Christmas in China

December 24, 2010

I don’t read Mandarin and a few days ago an e-mail arrived that was in Mandarin with an attachment.

I’ve learned the hard way that you don’t open e-mails when you don’t know where there from, so I waited until my wife read the Mandarin and told me it was from our daughter’s grandfather in China.

Inside the attached file were twelve virtual Christmas cards in English with flashing Christmas lights in winter settings. Grandpa lives in Shanghai.

Shanghai shopping malls are decorated for Christmas.

Many Shanghai Chinese have adopted the Christmas holiday and take it seriously even giving gifts.

One Chinese man in the embedded video says, “Perhaps because Shanghai is quite an international city, we attach much importance to this festival and celebrate it in a grander manner compared to other cities in China.”

A young Chinese woman says, “If you live overseas for a long time, you will know that this is the time to reunite with your friends and exchange Christmas presents with those you know.”

The expat owner of a German restaurant even set up a stall outside offering blue wine, a type of warm wine popular among Germans during Christmas.

The twelve virtual Christmas cards our daughter’s grandfather attached to his e-mail said, “Remember… Through the year, be thankful for what you have…”

2. “If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep… You are richer than 75% of the world.”

3. “If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish some place, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.”

 4. “If you woke up this morning with more health than illness… You are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.”

5. “If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation… You are ahead of 500 million people in the world.”

6. “If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death… You are more blessed than three billion people in the world.”

7. “If your parents are still alive and still married… You are very rare, even in the United States.”

8. “If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful… You are blessed, because the majority can, but most do not.”

9. “If you can hold someone’s hand, hug them or even touch them on the shoulder… You are blessed because you can offer healing touch.”

10. “If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing that someone was thinking of you, and furthermore… You are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.”

11. “Have a good day, count your blessings, and pass this along to remind everyone else how blessed we all are. You are wished a Merry Christmas.”

12. “Remember… throughout the year, be thankful for what you have been blessed with…”

A grandfather that fought on the winning side of China’s Civil War (1925 – 1949) then held an important position in Chinese Communist Party until he retired at 67 (as the 1982 Chinese Constitution requires) sent these twelve virtual Christmas cards.

In fact, he was born during the Civil War about 1930 and was nineteen when it ended.

Discover the Top Five Restaurants Expats Love in Shanghai

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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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Religion’s “Cold War” with China – Part 3/3

December 20, 2010

Another reason that China’s government does not want the Pope to rule over China’s Catholics is because of the Catholic Church’s political meddling and bloody history.

In 1088, Pope Urban II was responsible for launching the First Crusade to rescue the Holy Land from the Turks.

In 1147, King Louis VII was enlisted by Bernard of Clairvaux, a French abbot in the Catholic Church, to lead the Second Crusade.

Pope Gregory VIII proclaimed the Third Crusade in 1188.

During the Fourth Crusade in 1202, European Christians sacked Constantinople, a Christian city in Turkey.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Church waged war against the Christian Cather religious sect in the Languedoc region of France and in other parts of Europe. The last known Cathar leader was executed in 1321.

Then there were the four Inquisitions from 1184 to 1860 along with the religious wars that followed the reformation.

Protestants and Catholics shed each other’s blood in national wars and in civil wars from 1562 to 1648.

Then there is the fact that the Pope issues edicts for his followers and some of them go against Chinese law such as the one-child policy designed to control the growth of China’s population.

In addition, China has never had a religion that dominated its culture as in the West and the Middle East.

Moreover, if you are one of those people that believes the Church has changed its evil ways consider how it has shielded priests accused of molesting children or the money laundering by the Vatican’s bank.

Although Chinese believe in heaven and God, most do not believe n God and heaven the same as Christianity and Islam do.

In China, the people are raised to honor the ancestors and obey the central government’s laws not the laws and edicts of a religion.

Catholics in China are free to worship but not free to have the Pope be their spiritual and political ruler since the Pope often issues edicts that influence political beliefs leading to civil unrest and more pressure on China to change.

In fact, China is often depicted as an atheist nation, which is far from the truth.

In China, it is believed by many that Heaven is said to see, hear and watch over all men (sounds like God to me). Heaven is affected by man’s doings, and having personality, is happy and angry with them. Heaven blesses those who please it and sends calamities upon those who offend it.

Heaven was also believed to transcend all other spirits and gods, with Confucius asserting, “He who offends against Heaven has none to whom he can pray.”

If anything, most Chinese are guilty of being Deists (as many of America’s Founding Fathers were) or nonreligious since they do not belong to or believe in religions.

Since both Christian and Islamic sects believe they must convert nonbelievers, it must be frustrating to the Catholic Pope that he cannot have freedom to convert as many as possible in China.

It is obvious that the Catholic Church and other world religions want China to change its culture to accept religion as the rest of the world does.

Return to Religion’s “Cold War” with China – Part 2

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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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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Religion’s “Cold War” with China – Part 2/3

December 20, 2010

What happened in China between the Communists and Nationalists during the revolution isn’t the reason China is blocking the Pope from having the same level of control of China’s Catholics that he has over the rest of the world’s Catholics.

The Vatican is a sovereign nation. Of 195 countries in the world, three are not members of the UN and the Vatican City/The Holy See is one of those three nations.

