China’s Changing Face – Farmers’ Friend the Organic Way – Part 2/3

August 29, 2010

The members of “Farmers’ Friend” decided to work with the poorest peasants near Liuzhou City in Guangxi Province. 

The village they selected was Nashe, a three-hour drive from the city that was far from the urban pollution.

The president of “Farmers’ Friend”, Zhou Jinzhang, talked to the senior caption of Nashe, Wei Xiuqing.

It wasn’t easy convincing Wei that organic farming could be profitable for everyone. To encourage the peasants, “Farmers’ Friend” agreed to be responsible for any economic losses.

With this guarantee, Wei agreed to work with “Farmers’ Friend” to set up the duck-rice system.

The ducks would eat the insects and pesticides would no longer be needed. 

Soon after starting the project, there were problems. Some of the ducks died from pesticides used by other farmers.

“Farmers’ Friend” also brought in experts to help create better pig breeding programs. The result was that the urban people enjoyed healthier food and the peasants earned more income.

Now Wei has a dream to become prosperous enough through organic farming to attract the young people who left to work in urban factories to return home to the village.

See Deng Xiaoping’s 20/20 Vision

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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

The “What If” Housing Bubble in China

August 29, 2010

Charles Hugh Smith writes for the Daily Finance and claims that China’s Housing Bubble Will End Badly.

That’s not going to happen for several reasons. The first reason is that China’s economy does not depend on the housing market to survive. Most people in China still don’t own their homes even in the cities.

In the US, housing loans to GDP were 79% but in China, that number is about 15%, which means real estate in China doesn’t prop up the economy.

Let’s look at one fictional individual who loses his job in China and can’t make his mortgage payment.

If he always lived in the city and has family (even distant relations), he will move in with them and rent his home to make the payments. The family may even pitch in so he doesn’t lose the home.

If that fictional Chinese man came to the city to work from a village, he returns home.  The peasants in rural China don’t have to worry about losing those homes.  In fact, it’s as if China had two economies: rural and urban.

If the government needs to develop the land the peasant’s home sits on, a new home is provided. More than seven hundred million Chinese live in villages owned by collectives and the central government. Those peasants don’t have a mortgage payment, pay rent or property tax.

Even in urban China, people only pay property tax once when they buy the home they live in.  Property tax for your home isn’t an annual burden as in the US.

Another factor is that the average savings rate in China is 40% and the wealthiest Chinese own about 40% of urban real estate.

See Betting Against China’s Housing Market

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. 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

Reluctant Capitalists

August 27, 2010

The New York Times reports that China Passes Japan as Second-Largest Economy, but China’s leaders could care less. They have other concerns like the changing moral climate.

The Economist reported in Party poopers (August 14, page 32), that China’s rulers are not happy with the “vulgar, cheap and kitsch culture” that has appeared in much of urban China.

I wrote about this in China’s Sexual Revolution where many urban Chinese are acting as if they are from Europe or America where the morals have been in decline for decades.

The tone of the piece in The Economist is critical and mentions the 1980s alluding to the Tiananmen Square incident that the Western media misrepresented as a democracy movement led by students.

I doubt if there will be the kind of crack down seen in the 1980s. In fact, for more than two thousand years, the Chinese have seen themselves as more civilized than the rest of the world. The “vulgar, cheap and kitsch” culture appearing in China doesn’t fit.

China’s leaders, who are from a more conservative generation, are expressing their distaste for what is happening. They also realize that in 2012, another generation is taking over and this is their last chance to at least appear as if they are doing something.

When Deng Xiaoping announced, “Getting Rich is Glorious”, China’s leader may not have realized that the “vulgar, cheap, and kitsch” comes with the territory.

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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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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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Tiananmen Square Revisited

July 23, 2010

When I was writing and posting Part 8 for China’s Capitalist Revolution, there was a scene in that segment of the documentary of a student dressed in pajamas sitting in a chair.  This so-called student leader for the Tiananmen Square incident was rude, arrogant and demanding.

There was no sign of the piety I see everyday—that I have lived with and witnessed since I married into a Chinese family. My wife and her family lived in China during Mao’s time. They suffered through the same changes everyone else did but their respect for piety never changed.

I read the “What is the truth about Tiananmen Square?” post again.

Why did President H. W. Bush change ambassadors in the middle of the incident with a man who had once been an operative for the CIA working in Asia inserting agents into China? James Lilly wouldn’t have to meet with the students himself. He knew who the double agents in China were. He had to know.

“The protesters were not demanding Western style politics or an end to Communist Party rule as many in the West believe.  They wanted the government to listen to their opinions about   reforms and corruption.  The banners the protesters carried said, “We Support the Great Glorious Communist Party of China.” Source: China’s Capitalist Revolution, Part 7

It was the Western media and the rude, arrogant students, who turned the event into a democracy movement but only after Lilly was in the country or on his way. Did President Bush seize an opportunity?

In fact, it wasn’t until after that student treated his elders with disrespect, that Deng Xiaoping sent the troops in—a reaction to be expected in a country with a collective culture like China’s where practicing piety is the same as breathing.

What choice did he have?  After all, the students had demanded the negotiations be broadcast live on TV to the nation. Embarrassed in front of the country he ruled, Deng had no choice. It was a great loss of face for him and the government.  Loss of face is probably the leading cause of suicide in Asian countries like Japan and the two Koreas.

That student acted as if he was untouchable–that he had insurance. Maybe he did. He had taken a huge risk to gain face, and it turned into a tragedy.

Moreover, why has America’s media made such a big deal out of the Tiananmen Square incident where hundreds died and almost nothing about the slaughter conducted by (an American ally) Chiang Kai-shek’s troops in Taiwan where almost thirty thousand were murdered? See 2/28 Massacre in Taiwan

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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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