In Search of the Tomb of Cao Cao – Part 1/3

September 19, 2010

Knowing the country’s history helps to understand China today. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms was a historical novel written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century. 

The novel is based on events in the turbulent years near the End of the Han Dynasty when China fell into chaos and anarchy. The Three Kingdom era of China started in 169 AD and ended with the reunification in 280 AD.

Similar events took place in China after the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911 AD) collapsed eventually ending in the Communists ruling the mainland in 1949. See The Roots of Madness

The man credited for reuniting China when the Han Dynasty ended was Cao Cao (155 – 220 AD).

According to the historical records, Cao Cao was a brilliant ruler and a military genius. However, in literature and opera, Cao Cao has often been portrayed as a cruel and despotic tyrant—an image of a Chinese ruler unique in history.

What was Cao Cao really like?

For centuries, the search for Cao Cao’s tomb was unsuccessful.

At the time, there was the Kingdom of Wei, Shuhan and Wu. Cao Cao ruled Wei in Northern China.

Soon after his death, Wei defeated the other kingdoms and reunified China establishing the Western Jin Dynasty (265 – 420 AD).

When the war to reunify China began, Cao Cao had the smaller force—10,000 troops against 100,000.

See The Han Dynasty

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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

Barbarians, a Matter of Opinion

September 19, 2010

After I wrote Superior versus Civilized, which mentions that for millennia the Chinese considered everyone outside of the Middle Kingdom a barbarian, the subject stuck in my head.

Why?

As I researched the “Superior versus Civilized” post, I ran into Blogs where Westerners were calling the Chinese barbarians for a variety of reasons.

In this post, I will focus on the opinion in one Blog.


Warning, the images in this video are graphic and bloody.

The Blog, Animal Abuse in China, attempts building a case that the Chinese are barbarians in these words, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be determined by the way it treats its animal China tortures animals while little children laugh and cheer..Help the animals who cannot help themselves from this horrific life of torture. Thousands die daily from torture! WE MUST PUT THE SPOTLIGHT ON CHINA!!”

I copied and pasted the “opinion” above as I found it. However, if that opinion were true, most nations are guilty.

Watch the YouTube videos to see what I mean.


Warning, the images in this video are graphic and bloody.

In fact, many of our neighbors are animal lovers but  still eat meat, and there is a lot of pain and suffering that takes place from feed lot to a sanitary package in a super market.

I don’t eat meat, but I’m not an animal lover. I don’t hate animals either. I’ve been a vegan since 1981. Imagine all the animals that didn’t suffer, because I stopped eating meat for health reasons.


Warning, the images in this video are graphic and bloody.

Let’s refer back to that opinion where it says, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be determined by the way it treats its animals.” 

If true, America and all Western nations are filled with barbarians.  Passing laws won’t change the behavior of people you might consider to be barbarians—wherever they live.

If you don’t believe that, study what happened in America during prohibition.

I’m going to borrow an “edited” sentence from Jesus Christ that says, Let the nation that has no guilt cast the first stone.

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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 this Blog, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Careful Dreaming

September 17, 2010

Trying to understand our dreams is as old as history.

Three thousand years ago, Grandmaster Zhou Gong, who lived during the Zhou Dynasty, wrote the book of Auspicious and Inauspicious Dreams.

Freud-Sigmund.com says, Zhou Gong’s book “is a book that is commonplace in a lot of houses of Chinese people.” 

When someone wakes up and wants to know the meaning of a dream, he or she opens that book.

Zhou Gong wrote that there were seven dream categories. For example, if you dream of the sun or moon rising, your family will be prosperous, educated and have good jobs. 

However, if you dream of dirty clothing covered with mud, your wife’s pregnancy will be challenging.

This video is a short documentary about Chinese interpretations and the meanings of dreams in relation to past lives.

Selfgrowth.com has a post that goes into detail with examples of Zhou Gong’s categories.  The interpretations range from good luck to bad. 

There’s also a book on Chinese Medicine that has a section about how dreams help with a medical diagnosis. 

Sad dreams are due to a deficiency of ‘qi’ in the heart and liver or of ‘yin’ in the liver meaning, you might have liver disease and tuberculosis. Source: Absolutely Feng Shui

See Chinese Herbalism

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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 this Blog, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Superior versus Civilized

September 17, 2010

In The American Spectator (11-25-09), George H. Wittman wrote China Wins saying, “The Chinese believe they are superior to the United States – and every other country.”

I admit that there may be some truth to Wittman’s opinion. 

However, he uses the wrong word.  The Chinese believe they are more civilized and there may be some truth in that too since most Westerners do not follow the teachings of Confucius, which after 2500 years is embedded in China’s DNA.

If you have read the Qianlong Emperor’s letter from 1793 to King George saying China needed nothing from the rest of the world, you might understand better.

“Should your vessels touch the shore, your merchants will assuredly never be permitted to land or to reside there, but will be subject to instant expulsion. In that event your barbarian merchants will have had a long journey for nothing.”

The key is the word “barbarian”.  When you call someone a barbarian, you are inferring that they are not civilized.

In fact, the Chinese did consider the rest of the world barbarians because Westerners did not behave properly according to the way most Chinese are taught.

A Difference of Opinion

Answer these questions correctly and you may understand why the Chinese might believe they are more civilized.

1. Who started two wars with China in the 19th century to even a trade imbalance by forcing the emperor to allow opium to be sold to his people?

2. When Sun Yat-sen asked for help from the Western democracies at a time when China was in chaos and anarchy while millions starved and died, what was the response?

3. Who invented gunpowder, paper, the printing press and the compass?

4. Who values gaining an education more than most cultures on the earth?

The final answer depends on your point of view. Many westerners may see abortion and the death sentence as a sign of barbarity even though most Chinese do not.

On the other hand, the Chinese tend to stay out of debt and save money while younger Chinese show respect for the elders.

See The Opium Wars

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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 this Blog, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Traveling China for Enlightenment

September 16, 2010

I admit that that I was surprised when I saw this video of a group of Americans finding enlightenment in China.

The popular stereotype about someone searching for change and enlightenment fits the plot we find in Eat, Pray, Love, a best seller that was made into a movie with Julia Roberts, where Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir takes her to Italy for pleasure, India for enlightenment and Indonesia where she discovers love again – not China.

In this video, we see a group of Kung Fu and Tai Chi students from the U.S. in search of Kung Fu wisdom in China.

While in China, they visit Chinese families, schools, temples and universities. They travel through both ancient and modern China visiting Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai.

They also climbed two of the five major mountains of China, Songshan and Yellow Mountain.

After surviving personal conflicts and emotional struggles, the group returns to America as Elizabeth Gilbert did in her journey—to be compassionate and harmonious with others and the environment.

In three weeks, this group went places few foreigners have seen. 

Of course, after breaking bones twice during martial arts training earlier in life, I’ve stayed away from that form of discovery.

I still climb mountains but not as often as I once did.

See China’s REAL Karate Kids, Inside the Kung Fu Schools of Shaolin

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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 this Blog, 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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