Greenpeace China

January 2, 2011

If China is a totalitarian country without much freedom as critics such as Liu Xiaobo claim, why is Greenpeace thriving there without harassment from China’s central government?

Then, if democracies are so desirable, why did Japan send two Greenpeace activists to jail for one year after exposing widespread corruption in the Japanese government’s Southern Ocean whaling programme?

Even though the US remains the world’s worst number one CO2 polluter, during the Bush administration, warnings from government scientists were ignored as if climate change wasn’t happening.

While in China, efforts to combat climate change demonstrate that China’s government acknowledges the challenge as well as the responsibility of China to tackle them.


Listen to Greenpeace China’s Tom Wang in Tianjin calmly being honest about China’s pollution challenges.

In fact, Greenpeace China has offices in Hong Kong (opened 1997), Beijing and Guangzhou (opened in 2002) and is the largest non-governmental organization (NGO) in the People’s Republic of China.

Then in 2006, Greenpeace China was the only NGO to be consulted on an early draft of renewable energy law by China’s National People’s Congress.

Has the US government consulted with Greenpeace?

China has also allowed two Greenpeace expeditions to China’s Himalayan region in 2006 and 2007 where evidence was discovered of the dramatic retreat of glaciers, which was reported in National Geographic Magazine.

One Greenpeace China campaign focused on stopping Monsanto, a US-headquartered biotechnology giant, from patenting a Chinese indigenous soybean variety.

Earlier campaigns in China focused on food, agriculture and electronic waste while highlighting the dangers of PVC in children’s toys.

Today, Greenpeace China runs five major campaigns focused on climate, energy, food and agriculture, water pollution and a campaign on air pollution focused on Hong Kong only.

I admit finding this information about Greenpeace China surprised me because all I’ve heard in the Western media of Greenpeace is that they are a gang of dangerous activists doing crazy things to get attention.

Until reading about Greenpeace in China, I didn’t know what a positive force this NGO was for cleaning the environment.

Now I want to know why the US isn’t doing more.

Discover Where All that Pollution Came From

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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.

To subscribe to iLook China, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Vampires

December 25, 2010

Belief in vampires is not confined to the people of Transylvania, and half humans able to transform themselves into monsters are no strangers to Chinese folklore. Some tales may be traced back to the third century AD.

Since Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published in 1897, this makes a case that vampire folklore may have originated in China and traveled west along the Silk Road almost two thousand years ago.

The Chinese vampire is called a Jiang-shi (also spelled Kaing-shi or Chiang-shih). However, Chinese vampires are different from Dracula or Anne Rice’s vampires.

Chinese folklore says the Jiang-shi is stiffened by rigor mortis and these vampires have to hop to get around.  The Jiang-shi also finds its victims by smelling your breath, so if a hungry Jiang-shi is about, it is best to stop breathing.

In the 1980s, there was a series of vampire movies produced in Hong Kong. The first in the series was Mr. Vampire (you may watch Mr. Vampire here. For parts two through ten, scroll down to the embedded YouTube series at the bottom of this post).

 
Mr. Vampire – Part 1/10
with English subtitles

Ricky Lau directed Mr. Vampire and the producer was Sammo Hung.

Chopper Time says, “Almost all of these movies are pretty watchable, but the best of the bunch was the first one, an expert horror-comedy called Mr. Vampire.”

There were a few Taiwanese vampire films, which include The Vampire Shows His Teeth (a series of three films (1984-1986), New Mr. Vampire (1985), Elusive Song of the Vampire (1987) and Spirit versus Zombie (1989).

Today, Vampires stories are becoming popular in mainland China. Tom Carter, an American author and expatriate living in China, says Twilight is a popular pirated novel and some Twilight fans are now writing their own fan-fiction and vampire stores in Chinese on their Blogs.

In fact, a shop called the Vampire opened its doors recently in Beijing to sell vampire, zombie, and werewolf blood along with Satan poison and UFO fuel.

In November 2010, the China Daily reported Blood Shop drawing a thirsty Crowd.

“The shop, which opened September 20, is reportedly the first of its kind in Beijing. The storefront also has a stained-glass window adorned with a miniature vampire model sucking blood from a cup held in his skeletal hand.”

Another excellent Chinese movie is Farewell My Concubine but there are no vampires in this film.

