Stealing China’s History and Leaving Guilt Behind

December 3, 2010

I’m writing about Dunhuang China, a documentary.  Dunhuang is located in northwest China in Gansu province.

The video is in Mandarin but there are English subtitles competent enough to understand what the lovely host and the experts on the panels are saying about the meaning and history of Dunhuang’s Buddhist hand-carved grottos.

Dunhuang was located at the beginning of the ancient Silk Road and was first built during the early Han Dynasty (206 BC -219 AD).

Trade caravans came to Dunhuang from Europe, the Roman Empire, Persia, and India. Dunhuang was also the city the caravans left on the long trek west from China.

Dunhuang became a multicultural city that prospered during the Tang Dynasty (618 – 906 AD).

Over centuries, Buddhist grottos/caves were carved from the cliffs of Dunhuang and a monastery was built in this remote location.

About a thousand years ago, the site was sealed and abandoned to the shifting sands of the desert.

Then in the late 18th century, a Buddhist monk accidently rediscovered the library cave where thousands of priceless Buddhist books had been stored for millennia.

It’s as if a Tang Emperor saw the future and realized to save some of China’s history, it would have to be hidden in a remote, desolate location.

The documentary leaves a strong impression that China treasures what is left of the wall and ceiling paintings that captures centuries of Chinese history.

Many Chinese feel guilt at allowing some paintings to be cut away from the walls along with ancient Buddhist texts that were looted in the early 1900s by charlatans and thieves from Japan, England, France, Russia, Germany and the United States.

The documentary goes into detail of who these thieves were.

For decades now, a few scholars have sacrificed and struggled to study and preserve what’s left.

In October 2010, Tele Times International reported that PCCW Limited was awarded a contract by the Dunhuang Academy China to provide a digital theater system at the Dunhuang Mogao Caves Visitor Center. The plans call for four digital theaters.

Crystal Inks.com says, “Dunhuang has 492 caves, with 45,000 square meters of frescos, 2, 415 painted statues and five wooden-structured caves. The Mogao Grottoes contain priceless paintings, sculptures, some 50,000 Buddhist scriptures, historical documents, textiles, and other relics that first stunned the world in the early 1900s.”

Discover more at  A Millennia of History at a Silk Road Oasis

______________

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 » | Buddhism, Buddhist, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, cultural differences, history | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

A Road to the Hajj from China – Part 2/2

November 30, 2010

Another devout Chinese Muslim in Xian is proudly transcribing the Quran into Chinese using traditional Chinese brush calligraphy. He says it took him over a year to transcribe the entire Quran this way. Now he is working on a second copy.

He has also taught his son and his grandsons how to write with the Chinese brush wanting to pass down this tradition to the next generation.

His son says that every generation should try their best to transcribe the Quran with the Chinese brush, as it is also a good way to reinforce our faith.

The original copy of the Quran in this family is over four hundred years old, a priceless relic transcribed by the Chinese imams. There are only a few remaining copies left in the world.

Jia Wen Yi, a Hajj pilgrim, says the trip to Mecca is important to him and his wife, an elderly couple. They have done a lot of preparation for the hajj. Mr. Jia goes into detail about the planning.

Going on the hajj for Yi and his wife, Jia Wang Yi, has been a dream for over two decades as they saved to have enough money.

Mr. and Mrs. Jia will be part of a group of 250 pilgrims leaving for the hajj from the city of Xian. It was a matter of saving most of their lives until they could afford the trip.

Since these Muslims are considered a minority in China, they are not restricted by the one-child policy, as you would see in the video when the family and friends gather to say goodbye before Mr. and Mrs. Jia leave on the long journey to Mecca.

There is no direct flight from Xian to Mecca, so the pilgrims will take a train to Beijing where they will board a flight to Saudi Arabia.

Whenever pilgrims leave Xian to go on the hajj to Mecca, thousands of Chinese Muslims show up at the railway station to say goodbye. This is the first time Mr. and Mrs. Jia have left China. They have never been apart from their family before.

Return to A Road to the Hajj from China – Part 1 and/or discover The Kaifeng Jews

______________

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.

1 Comment | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, cultural differences, history, Islam, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

A Road to the Hajj from China – Part 1/2

November 30, 2010

This two-part post may come as a surprise to many in the West that believe there is no religious freedom in China.

In fact, China handles religious freedom similar to how Singapore does, and Singapore is seldom if ever criticized in the Western media for this practice.

The U.S. Department of State says that Singapore’s government has broad powers to limit citizens’ rights and handicap political opposition, which it uses. One of those restrictions is a limited freedom of religion.

However, the Constitution for the Republic of Singapore offers the same fundamental liberties China and the US does, which includes freedom of speech, assembly and association and freedom of religion.

