China’s Jade Culture

March 6, 2011

Cultures I know of that valued jade more than gold were the Aztecs, Incas, Mayans and Chinese.

In fact, China’s history with jade has been documented back more than 7,000 years, as Archaeologists have discovered jade objects dating from the early Neolithic period (about 5000 BC).


On the Road of Jade

Experts of the Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology found a 6,000 year-old jade workshop in China. Inside the ruins, piles of stone slices and primitive tools were found along with twenty jade rings.

Xinhua reported that the ruins were located in Tonglu county in Zhejiang province.

In 12th century China, a treatise was written about the property of jade, which resulted in 100 volumes with 700 color illustrations.

Confucius believed jade was the symbol of intelligence, humanity, loyalty and truthfulness, and the Chinese have called it eternal, divine, the Stone of Heaven and Earth, and the stone of tranquility.


Chinese Jade Culture

Peter Luca writes of the Health Properties of Jade in China at Suite101.com.  He says “for centuries, imperial households and courts, ate jade, wore jade, sucked on jade and were buried with it.”

Luca says, “Scientific research has confirmed that the stone contains elements such as: Zinc, Iron, Copper, Manganese, Cobalt, Selenium, Chromium, Titanium, Lithium, Calcium and Sodium. A current line of thinking is that, wearing natural products for a long period of time can supplement the body’s diet in its requirement for these elements.”

Jade also absorbs the sun’s energy and lets it out at night.

The finest Jadeite comes from Myanmar while Nephrite (another type of jade) is found in China, Guatemala, New Zealand and Canada.

As you can see, we have barely scratched the surface of this stone.

Discover China’s Ancient Chimes

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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

The Real Threat of Nationalism

March 4, 2011

After writing about The Economist’s report on The dangers of a rising China, I became curious about China’s nationalism, which has been seen in the West as a bad thing.

While in China, I have never experienced Chinese nationalism as it has been featured in the West’s media or from the mouths of US politicians.

During the 2010 midterm elections, since the US economy was in pain and millions were out of work, China was used (primary by GOP politicians) as a scapegoat and this tactic, among others, paid off when the GOP gained a majority in the House and closed the gap in the Senate.

The China Herald reported on China’s nationalism and what Helen Wang wrote in Forbes. Wang says, “China suspects that America seeks to stop China from rising and interprets everything the US does (or says publicly through the media) through this lens. America worries about China’s nationalism and sees China as a growing power that will challenge its global hegemony. Such mistrust can be a self-fulfilling prophecy and a source of global instability.”

Instead of believing the myths and fictions born of political agendas, I prefer what the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says, “The term ‘nationalism’ is generally used to describe two phenomena: (1) the attitude that the members of a nation have when they care about their national identity, and (2) the actions that the members of a nation take when seeking to achieve (or sustain) self-determination.

Anthony D. Smith, who wrote Nationalism: theory, ideology, history, says “It is misleading to seek to compare nationalism tout court (simply) with other ‘mainstream’ political ideologies, even within the West, their home and main arena.”

The truth is that the rise of China’s nationalism is not the real danger to America.

In fact, the real threat may be a selective form of nationalism growing roots in America, which is the rise of American religious fanaticism.

This embedded YouTube video explores the emerging religious, ultra right-wing mass movement seeking dominion over all aspects of contemporary American society.

Also, discover how the religious right has already infiltrated the US government in Separation of Church and State.

If the religious right achieves its political agenda, the US may become a theocracy.

No matter what you read or hear, nowhere does the definition of theocracy say republic or democracy.

Instead, the definition in Merriam-Webster says, “a government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided (such as the Pope in the Vatican),” and Wikipedia says, “a state ruled by clergy…”

Iran is the perfect example of a religious mass movement giving birth to a theocracy.

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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

The Connection between Opium, Christianity, Cults and Cannon Balls in China

March 1, 2011

Organized religions and cults such as the Falun Gong have been in China for centuries, but have never played a major role in the culture until the 19th century when Christianity was forced on China.

C.M. Cipolla wrote in his book, Guns, Sails and Empires, “While Buddha came to China on white elephants, Christ was born on cannon balls” powered by opium.

