Conversation—Sung Dynasty Philosophy

June 28, 2010

China may be the only ancient culture that survived the spread of Islam and Christianity and managed to hold onto its identity.

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“Guan-jiah,” Robert said, “before I came to China I read The Travels of Marco Polo. Do you know who he was?”

“No, Master,” Guan-jiah replied.

“He came to China from Europe more than six hundred years ago and served under Kublai Khan during the Yuan Dynasty. Polo wrote that Hangzhou was the finest and noblest city in the world.”

“Hangzhou was the capital of the Southern Sung Dynasty, Master,” Guan-jiah said. “I’ve heard it is beautiful. Sung philosophy says that we have the power in our minds to overcome our emotions.”

“Marco Polo believed it was God’s will that he came back from China so others in the West might know what he’d seen.” Robert turned to his servant, who was the last in line. “Do you believe in this Sung philosophy, Guan-jiah?”

Guan-jiah and Robert Hart - 19th century China

“The Sung said that if you know yourself and others, you would be able to adjust to the most unfavorable circumstances and prevail over them.”

“That’s admirable, Guan-jiah. You never mentioned you were a scholar. If the Sung Dynasty was that wise, I want to see Hangzhou one day.”

“I am no scholar, Master, but I must believe in the Sung philosophy to survive. I have read and contemplated much literature. However, I am like a peasant and have never mastered calligraphy. It is a skill that has eluded me.”

“How old were you when you studied this philosophy?”

“I was eleven, Master, two years after I was sent to Peking.”

Source: From Chapter 4, My Splendid Concubine
See The Influence of Confucius

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Lloyd Lofthouse,
Award winning author of Hart’s concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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The Prince’s Garden

June 26, 2010

These photos were taken inside Prince Kung’s (1833-1898) palace and garden (once called Gongwangfu). This palace is in Beijing’s Beihai district. Prince Kung was Emperor Hsein Feng’s (1831-1861) younger brother.

As Inspector General for the Emperor of China, Robert Hart, known as the Godfather of China’s modernism, lived in the same hutong that Prince Kung lived in.  The Forbidden City was on the far side of Tiananmen Square.

Robert Hart, the main character in “My Splendid Concubine” and “Our Hart”, often met Prince Kung in this garden.

After 1950, for several decades, this palace and the garden became a communal home for many Chinese. In recent years, the garden, considered one of the best in China, was renovated and is now a tourist attraction, which attracts thousands of visitors daily.

To design a proper Chinese garden one must build a big place in a small space.  Prince Kung’s garden and estate is surrounded by a high wall and outside is Beijing.  Once inside, it is easy to forget that outside the walls is a crowded city. It was also easy for the Qing (Manchu) royals to forget about what was happening throughout China.

Discover The Summer Palace

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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.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Mao’s War Against Illegal Drugs

June 25, 2010

From The Opium Monopoly by Ellen N. La Motte, we learn how opium addiction became an epidemic in China. Although The Chinese knew about opium for more than a thousand years, it wasn’t until the Portuguese arrived in the 18th century that  the Chinese used it as a drug by smoking it. Merchants from Britain, France, Portugal, America and other nations became the drug cartels that plagued China into the 20th century.

In 1729, the emperor issued the first anti-opium edict, but the supply of opium flooding China went from 220 chests in 1729 to 70,000 in 1858.

It is estimated that before 1950, as many as 20 million Chinese were addicts. Then Mao had the Red Army execut the drug dealers and forced millions of addicts into compulsory treatment.

Opium growers, who did not want to comply, fled into the Golden Triangle Region of Southeast Asia where many of Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist troops had gone to escape defeat. Those generals also did business with the CIA, and American soldiers in Vietnam became the new customers. It is estimated that at least 20% of the almost nine million American troops that served in Vietnam became addicted.

China remained free of drugs until Deng Xiaoping declared, “Getting Rich is Glorious” and opened China to world trade. In 2003, it was estimated that China had four million regular drug users even with China’s strict laws concerning illegal drug use.

Sources: Opium and Illegal Drugs in China and How Maoist Revolution Wiped Out Drugs in China

To learn more about Mao’s China, see China’s Great Leap Forward

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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’s Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution Ends in 1976 (Part 6)

June 24, 2010

In Part 6, the anarchy led by Mao spread. Schools and hospitals closed.  Offices and factories were in chaos. Qi Youyi, who was a factory worker in Beijing, describes how bad it was. Production stopped. No one knew when he or she might be denounced and arrested. Many workers committed suicide.

After two years, the army was called to restore order and reestablish the Communist Party. The Red Guards were sent to the countryside to learn from the peasants. However, the Cultural Revolution did not really end until 1976 when Mao died.

Deng Xiaoping's China where Getting Rich is Glorious

After his death, Mao’s closest supporters, the Gang of Four, were arrested and Mao’s revolutionary activities were abandoned. In an attempt to hold the country together, the Communist Party used propaganda and the Red Army to maintain control so the country would not fall apart.

Deng Xiaoping replaced ideological fervor with economic activity so the people would be motivated not by dreams of equality but by money. In the 1980s, the new message was “to get rich is glorious”.

Return to Part 5, China’s Great Leap Forward or start with 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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Mao’s Motives

June 24, 2010

Why did Mao cause so much suffering with his failed Great Leap Forward and The Cultural Revolution? Yes, the power Mao held was a corrupting factor in the decisions he made, but  fear of repeating history was also a factor.

Mao's Little Red Book of Quotations

How many millions of Chinese were addicted to Western opium forced on China by Great Britain and France during two Opium Wars?

Historians say that 20 to 30 million were killed due to the Taiping Rebellion. If Christian missionaries had not been forced on China because of the Opium Wars, would that rebellion have taken place?

Another 115,000 Chinese were killed during the Boxer Rebellion, which was a popular peasant uprising against Christian missionaries, foreign meddling and exploitation.

After 1911 when the Qing Dynasty collapsed, chaos and anarchy ruled China, while foreigners—Americans included— lived in luxury in the treaty ports protected by modern foreign military forces. A Century of Madness chronicles this time.

Mao survived Chiang Kai-shek‘s crack down on the labor movement led by the Communist Party. During World War II, Mao’s army not only fought Chiang Kai-shek’s troops but also the Japanese, who killed between 10 to 20 million Chinese in their attempt to conquer China. The peasants trusted Mao’s troops but did not trust Chiang Kai-shek’s army. Why?

Mao believed that socialism would create a better life for the Chinese. His failures were attempts to make China strong enough to defend the country against foreign meddling and invasions. He failed, but Deng Xiaoping didn’t. What happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989—where a few hundred demonstrators were killed—was nothing compared to what China suffered starting with the First Opium War.

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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.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

1 Comment | China, Chinese history, Christianity, Communism, history, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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