Suzhou, The Humble Administrator’s Garden: Part 2/2

June 4, 2010

Easy Diving Blogspot.com posted a piece (with a few stunning winter pictures) about Suzhou. Easy Diving said the city’s history goes back to 514 BC.  The gardens were built by imperial officials to create an oasis of tranquility intended for inward reflection.

That tranquility was shattered several times.  The gardens were first destroyed during the Taiping Rebellion.

Then the Japanese invaded China during World War II, and the gardens were destroyed a second time.

During Mao’s Cultural Revolution, many of the gardens were destroyed a third time.

It wasn’t until 1981 when Mao was gone and Deng Xiaoping ruled the Communist Party that most of the gardens were rebuilt along with many of China’s Buddhist temples that had been destroyed.

Return to Suzhou, The Humble Administrator’s Garden: Part 1

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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.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Poor in Paradise

June 3, 2010

Newsweek reported about China’s changing landscape in China’s Hobson’s Choice.  It’s a well-balanced piece and halfway down the page is a video, “Millionaires Overnight”, worth watching.  The message in that video is that sometimes it is better off staying poor.

Guilin, Southeast China

However, China doesn’t have much of a choice but to keep changing. There’s pressure from the hundreds of millions of have-nots in rural China to get what the new urban middle class already has. Then there is the drive to stay “strong” so no one will push China around as the Western powers and Japan did for more than a century after the 1st Opium War until 1949 when Mao won China.

This Newsweek piece talks about the central government waking up to the fact that they have to do something about the pollution.  However, an old Chinese saying explains the clean-up challenge best, “The mountains are high, and the emperor is far away.” 

China’s one party government may appear powerful but reality is a grim fact. After all, the Communist’s Net Nanny’s cannot even keep Chinese from getting past the Internet censors and many Chinese play by their own rules regardless of laws that might end in a death penalty. Greed is a great motivator in any country.

See The Use of Power

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning novels My Splendid Concubine and Our Hart. He also Blogs at The Soulful Veteran and Crazy Normal.

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Cornering the Plug-In Hybrid or all Electric Car

June 2, 2010

Soon after the Copenhagen Climate Conference, China announced to the world that they would cut Greenhouse gases by 40%. I read at AutoBlogGreen, that one step to achieve that pledge has already been put in place—China is offering a $7,300 (in US dollars—the exchange rate today was 6.8279 yuan for each dollar) rebate for Chinese who buy plug in hybrids and $8,800 (US) for a fully-electric vehicle.

One such car is the BYD F6DM, a plug-in hybrid. Top speed should be 100 mph (160 kph, speed should be 100 mph (160 kph), with a range of 62 miles (100 km) in all-electric mode and 267 miles (430 km) total after the gas engine kicks in. A fully electric version called the F6E is planned for 2009. […] the lithium iron phosphate battery is said to be safer, less expensive, without heavy metals, completely recyclable and should be rechargeable to 70% in 10-minute at special charging stations. It can also be recharged more slowly with a home charging station, of course.” To learn more visit Tree Hugger.com

A recent survey shows that nearly 5-6 times more Chinese residents would consider buying an electric car or plug-in hybrid than citizen in the U.S., Germany, Japan and the UK… In the U.S. less than 1 in 4 (depending on who you ask) would consider buying an electric car right now. Source: gas2.0

See China Going Green

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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

China Aiming at Arctic Oil

May 26, 2010

If you are in Iceland and you see someone who may look like an Eskimo dressed in fur against the bitter, winter cold, look twice. That person may be a Chinese oil worker or the crewmember of a Chinese icebreaker.

Icebreaker

The reason is simple. As China brings its 1.3 billion people into the modern age so all Chinese may live like Americans, it takes oil to make that happen.  China’s critics, of course, will find fault no matter what.  If China does nothing to improve the lifestyle of rural Chinese, the government will be blamed. If the air is polluted from all the carbon exhaust from middle-class Chinese driving around enjoying their new Western lifestyle, China will be criticized for that pollution.  If the price for gas and diesel goes up at the pump in Europe or America, China’s hunger for oil will get the blame for that too.

However, China’s government could care less about any foreign patootie’s complaints, because the people they serve in China come first if they want to stay in power. It’s nice to have money, and the Chinese government has it while the rest of the world is in debt.

See “China’s Oil Hunger Grows”

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning novels My Splendid Concubine and Our Hart. He also Blogs at The Soulful Veteran and Crazy Normal.

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Traveling to Xiamen, China

May 23, 2010

China has more than a hundred cities with populations over a million.  If asked to name cities in China, most people outside of China would probably say Shanghai, Beijing, Xian, or Guangzhou (once known as Canton).

Mike Conklin, in a special to the Tribune Newspapers, reveals a rare gem in Xiamen, China—a southeast port across the Taiwan Straits from Taiwan.

Xiamen skyline at night

One of China’s top universities is located in Xiamen with about 30,000 students along with a half dozen other colleges.

Xiamen’s beaches

Besides great beaches and “CLEAN AIR”, the population is environmentally conscious and prices are low.  Two years ago, the Central Chinese government planned to build a chemical plant in Xianmen.  Students took to the streets in peaceful protest and more than a million text messages were sent objecting to the chemical plant.  The central government changed its plans—meaning no chemical plant was built in or near Xiamen. Source: Chicago Tribune

Discover China’s ancient capital, Xian.

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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.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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