The treaty that ended the opium wars included a clause that required China to allow Christian missionaries free access to all of China to convert the heathens.

Then the Taiping Rebellion led by Hong Xiuquan, God’s Chinese son and a Christian convert, was responsible for more than 20 million deaths. Hong claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ. Millions believed him.

In the early months of 1900, thousands of Boxers, officially known as Fists of Righteous Harmony, roamed the countryside attacking Christian missions, slaughtering foreign missionaries and Chinese converts.

Confucius and possibly Lao-Tse have influenced the foundation of Chinese culture and morality the most. These two along with Buddha offer more of a blended influence on Chinese culture than Christianity or Islam.

Thanks to Confucius, China’s mainstream culture understands the importance of people within the family and society more so than many other countries and cultures.

This may explain why China is a powerhouse of industry today.

Learn of Christianity and Islam in China

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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.

 

Note: This post first appeared on iLook China March 11, 2010 as post # 128. This revised version reappears as post # 1095.

7 Comments | China, Chinese history, Christianity, Confucianism, crime, cults, cultural differences, history, Islam, Taoism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Three Heads Talking of China

February 25, 2011

On April 24, 2010, I attended a panel at the 2010 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

The topic was “China: The Next Superpower?” The experts were Richard Baum, author of China Watcher: Confessions of a Peking Tom; Zachary Karabell, Superfusion, and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, China in the 21st Century.


Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Baum is an expert on politics; Karabell on money/economics, and Wasserstrom on history.

Wasserstrom said that China is not the older country. The PRC was sixty-years old while the United States was more than two hundred.

Both the Communist Civil War and the American Revolution rejected colonialism then both expanded into other countries and territories to become world powers.


Richard Baum

Baum added that the cultural differences are significant starting with Confucianism, which expresses Collective Rights instead of individual rights as in America.

Karabell mentioned that there was a lot of misunderstanding and ignorance between the United States and China.


Zachary Karabell

Many in the US believe China is unfair in world trade and that Americans lose jobs because of that.

However, China’s trade with the world is about even between exports and imports and what China buys from the United States keeps many Americans working.

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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.

 

Note: This post first appeared on iLook China April 30, 2010 as post # 278. This revised version reappears as post # 1084.

3 Comments | China, cultural differences, economy | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 4/9

February 25, 2011

US commanders heard rumors that Communist China was moving troops close to the Chinese side of the Yalu River with North Korea.

China’s leaders did not like the US army so close to China. They feared that the US might cross into Manchuria as the Japanese had before launching World War II.

Another factor to consider was that the US supported Communist China’s enemy, Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist Army (KMT) on Taiwan.

The Communists had fought a Civil War with the Nationalists from 1925 to 1949 before winning and America had provided the modern weapons the KMT had used.

American intelligence reports estimated that about 450 thousand Chinese troops might be in the hills north of the Yalu River.

As the UN army moved north, South Korea recovered from the destruction caused by the North Korean invasion.

After centuries of domination by the Mongols, Manchu, Chinese, Russians and Japanese, the South Koreans wanted to govern themselves.

However, China had ruled over Korea off and on for more than a thousand years, and the Chinese culture had a heavy influence on the Koreans. South Korea, on the other hand, did not want a Communist government.

Meanwhile, without much opposition, UN forces continued to advance toward Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.

On October 24, 1950, General McArthur ordered his troops to march to the Yalu River and occupy all Korea. This caused the Chinese to attack on October 25.

Surprised, the UN troops took heavy casualties then quickly retreated south, but many died.

General Walker ordered the UN army to fall back to the Chongchon River. Once the UN forces pulled back, the Chinese stopped fighting and returned to the hills to see what the UN’s next move would be.

After several weeks of calm, General McArthur ordered another advance toward the Yalu River and fired on the Chinese positions, which caused the Chinese to attack again on November 25.

Then the Chinese found a gap between the UN forces and split the UN defensive line sending the UN army in full retreat just at the North Korean winter arrived.

As the UN army retreated south, the US 10th Corps dug in around the Chosin Reservoir, which was high in North Korea’s mountains. The brutal winter temperature there was as low as forty below zero.

Return to China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 3

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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.

Leave a Comment » | America, capitalism, China, Chinese history, Communism, cultural differences, history, military | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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