China’s Changing Face – Farmers’ Friend the Organic Way – Part 1/3

August 29, 2010

China uses more pesticides than any other country. 

To prove a point, Greenpeace conducted an experiment and sent 45 samples of fruits and vegetables from rural Chinese peasant farmers to an independent laboratory to find out how serious the problem was.

Five of the samples had no pesticides on them. The other 40 samples had 50 different kinds of pesticide on them.  Source: Greenpeace

This video is about a group called “Farmers’ Friend”, professional urbanites from Liuzhou City in Guangxi Province, who wanted to have healthier food to eat that was pesticide free. 

To achieve this, these Chinese professionals connected with peasants in rural China with goals to encourage organic farming that would offer higher incomes to the peasants and healthier food to urban people.

“Farmers’ Friend” wanted to work with the poorest peasants in the poorest rural areas.

Since 1980, hundreds of millions of rural people had moved to urban China to work in factories. This resulted in demands on peasant farmers to grow more food to feed the country, which results in heavy pesticide and chemical fertilizer use.

In 2006, the central government announced a policy of urban support for rural development. However, by then, “Farmers’ Friend” had already taken its first step in 2005 to encourage organic farming in rural areas.

See Women in Science & Business

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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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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Growing Private Education in China

August 28, 2010

Here is another sign that China is evolving. During the Tiananmen Square incident, it was reported that Deng Xiaoping said that China wanted to become a democracy but the people were not ready and education was the key—not just for a handful of elites but also for as many people as possible.

If you still want proof that China is moving toward change without a bloody rebellion, read the East Asia Forum about the growth of private universities in China and India.

The East Asia Forum says, “First, both countries are used to seeing the public sector as the sole provider of education services. Their higher education architecture has evolved consistently with such a monopoly.”

However, in September 2003, China invited foreign universities to set up shop in China.  India made a similar invitation in 2010.

It isn’t easy for foreign universities to open campuses in China since the culture is different from the US or Europe. The East Asia Forum advises that foreign providers for higher education must be patient and persuasive.  They point out early successes like the University of Nottingham in Ningbo, China and the Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University.

If a successful transition takes place, one day there may by a Stanford Shanghai University or a Beijing Harvard campus. Someone must open the door to a better understanding between cultures.

Learn more about China Investing BIG in Education

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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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Chinese American students from US Public Schools Score Big in China

August 25, 2010

The Mercury News reports that four California Chinese American high school students competed in the ninth annual China Girls Mathematical Olympiad and earned top prizes for the United States.  There are more details at Silicon Valley girls capture medals in China.

I congratulate these young women for their achievement.  Actually, the Mercury News did not tally the entire victory for America’s public schools.

If you click to MSRI Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, you will discover that girls from the IMO (USA International Mathematical Olympiad) team won eight medals —six gold, one silver, one bronze and one honorable mention.

What these results show is that students from America’s public schools can be competitive with other countries.

I wrote about this topic in more detail in a five-part series, Education and Cultures Collide in the US, about how the problems in America’s public school are due more to cultural/socio-economic differences than the perceived cancer of teachers unions protecting bad teachers.

If a student (no matter what his or her ethnicity is) does the work, pays attention and reads daily, most teachers will not be expected to do the impossible and face political and media criticism when they can’t.

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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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Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” – 1/10

August 18, 2010

Around 500 BC, the King of Wu summons Sun Tzu, one of the greatest military minds in history, to save his kingdom from a more powerful enemy.

Sun Tzu was a warrior, a philosopher and the author of The Art of War.

Sun Tzu is important because he had a cohesive, holistic philosophy on strategy.  Sun Tzu tells the King of Wu he can defeat the enemy with a smaller army.  Doubting him, the king challenges Sun Tzu to turn the palace concubines into a fighting force and Sun Tzu accepts.

Sun Tzu shows the concubines what to do, selects the best two students and puts them in charge of the others.  When Sun Tzu orders the exercise to begin, the woman laugh.

He tries again but the concubines laugh again.

Sun Tzu says, “If instructions are not clear and commands not explicit, it is the fault of the general.  But if the orders are clear, and my orders are clear, it is the fault of the subordinate officers.”

Without warning, Sun Tzu beheads the two concubines he had selected to lead the others.  To Sun Tzu, war is a matter of life and death. This is the key principal of his teachings.  Once understood, everyone from the general to the solider will be motivated to win.

While the bodies of the first two concubines are still warm, Sun Tzu appoints two new concubines to lead the others. This time the concubines follow his orders without hesitation. The king of Wu is convinced and  appoints Sun Tzu commander of the Wu army.

Sun Tzu now must train an army of 30 thousand troops to fight a force ten times larger.

Go to Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” – Part 2

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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 unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

7 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, cultural differences, education, history | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Stereotypes

August 15, 2010

In this post, I’m going to focus on Americans and Asians/Chinese.

I taught in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural school district for thirty years (1975-2005). In fact, Nogales High School in La Puente California had a student population that was about 70% Latino, 8% black, 8% white, 8% Asian and 6% other.

Most of my Asian students did the homework and earned mostly A’s. One Asian girl earned an A minus on a quarter-report card and came after school to find out what she’d done wrong and how to fix it.  She was in tears.

My wife and daughter are Chinese and I’ve seen them worry about the occasional A minus too.  Why?  Because an A- is too close to a B+. Doing exceptional in school is an important cornerstone in most Chinese families.  Did you notice that I added “most”? There are always exceptions.

In one class I taught, a Latino student said that the Asians were smarter than the rest of the ethnic groups.  That particular class had no Asians in it. 

Everyone in the room agreed but me. I replied, “You’re wrong. Asians aren’t smarter than the other races. The difference is that Asian culture values learning more.  Most Asian parents are more dedicated and involved with their children’s educations.”

In this YouTube video, a female Chinese teen talks about the common Chinese stereotype that “all” Chinese eat rice, avoid the sun, are good at math and are Kung Fu experts.

This spoof shows Americans as stupid and violent.

This video is a Feel-Good rant from a Chinese teen who doesn’t want to be seen as an uncool, unpopular nerd who only eats fried rice and dumplings.  Kevin says there are three main Asian stereotypes that he has to deal with. 

1. Others think he is cheap
2. That he is a nerd
3. And has no social life…

This one was shot by a teen who points out that Americans are rebellious and meddling.

Another Chinese teen talks about Asians and school.  She says that in a Chinese family everything the child is “NOT allowed to do” is linked to success in school.

Australians think of Americans as being fat, arrogant, and obnoxious.

What do you think about other cultures and races?  Do you stereotype others?

See the Failure of Multiculturalism in the United States or Education and Cultures Collide in the US

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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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6 Comments | America, American culture, China, Chinese Culture, cultural differences, education, family values | Tagged: , , | Permalink
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