The independent papal state of less than 1,000 people chose not to join the UN.

Instead, the Vatican is a Permanent Observer in the UN and the Holy See enjoys, among other things, the right to participate in the general debate of the General Assembly; the right of reply; the right to have its communications issued and circulated directly as official documents of the UN assembly; and the right to co-sponsor draft resolutions and decisions that make reference to the Holy See. Source: Holy See Mission.org

The Vatican is listed as the smallest nation with the smallest population on the globe, yet the Pope rules over about a billion Catholics scattered throughout the world as if he were a world leader and they were the citizens of his nation.

In fact, since nations have banks, the Associated Press recently reported that the Vatican’s bank was mired in a laundering scandal.

The Pope is elected for life by the Church’s bishops as if he were a religious dictator.  The Pope decides if it is wrong to divorce, have abortions, etc.  He even prescribes dietary laws such as only eating fish on Friday.

Allowing the Pope to lead China’s Catholics would be the same as letting the US President lead all American expatriates living and working in China regardless of China’s laws.

In Part 3, we shall see how the Catholic Church waged war against all who threatened its existence.

Return to Religion’s “Cold War” with China – 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.

2 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Christianity, cultural differences, expatriates, family values, politics, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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Religion’s “Cold War” with China – Part 1/3

December 20, 2010

The Economist’s December 11 issue wrote about The party versus the pope.  “The Communist Party is trying to tighten its control of the Catholic Church in China. Some of its members, as well as the Vatican, are fuming.”

The Economist says, “China forced its Catholic church to cut ties with the Vatican in 1951, two years after the party seized power.”

Interesting language.

If the Communists “seized power”, in China, then United States revolutionaries seized power in America from the British Empire in 1776 and French revolutionaries seized power from the King of France in 1799.

However, there was no revolution in China between the Communists and the Nationalists. The Communist Party did not sieze power since Dr. Sun Yat-sen formed a coalition between the Communist Party and the Nationalists (KMT) to build China’s first republic with a two party system.

When Sun Yat-sen died unexpectedly in 1925, it wasn’t the Communist Party that broke the republic’s two-party system and plunged China into a Civil War that lasted until 1949.  Chang Kai-shek’s KMT army fired the first shots slaughtering thousands of communists in southern China then Shanghai.

The Communist Party had no choice but to fight since it was clear that Chang Kai-shek, a converted Christian, was going to have all the communists hunted down and killed.

The Civil War between the two political parties of Sun Yat-sen’s republic lasted for more than twenty years.  The facts do not support The Economists’ claim that the Communist Party “seized control”.

In fact, the Communist Party won China’s Civil War as the North did in America’s Civil War in 1865.

In Part 2, we shall see how the Catholic Church is not a religion but a religious nation with almost one billion members and the pope is a Christian dictator elected for life.

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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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The State of Religion in Today’s China

December 19, 2010

The U.S. Department of State reports that China is officially atheist (and has been for thousands of years). However, Taoist, Buddhist, Christian and Muslims are allowed to worship in China and these religions have a significant role in the lives of many Chinese.

A February 2007 survey conducted by East China Normal University and reported in China’s state-run media concluded that 31.4% of Chinese citizens ages 16 and over are religious believers.

While the Chinese constitution affirms “freedom of religious belief,” the Chinese Government places restrictions on religious practice outside officially recognized organizations. The five state-sanctioned “patriotic religious associations” are Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism.

Singapore, another nation in Asia, has similar restrictions.

Historically, China has not been accepting of cults, and there is a difference between a religion and a cult.

Princeton.edu says, cult members are “followers of an unorthodox, extremist, or false religion or sect who often live outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.”

All one has to do is study China’s history to understand the Middle Kingdom’s sensitivity toward cults and political activists. China’s struggle with pagan cults reaches back almost a thousand years. Source: The Millennium Cult

There are no official statistics confirming the number of Taoists in China.


Fascinating discussion of how Chinese culture interacts with religions.

Official figures indicate there are 20 million Muslims, 20 million Protestants, and 5.3 million Catholics; unofficial estimates are much higher.

According to About Chinese Culture.com, there are more than 85,000 sites for religious activities, some 300,000 clergy and over 3,000 religious organizations throughout China. In addition, there are 74 religious schools and colleges run by religious organizations for training clerical personnel.

Buddhism, the most popular religion in China with about a 100 million followers, has a 2,000-year history in the Middle Kingdom and there are about 13,000 Buddhist temples.

Taoism, native to China, has a history of more than 1,700 years with over 1,500 temples.

Islam, which was introduced into China in the seventh century has more than 30,000 mosques.

At present, China has about 4,600 Catholic churches and meetinghouses.

Protestantism first arrived in China in the early 19th century. Today there are more than 12,000 churches and 25,000 meeting places.

Although Judaism is not listed as one of the officially recognized religions in China, there are Jewish synagogues in Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Jews first settled in Kaifeng, Henan Province in 960 AD after arriving along the Silk Road. The Jews were welcomed by the Imperial government, which encouraged them to retain their cultural identity by building the Kaifeng synagogue, which was finished in 1163 AD.

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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.

6 Comments | Buddhism, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Christianity, Confucianism, cults, cultural differences, family values, history, Islam, religion, Taoism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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