Gold from Dead Tibetan Caterpillars

May 26, 2010

In the May 2010 National Geographic, Mark Jenkins writes about Tibetan cowboys and Chinese-made motorcycles in his Tea Horse Road piece unwittingly revealing more about Tibetan life under Chinese rule.

The Tibetan cowboys, who once used horses, now use motorcycles to tend their flocks. On the way to 17,756-foot Nubgang Pass, Jenkins passes the black yak-hair tents of Tibetan nomads, and sees big Chinese trucks or Land Cruisers parked outside. He wonders how poor Tibetans can afford such luxuries. Aren’t they supposed to be suffering?

I think, “Maybe they are smuggling drugs into China from India”.  As I read on, I learn I’m wrong.

Photo by Tom Carter, author of China: Portrait of a People

On his way back from the pass, Jenkins discovers these Tibetan cowboys have found wealth in their high grasslands from parasite infected caterpillars called “Yartsa Gompo” in Tibet and “Chong Cao” in China.  These dead caterpillars sell to Chinese medicine shops throughout Asia for as much as 80 dollars a gram—more than the price for a gram of gold.

Why? The Chinese and Tibetans believe these dead caterpillars are a cure-all medicine that also acts as an aphrodisiac.

Discover more about Tibet on The Tea Horse Road

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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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Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese minorities, health care, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Buddhism in China

May 24, 2010

During the Han Dynasty in the first century B.C., trade with Central Asia introduced Buddhism to China.  Over the centuries, interest in Buddhism grew.  However, due to Confucianism and Taoism, the Chinese adapted Buddhist scripture to fit the Chinese culture creating the Mahayana sect, which spread to Korea and Japan.

Like most major religions, there are subdivisions within Buddhism but most may be classified into three. This is why Southeast Asian Buddhists differ from the Chinese.  The Theravada  form of Buddhism is found in Southeast Asia in countries like Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.

Tibetan Buddhism incorporates other beliefs, and there are four principal schools or types of Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of one of the four, the Yellow Hat sect.

Buddhism in China reached its high point during the Tang Dynasty, 618 to 907. However, in 845 AD, the Tang emperor suppressed Buddhism and destroyed thousands of monasteries, temples and shrines.

Soon after Mao and the Communists won China, Buddhism flourished for a time but was repressed during the Cultural Revolution along with all other religions. Many monasteries and Buddhist texts were destroyed. After Mao, many of the major monasteries were rebuilt. Today, Buddhists represent the largest religious group in China between 100 to 200 million. Source: PEW Forum

Discover The First of all Virtues

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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.

His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves.

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12 Comments | Buddhism, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Confucianism, religion, Taoism, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Home Song Stories

May 22, 2010

The Home Song Stories, based on a true story, stars Joan Chen as Rose. Joan Chen was born into a family of doctors and educated in China during Mao’s era. Chen is considered the Elizabeth Taylor of China and delivers a powerful performance in this movie, which won a slew of foreign awards.  Rose is a lost soul with two children who moves to Australia after marrying an Australian sailor she meets in Hong Kong.

It is late in the 1960s and the Australian sailor turns out to be an admirable character. You would have to see the movie to discover why.

Later in the movie, it is revealed that at sixteen Rose was sold to become a concubine for an older man.  Rose fell in love with her master’s younger brother, an artist, and they run off.  A few years later, the love of Rose’s life dies from  tuberculosis. To survive, Rose becomes a night-club singer who takes a string of lovers.  The story is told from the son’s point of few, who is a child.  Rose’s daughter is a teen for most of the movie.

I couldn’t find copies of The Home Song Stories in the US but did find copies on ebay from Australia. It’s too bad this movie did not gain wider attention in the US.

Discover more Chinese movies, Not One Less

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning novels My Splendid Concubine and Our Hart. He also Blogs at The Soulful Veteran and Crazy Normal.

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Leave a Comment » | Chinese arts and music, Chinese Culture, Chinese women | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Cultural Differences, the Ignorant American and Suicide by Railroad

May 21, 2010

There is always a spat of suicides in China when public school students don’t get into college. Recently, near Stanford, California, there were suicides by Asian students who weren’t doing well in high school and it didn’t look like they were going to make the grades needed to get into the US university they wanted to attend.

An example of Western religious intolerance may be seen in this post about the Gunn High suicides.

The students would lay on the train tracks and wait for a train to end their misery. As the suicides mounted, the city did what it could to make it difficult for more kids to do the same. The high school shut down and testing was cancelled to remove the pressure. Gunn High is one of the highest ranked public high schools in the country. The Asian student population is about 80%.

Behavior like this is shocking but it is part of Asian culture.  As a Christian nation, is it the responsibly of American citizens to change this behavior even if we have to use violence and war like we are doing in Iraq and what we did to the American Indians in the 19th century?

Learn about the important of an Education to the Chinese

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning novels My Splendid Concubine and Our Hart. He also Blogs at The Soulful Veteran and Crazy Normal.

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

Cultural Differences and the Ignorant American

May 20, 2010

Unlike the citizens of Europe or Asia, most Americans seldom rub shoulders with other cultures or spend time outside of the United States aside from Latinos from south of the border who washes the cars, mows lawns or washes the dishes Americans eat from when going out to eat in a restaurant.

Don’t mistake having a foreign friend as rubbing shoulders with another culture. To know a culture you have to live there or discover that culture through study.  Even then, nothing compares to living in another country as an expatriate like Tom Carter, who taught English in China before he went on the road to shoot “China: Portrait of a People.”

Recently I posted another response to Timothy V at Left of the Right. I used examples to show differences between cultures. Those examples appear in this seven part series.

It starts with the wife of a Japanese corporate executive working in the US, who tried to kill herself and her children by jumping into the ocean off the Santa Monica pier. She took her two children with her. (to be continued in the next post)

Learn about The First of all Virtues

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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.

1 Comment | China, Chinese Culture | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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