For example, Singapore bans the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Unification Church by making public meetings illegal. The Falun Gong has also had problems in Singapore.

China, on the other hand, recognizes five religions — Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism but has banned certain new religious movements that are considered cults. China does not recognize cults as religions.

In the video embedded with this post, Al Jazeera follows Chinese Muslims as they prepare to undertake the hajj pilgrimage.

The ancient city of Xian in Shaanxi province is home to about 60,000 ethnic Chinese Muslims.

Xian claims it has a Muslim history going back thirteen hundred years when Islam was first introduced to China in 650 AD.

In fact, the oldest mosque in China was built in 685-762 AD in Xian during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty.

Chinese Imam Ma Yi Ping speaks both Chinese and Arabic. He studied at the Islamic University of Medina and has made the hajj several times. He was taught to be a devout Muslim by his parents during Mao’s time when the mosques in China were closed.

Despite the persecutions that took place during the Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976), Islam survived in China.

Ma Yi Ping says that after Mao and the Gang of Four were gone and China opened for trade with the world, he did not have to study the Quran in secret anymore.

Since the 15th century, Xian Muslims have been going to Mecca in Saudi Arabia for the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

In the past, during the ancient days of the Silk Road, these journeys started and ended in Xian’s Muslim quarter. Today is no different.

Continued in A Road to the Hajj from China – Part 2

______________

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.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top right-hand side of this page and then follow directions.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, cultural differences, history, Islam, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Barbara Walters on North Korea and China

November 29, 2010

Recently, Barbara Walters talked to President Obama about North Korea’s shelling of a South Korean island near the DMZ.

Obama said South Korea was one of America’s most important alliances (in Asia), which has to be true since South Korea has many Christians (about a third of the population). It also has a strong open market, capitalist economy and a democratic government.

However, although China is considered North Korea’s only friend and ally, the two countries are different today.

First, China left the autocratic Maoist revolutionary form of government behind soon after Mao’s death.

Second, China is a republic that appears to be moving toward democracy and has an open market economy similar to South Korea’s.

I said in a previous post, “China’s reluctance to put public pressure on Pyongyang to step off the warhorse might be because the Chinese feel it would be like pressuring a family member.” Source: China and North Korea

That may no longer be the case.

Austin Ramzy writing for TIME says, “The news, delivered at a rare Sunday press conference, was that China was calling for emergency consultations between itself, North and South Korea, the U.S., Japan and Russia… it was a welcome call for calm by the North’s key ally.”

Many in the world should be glad of China’s relationship with the Hermit Kingdom. If it weren’t for China, there would be no one North Korea would listen to.

Walters also was in China with President Richard Nixon in 1972, and she paints a picture of China about thirty-eight years ago that vividly offers a contrast to today’s China.

Then in April 2009, Walters asked Jiang Zemin (China’s third president after Mao died) what happened to the famous “tank man” of the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989.

Walters says, “Did you execute him? We heard he was arrested and executed.”

Zemin replied that he did not know what happened to the man. Then he said he thinks the man was never killed.

______________

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

Leave a Comment » | America, China, Chinese history, history, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty – Part 4/4

November 27, 2010

During the campaign to appease the savage Mongolian nomadic tribes, Yongle granted noble titles to the tribal chiefs and gave them Chinese names. His strategy was to divide and conquer.

Many Mongol chiefs were allowed to live south of the Great Wall and in Beijing. The emperor wanted them to be assimilated into the Han culture.

An envoy from Tibet met with Yongle and the emperor established a tributary relationship with Tibet and other nations.

In order to guarantee enough food to feed northern China, a canal was built between Jinan and Ningbo in western Shandong province extending the Grand Canal.

After that extension, about 3000 grain ships traveled north to Beijing annually and returned.

When the construction of the Forbidden City was completed in 1421, the emperor moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing.


Mandarin with English subtitles

About this time, Yongle’s health started to deteriorate, and his attempt to assimilate the Mongolians failed as the nomadic tribes continued to send large-scale military raids into northern China.

In order to prevent these intrusions, Yongle had no choice but to return to his father’s strategy of reinforcing and rebuilding the Great Wall.

After Emperor Yongle died in 1424, the prosperity and energy of the Ming Dynasty died with him.

Another emperor destroyed most of the records of Admiral Zheng He’s seven voyages and forbid any more explorations at sea and closed China again.

In fact, much of the technology used to build Zheng He’s fleet was lost.

Zheng He’s voyages have not been forgotten and are still celebrated in parts of Southeast Asia where the fleet stopped during the seven known voyages.

Return to Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty – Part 3

______________

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 » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, history | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »