sages”.

For millennia, the strings of the Guqin were made of various thicknesses of silk.

However, in recent times, the silk has been replaced with nylon wound around steel strings. Some say without silk, the Guqin doesn’t sound as rich.

The Guqin was one of four subjects the ancient scholars perfected. The other three were chess, calligraphy and painting.

In fact, for centuries many Chinese felt China was so civilized due to these practices that no other country would bother them.

However, after Mao came to power and launched the Cultural Revolution, the Guqin fell out of favor as the literati were persecuted.

Discover Chinese Drums

______________

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.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese arts and music, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, cultural differences | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

A Road to the Hajj from China – Part 2/2

November 30, 2010

Another devout Chinese Muslim in Xian is proudly transcribing the Quran into Chinese using traditional Chinese brush calligraphy. He says it took him over a year to transcribe the entire Quran this way. Now he is working on a second copy.

He has also taught his son and his grandsons how to write with the Chinese brush wanting to pass down this tradition to the next generation.

His son says that every generation should try their best to transcribe the Quran with the Chinese brush, as it is also a good way to reinforce our faith.

The original copy of the Quran in this family is over four hundred years old, a priceless relic transcribed by the Chinese imams. There are only a few remaining copies left in the world.

Jia Wen Yi, a Hajj pilgrim, says the trip to Mecca is important to him and his wife, an elderly couple. They have done a lot of preparation for the hajj. Mr. Jia goes into detail about the planning.

Going on the hajj for Yi and his wife, Jia Wang Yi, has been a dream for over two decades as they saved to have enough money.

Mr. and Mrs. Jia will be part of a group of 250 pilgrims leaving for the hajj from the city of Xian. It was a matter of saving most of their lives until they could afford the trip.

Since these Muslims are considered a minority in China, they are not restricted by the one-child policy, as you would see in the video when the family and friends gather to say goodbye before Mr. and Mrs. Jia leave on the long journey to Mecca.

There is no direct flight from Xian to Mecca, so the pilgrims will take a train to Beijing where they will board a flight to Saudi Arabia.

Whenever pilgrims leave Xian to go on the hajj to Mecca, thousands of Chinese Muslims show up at the railway station to say goodbye. This is the first time Mr. and Mrs. Jia have left China. They have never been apart from their family before.

Return to A Road to the Hajj from China – Part 1 and/or discover The Kaifeng Jews

______________

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.

1 Comment | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, cultural differences, history, Islam, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

A Road to the Hajj from China – Part 1/2

November 30, 2010

This two-part post may come as a surprise to many in the West that believe there is no religious freedom in China.

In fact, China handles religious freedom similar to how Singapore does, and Singapore is seldom if ever criticized in the Western media for this practice.

The U.S. Department of State says that Singapore’s government has broad powers to limit citizens’ rights and handicap political opposition, which it uses. One of those restrictions is a limited freedom of religion.

However, the Constitution for the Republic of Singapore offers the same fundamental liberties China and the US does, which includes freedom of speech, assembly and association and freedom of religion.

For example, Singapore bans the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Unification Church by making public meetings illegal. The Falun Gong has also had problems in Singapore.

China, on the other hand, recognizes five religions — Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism but has banned certain new religious movements that are considered cults. China does not recognize cults as religions.

In the video embedded with this post, Al Jazeera follows Chinese Muslims as they prepare to undertake the hajj pilgrimage.

The ancient city of Xian in Shaanxi province is home to about 60,000 ethnic Chinese Muslims.

Xian 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 Xian during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty.

Chinese Imam Ma Yi Ping speaks both Chinese and Arabic. He studied at the Islamic University of Medina and has made the hajj several times. He was taught to be a devout Muslim by his parents during Mao’s time when the mosques in China were closed.

Despite the persecutions that took place during the Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976), Islam survived in China.

Ma Yi Ping says that after Mao and the Gang of Four were gone and China opened for trade with the world, he did not have to study the Quran in secret anymore.

Since the 15th century, Xian Muslims have been going to Mecca in Saudi Arabia for the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

In the past, during the ancient days of the Silk Road, these journeys started and ended in Xian’s Muslim quarter. Today is no different.

Continued in A Road to the Hajj from China – Part 2

______________

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.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top right-hand side of this page and then follow directions.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, cultural differences, history, Islam, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »