China is Serious about UFOs

July 29, 2010

The Huffington Post mentioned recent UFO sightings in China, “four lantern-like objects forming a diamond shape…hovered over the city’s Shaping Park for over an hour…. Last week, flights were diverted in Hangzhou, also in eastern China – after a mysterious object was seen hovering in the sky.”

I wrote about descriptions that sounded like UFOs in God, Ancient Astronauts and China’s Yellow Emperor.

In fact, Early Chinese texts tell of long-lived rulers from the heavens who flew in “fire-breathing dragons”.

In Tibet there is a book called the Kantyua, which means “the translated word of Buddha”. It tells of flying “pearls in the sky” and of transparent spheres carrying gods to visit man. Source: NetScientia.com

In 1947, a Chinese newspaper, the Commons Daily, reported that witnesses saw UFOs appearing over Wuhan.

Then in The Chinese Roswell by Hartwig Hausdorf, the author spent years in China uncovering tell-tale traces of an alien mind which may have passed that way millennia ago.

“It shouldn’t come as a surprise that many fascinating accounts of flying machines, unexplained celestial observations and close encounters with strange beings can be found quite extensively in historical and literary works from China.” Source: Open Minds

Conservative state-run newspapers and television media often report UFO sightings. China has a bimonthly UFO magazine devoted to UFO research, The Journal of UFO Research, which was launched in February 1981, circulation 400,000. Source: The Independent

______________________________

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. 

Sign up for an RSS Feed for iLook China

Leave a Comment » | Buddhism, China, Chinese history, history | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Long March Part 2 (2/4)

July 29, 2010

There is no drainage in the grasslands. As it rains, the water saturates the soil and turns it into a swamp.  Beneath the flowers and grass were hidden bogs that could swallow men and animals whole. 

The temperatures were slightly above freezing. Food became scarce and was rationed.

When there was no food, the troops boiled the grass and added a touch of salt. Everyone was weak. Those who collapsed were left to die, because the survivors were too weak to help.

They could only cry.

The Red Army lost more troops in the grasslands than from the Snowy Mountains.  A Nationalist army followed the Communists into the grasslands but turned back because of the difficulty and risks.

One reason the Nationalists turned back was that Chiang Kai-shek suffered from a lack of loyalty among his troops and generals. He even feared that one of his generals might kill him.

On the other hand, the loyalty of Mao’s troops was unquestioned. 

However, the general of the Fourth Red Army argued with Mao and the two armies split. 

Mao’s army was weak and still had hundreds of miles to go to reach safety. One obstacle remained—the dangerous Lazikou pass, which was also fortified by waiting Nationalist troops. Mao’s troops would have to fight to take the pass or return through the grasslands.

Return to The Long March – Part 2/1 or go on to The Long March Part 2/3

_________________________________

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. 

Sign up for an RSS Feed for iLook China

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese history, Communism | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Long March Part 2 (1/4)

July 28, 2010

In June 1935, eight months and over three-thousand miles into the Long March, Mao’s Red Army moved into Western Sichuan Province.  For a time, Mao’s troops were safe from Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists. 

Meanwhile, the Japanese launched an attack on another northern Chinese province.  The Japanese now occupied most of Northern China and the Chinese there knew little about the struggle between Mao and Chiang Kai-shek. Feeling abandoned, they were alienated from the Nationalist government.

However, the Red Army had to cross the Snowy Mountains with peaks as high as 15,000 feet.  Because these mountains were so rugged and dangerous, the Nationalist Army stopped the pursuit and waited for the mountains to kill Mao.

Some historians believed crossing these mountains was a blunder, but Mao had no choice. Only defeat waited behind him. There was no turning back. 

The thin air and the steep, snow-covered mountains exhausted the troops. A shortage of food, lack of firewood, snow blindness all contributed to the challenge. While crossing the mountains and linking up with the Fourth Red Army, thousands were lost. Once joined, the combined armies number 100,000 troops.

The next challenge was the deadliest obstacle of all—a high-desert grassland. There was no choice. All the easy routes were controlled by Chiang Kai-shek’s troops. Then heavy rains came, which turned the grassland into a swamp.

Return to The Long March – Part 1/6 or go on to The Long March – Part 2/2

______________________

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. 

Sign up for an RSS Feed for iLook China

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese history, Communism | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Long March Part 1 (6/6)

July 27, 2010

In the race to the bridge, advanced elements of the Red Army arrived first.   The bridge was about 100 yards long and nine feet wide.  Thirteen chains held up the side supports along with the bridge’s flooring. The troops for a local warlord guarded the bridge, and they had removed the flooring.  Only the chains were left since the local people refused to cut them.

The battle for the bridge began.  Volunteers from the Red Army started to crawl along the chains while covering fire was focused on the warlord’s troops on the other side.

The warlord’s troops used mortars and machine guns shooting at the Red Army volunteers as they crawled toward them. After fierce fighting, Mao’s troops took the bridge and the Red Army crossed. The Nationalists had made a mistake by not cutting the bridge’s chains.

However, The Long March was not over.  The Red Army was heavily outnumbered, and they had some of the highest mountains in the world to cross before reaching the Fourth Red Army and safety deep in Western China.

Return to The Long March – Part 1/5 or go on to The Long March – Part 2/1

__________________________

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. 

Sign up for an RSS Feed for iLook China

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese history, Communism | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Mao Zedong, the Poet

July 27, 2010

Many outside China think of Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976) as a brutal dictator. Yet, he was fifty-six when he became the ruler of China and seventy-two at the beginning of The Cultural Revolution.

In fact, while commanding the Red Army during The Long March (1934-1935), we see a man who respected China’s peasants proving he was more of a nationalist than a Communist. Then there was the move away from Communist Russia after Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, when Mao said, “Our common old friend, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, doesn’t approve of this.”

In 1935, Mao’s poem, “The Long March”, reveals an awareness of the sacrifice and the willingness to suffer to accomplish great things.

The Red Army fears not the trials of the March,
Holding light ten thousand crags and torrents.
The Five Ridges wind like gentle ripples
And the majestic Wumeng roll by, globules of clay.
Warm the steep cliffs lapped by the waters of Golden Sand,
Cold the iron chains spanning the Tatu River.
Minshan’s thousand li of snow joyously crossed,
The three Armies march on, each face glowing.

Mao was a complex man, and it wasn’t until after the failure of the The Great Leap Forward (1958 – 1961) that the fatal attraction and power of leadership corrupted him leading to the horrors of The Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976), which Mao’s critics in the West use to define him.

Anyone who follows all of Mao’s life instead of relying on his last decade would understand that he cared deeply about the common people while punishing the landowners and wealthy, who abused them.  On the other hand, his foe, Chiang Kai-shek, supported the landowners and wealthy while crushing the peasants and workers.

There is a post on About China.info that says, “Mao’s poetry exhibits a spirit of boldness and power, weaving together history, reality and commitment… Bold transformation of myth and literary quotations are a distinct feature of Mao’s poetry.”

At Mao Zedong Poems, Two Birds” A Dialogue (1965), reveals what Mao may have been thinking about as President Johnson increased America’s involvement in Vietnam. Was Mao also warning us of what he was about to do in 1966, when he launched The Cultural Revolution?

Two Birds: A Dialogue (1965)

The roc wings fanwise,
Soaring ninety thousand li
And rousing a raging cyclone.
The blue sky on his back, he looks down
To survey Man’s world with its towns and cities.
Gunfire licks the heavens,
Shells pit the earth.
A sparrow in his bush is scared stiff..
“This is one hell of a mess!
O I want to flit and fly away.”
“Where, may I ask?”
The sparrow replies,
“To a jewelled palace in elfland’s hills.
Don’t you know a triple pact was signed
Under the bright autumn moon two years ago?
There’ll be plenty to eat,
Potatoes piping hot,
Beef-filled goulash.”
“Stop your windy nonsense!
Look, the world is being turned upside down.”

Through Mao’s poetry, we learn more about the man—not the modern emperor.

Discover China’s Privately Passionate Poetry

______________

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, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

About iLook China

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

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »