China’s Spring and Autumn Period 3/3

September 13, 2010

Qufu allows visitors to experience the full customs of the Lu kingdom during the Spring and Autumn period.

The narrator shoots arrows then shows how corn was ground to make corn meal. There is also a demonstration on how people cooked followed with a Confucian lunch.

Confucius said meat had to be prepared a certain way and that diet must be balanced.

He was also firm about eating in silence.

It is said that Confucius taught his son under a Ginkgo tree, because he loved reading and pondering under one of the trees.

To the north of Qufu is the family cemetery where Confucius and his decendants are buried. 

It is the oldest family cemetery in the world. The cemetery is 1.5 times the size of the ancient city of Qufu.

It is estimated that there are more than 100,000 grave mounds and over 3,600 cemetery tablets were constructed.

Confucius had a deep interest in paying respect to heaven and the ancestors.

The Spring and Autumn Period during the time of Confucius was chaotic, but it was during this turbulence that Confucianism slowly wove itself into the fabric of Chinese culture.

See Confucius with Chow Yun Fat or return to China’s Spring and Autumn Period – 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 this Blog, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Confucianism, family values, history | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Spring and Autumn Period – Part 1/3

September 12, 2010

The Zhou Dynasty (1126 – 222 B.C.) was still around when China’s Spring and Autumn Period arrived, but the Zhou king had lost his power to the nobles who often fought wars with each other.

The Spring and Autumn Period of the Zhou Dynasty took place from 770 to 476 B.C.

During this time, Confucius lived in Qufu, in Southwest Shandong Province, which was once the capital of the Lu Kingdom.

There were 150 kingdoms competing with each other. Constant warfare meant chaos and anarchy.

However, during the 5th and 6th centuries there was a period of learning around the world.  In Greece, there was Pythagoras, Sakyamuni (Buddhism) Nepal, and Confucianism was established in Qufu, China.

Today, Qufu’s ancient city opens each weekend with a large ceremony before tourists are allowed to visit.

Confucius home is inside the ancient city walls. Two years after Confucius died, the king of Lu turned his home into a temple to honor the sage.

To continue honoring Confucius, emperors of the Han, Sung, Ming and Qing Dynasties had more buildings built on the site of the original temple.

Sacrificial ceremonies have been held there for more than two thousand years.

See Emperor Wu of Zhou Dynasty

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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 this Blog, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Poverty and China’s Peasant farmers – Part 3/3

September 12, 2010

In rural China, the peasants do not earn much money.  They live in what the West calls poverty, but they have a home and a roof over their heads.  They are not homeless and seldom are hungry as the poor in India, which is touted as the largest democracy on the earth.

The peasant farmers in China grow most of the food they eat and sell what they do not need as the Amish do today in America and as 90% of Americans did before the Industrial Revolution.

If Chinese peasants, go to school, eat a nutritious diet and have access to basic medical care as China’s central government has promised, health will improve and life spans may surpass urban China where the air pollution is bad.

China is extending the electric grid and improving public transportation so rural China will have access to the same luxuries that urban people have. Before 1980, rural Chinese lived as most Americans did before the Industrial Revolution.

For thousands of years, the backbone of China has always been the peasant farmers and their collective lifestyle. What will happen to China if they all join the consumer oriented middle class?

Rural America must have been a collective culture before the Industrial Revolution. Consumerism and credit cards changed most Americans, except the Amish, into an individualistic culture where “I” is more important than “We”. 

The Amish are still a collective culture with free will to leave and become a modern American consumer. Why don’t they?

See Climbing the Dragon’s Back

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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 this Blog, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | capitalism, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese middle class, cultural differences, education, family values, food, health care | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Poverty and China’s Peasant farmers – Part 2/3

September 11, 2010

Before the industrial revolution, there was no public education as it exists today and few could read and write.  Due to poor nutrition and living conditions, people didn’t live long.

However, there is nothing wrong with the rural peasant farmer lifestyle.  Who needs money to survive when you grow your own food and make all the things you need?

With a small community of family and close neighbors that work together for survival, what else is needed?

For example, there are the Amish in America, who live as people did before the Industrial Revolution. The Amish choose to live a simple life based on their religious beliefs.

The Amish seriously follow the Biblical commands to separate themselves from frivolous material things that many take for granted and can’t live without.

In addition, the Amish don’t have electricity and do not drive cars.

Why doesn’t the media report on how deprived the Amish are as they report on the poor, peasant farmers in China?

Does this mean the Amish are poor and live in poverty because they don’t have consumer products like computers, iPads or iPods, and expensive cars or trucks and all the other junk that we cannot eat?

See China’s Stick People

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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 this Blog, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Poverty and China’s Peasant Farmers – Part 1/3

September 11, 2010

If you read about China, you may have heard that hundreds of millions live below the poverty level.  After all, many peasant farmers in rural China do not earn much money.

Are they poor?  Are they starving?  Are they homeless?

How do we measure poverty in an industrialized, electronic, virtual Internet nation? The answer is that poverty is measured by the lack of money and/or credit.

In the above video, the narrator says that the way people lived in America before the Industrial Revolution was different from the way we live today.  Nine out of ten people in rural areas.

There was a large, mostly poor lower class, a small rich upper class and not much of a middle class.

Rural people raised most of their food on small farms. They didn’t have to leave home each day to work at a job in a town or city. There were families and small village communities that depended on each other in a collective lifestyle.

Back then, there were no electric lights, no movies, no telephones, no recorded music and no cars (and not much pollution).

Ordinary people used their hands to make most of the things they needed. 

The world was quiet because there were no noisy machines.  The pace of life was slower.

See China’s Changing Face – Farmers’ Friend the Organic Way

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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 this Blog, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, cultural differences, family values | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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