China’s Great Leap Forward (1958 to 1961) – Part 1 of 6

June 21, 2010

Before reading this series about Mao’s Great Leap Forward, I recommend you first read China, The Roots of Madness to understand what led to Mao’s era as the leader of Communist China (1949 – 1976). This link will take you to that post.  When you finish, return to China’s Great Leap Forward.

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Mao’s era begins in October 1949 with victory celebrations in Beijing, as the country with the largest population in the world sees a Communist government come to power.

(when the advertisement appears, advance the video scroll bar to 2:00 minutes to avoid it)

 

Mao says, “The People’s Republic of China is founded today. China will be free of inequality, poverty and foreign domination.”  In 1950, most Chinese live as they have for centuries. The video shows what this life was like.  Before Mao, most lived in poverty and were in debt to landowners.

Hu Benxu, a peasant farmer in Sichuan says that in the past, there was justice for the rich but nothing for the poor.

President Ronald Reagan

Chiang Kai-shek believed that improvements would spread through the country (sort of like President Reagan’s trickledown theory, which didn’t work) as foreign investments poured into China. But the opposite happened. As the country industrialized, the gap between the rich and the poor grew wider. The rich held on to money and wanted more. Protests about working condition in the factories were met with death from Chiang Kai-shek’s troops.

Meanwhile, Mao promised land reforms, and his troops treated the peasants with respect. When Mao won China, he said, “We Chinese should work hard. The country is poor. Our people are uneducated.  We must make China a modern industrialized state.”

However, there would be many mistakes and much suffering during the next 27 years. After two thousand years of an Imperial system of government, China was embarking on a journey of reinventing a country and a culture without any foreign influence.

Go to Part 2, 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.

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3 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, politics | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Belching about China

June 20, 2010

I sometimes read opinions about China from individuals who should stay quiet.  Leo Hindery wrote one for The Huffington Post, which  is an example of an American castigating China from a Western cultural point-of-view.

These biased voices bother me and probably bother many Chinese too. Of course, Hindery has a right to voice his opinions, but most Chinese don’t understand that the American government has no control (at least we like to think so) of what appears in the American media.

Xu Xiao-dong, in Zhouzhuang, China, an artist in his shop earning a living without help from the American labor movement.

Since the media in China is the official voice of the government, many in China see the Western media the same way. Hindery says he is eager to see the “American labor movement smartly and creatively provide all the help to China’s workers that it can responsibly offer” to help Chinese workers earn more money along with better benefits. Considering what the American labor movement did for the US auto industry, that is a bad idea.

Due to Western meddling in China  during the 19th century, there were two Opium Wars  forcing British, French and American opium into the country along with Christian missionaries, which led to the Taiping Rebellion started by a Christian convert ending in 20 to 100 million killed. Then there was the Boxer Rebellion, a peasant uprising caused by meddling Christian missionaries, greedy Western businessmen and pompous politicians.

In fact, due to the West forcing China to open its doors, more than two-thousand years of Imperial rule ended leading to four decades of chaos and anarchy between 1913 and 1950 where millions more were killed.

My opinion is to let the Chinese fix China and leave the American labor movement out of it.

See China’s Labor Laws

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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.

16 Comments | American culture, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Christianity, cultural differences, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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About Duan Wu Jie (Double Fifth Festival)

June 20, 2010

By Hannah, who lives in China and is a Chinese citizen kind enough to explain more about this national May/June holiday.

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“Duan Wu Jie” is a Chinese traditional festival. It happens on May 5 according to Chinese lunar calendar. In English, it translates into Dragon Boat Festival or Double Fifth Festival. Actually, it has around 20 different names and meanings in Chinese and is celebrated differently according to region.

Photo by Hanna

Racing the dragon boat is one well-known way of celebrating “Duan Wu Jie” day, but most common way of the celebration is to eat the rice cake, which is called Zongzi (boiled reed leaves wrapped into pyramid shape over sticky rice that has been mixed with beans or dates, but these modern days even pork and eggs in it).

The most popular saying of “Duan Wu Jie” day is to memorize the great poet and patriot Quyuan, he suicide himself by jumping into the river. The locals heard of it so all coming out by the boats tried to save him. Also, the locals were afraid that the river fish might ate his body because of hungry, so people throw the rice into the river to avoid that. That’s how it comes the dragon boat and the rice cake.

Photo by Hanna

In my hometown, when “Duan Wu Jie” festival is closing, the married daughters of each family have to buy a lot of the Zongzi and Xianyadan (salted duck egg) to bring to their parents home to honor them.

In September 30, 2009, the “Duan Wu Jie” festival was listed on the Human Intangible Cultural Heritage List. Now it’s a legal national holiday. We don’t have to work on this day anymore!

More about the Dragon Boat Festival

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning My Splendid Concubine and writes The Soulful Veteran and Crazy Normal.

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The Magic of Ginseng

June 17, 2010

My wife often cooks with ginseng. She slices the ginseng thin and it goes into the wok with what she is cooking—tofu, cabbage, edamame, Bok Choy, etc.  Ginseng is a dried root that the Chinese believed possesses magical powers because it’s shaped sort of like a little person.

ginseng

The Chinese use Ginseng as a powerful herbal medicine too. At one time, modern scientists rejected these claims, but recent research shows it does help the body resist illness and heal damage caused by stress by stimulating the immune system. Since I only eat food my wife cooks with ginseng, I’ve never taken the herb for its healing properties but I love what it does for flavor.

Records in China show that ginseng was used as an herbal medicine over 3,000 years ago and in cooking as far back as 5,000 years. Chinese emperors valued Ginseng enough to pay for the herb with its weight in gold.  In America, ginseng was also used by several North American Indian nations. Source: Ancient Ginseng History

Discover Tofu

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning My Splendid Concubine and writes The Soulful Veteran and Crazy Normal.

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6 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese food, Chinese history | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Hollywood Takes the “Karate Kid” to China

June 17, 2010

I walked to the local movie theater (June, 2010) to see the new The Karate Kid staring Jaden Smith, which was filmed in China—mostly in Beijing.  It was also the biggest modern movie co-produced between an American Studio and China. The themes from the old movie were there, but I enjoyed this movie more because it delivered something the old movie didn’t—a glimpse at Chinese culture.

The Jackie Chan character lives in a Hutong.  If you want to learn more, I suggest The Last Days of Old Beijing by Michael Meyer. The Great Wall is about an hour from Beijing. I’ve been there too, but I’ve never seen it without people.

The trip to the top of Wudang Mountain, well known for its deep-rooted tradition of wushu (martial arts), took me to a place I’ve never been. Watching Jackie Chang and Jaden Smith climb that long, narrow stairway reminded me of mountains I’ve climbed that took my breath away in gasps with heart pounding.

China may not have elections where eligible citizens , stupid and smart, gets to vote as in America, but James Lassiter, a “Karate Kid” producer, says that in China “The people run the country, so if people didn’t want you shooting in their neighborhood, there’s no authority that can tell them they have to. That’s why it’s called the People’s Republic of China.” Source for quote:  KansasCity.com

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress offers another look at China.

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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 latest novel is the multiple-award winning Running with the Enemy.

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