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

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Mr. Vampire continued
with English subtitles


Mr. Vampire – Part 2/10


Mr. Vampire – Part 3/10


Mr. Vampire – Part 4/10


Mr. Vampire – Part 5/10


Mr. Vampire – Part 6/10


Mr. Vampire – Part 7/10


Mr. Vampire – Part 8/10


Mr. Vampire – Part 9/10


Mr. Vampire – Part 10/10

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese literature, expatriates, history, media | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Demanding Censorship

December 22, 2010

The Huffington Post reported this month (December 2010) that a collection of Grimm Brothers’ classic fairy tales was pulled from bookstores in China.

Since we hear so often about censorship in China, doesn’t that sound as if this children’s book was censored.

However, China’s government was not involved.

In China, even in the state-run media, reporters that write the stories or editors do most of the censorship.  Being Chinese, these people know what is culturally acceptable by the people and politically sensitive to the Party.

In fact, people that work for China’s state run media are often proud of their self-censorship.

Agence France-Presse (AFP), which is one of the three largest and the oldest (founded in 1835 and reborn in 1944) news agency, broke this story about the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales.

There are more facts to this than I shared with you in the lead paragraph, which is what the Western media often does when writing about China.

To be fair, both the AFP and Huffington Post did say in their leads the reason for the censorship of this book.

“An X-rated collection of Grimm Brothers’ classic fairy tales – including one in which the heroine engages in sexual relations with both her father and seven dwarves -– has been pulled from children’s bookstores in China.”

“Readers called us to say they did not think the book was healthy for children,” said Li Yong, the deputy chairman of the publisher, as quoted by the Telegraph saying. “After that, we pulled all the copies off shelves across the country….”

It turns out that the book was a Japanese pornographic reinterpretation of the fairy tales.

Learn more about the China Daily, which is part of the state-run media giant in the PRC.

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

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Flaws of Democracy and Humanitarianism – Part 7/7

December 17, 2010

Left Coast Voices posted a piece about Liu Xiabo, a leader of the Chinese democracy movement, who won the latest Nobel Peace Prize. My response turned into a seven part series.

What is the freedom that Liu Xiabo wants for China? 

From today’s Western democratic perspective, it means the individual is king and may do whatever he or she wants even rape children, murder and steal with the knowledge that his or her rights are protected regardless of the crimes and suffering caused.

Then there is the Western, Christian concept that even violent murderers and/or rapists of infants may ask God for forgiveness, and that forgiveness will be granted no matter the crime—no matter the suffering caused in society.

Meanwhile, in China, other than restrictions on political dissent and a limited number of religious choices, the people are free to live any honest lifestyle he or she can afford to support, as is the case in the West.

As for religious freedom in China, that is not important to most Chinese since Religion in China has been characterized by pluralism since the beginning of recorded Chinese history as far back as five thousand years.

Chinese religions are family-oriented and do not demand the exclusive adherence of members.

Generally, the percentages of people who call themselves religious in China have been the lowest in the world. This does not mean that most Chinese do not believe in heaven or God.

They just do not need to belong to organized religions such as Christianity or Islam.

In fact, evidence in the West says that political dissent isn’t an important freedom since about half of the West’s eligible voters don’t vote anyway.

After all, nonvoters in America are too busy enjoying many of the freedoms that are now enjoyed by the citizens of China.

However, I admit that I enjoy my First Amendment rights as a US citizen, or I might not be writing this Blog defending China’s right to decide its political future.

As a US citizen, I do vote and express my political opinions, but I don’t stage public demonstrations as Liu Xiabo did in China. If you study the Chinese Constitution, you will discover that what he did could be considered illegal in China’s collective culture.

Return to The Flaws of Democracy and Humanitarianism – Part 6

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

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Morgan Freeman’s Bucket List and China

December 16, 2010

When I read today that Morgan Freeman had died, I dived into Google looking for verification from a traditional media source. I’ve come to distrust some virtual sources, which explains why there are so many links in my posts to the sources I quote.

While learning that Morgan Freeman was still alive and it was a Twitter hoax, I discovered that a right-wing political campaign had hijacked his voice during the 2010-midyear elections, which shows how dirty US politics has become.

The New York Daily News reported that Morgan Freeman said, “I didn’t voice GOP attack ad despite campaign’s claims. These people are lying!”

Similar deceit and lies brought us the Iraq and Vietnam Wars.

Then the Travel Maven mentioned Morgan Freeman and sidekick Jack Nicholson zipping along the Great Wall of China on a motorcycle as they followed their Bucket List.

I also discovered that 72-year-old Morgan Freeman divorced his wife of 25 years in 2009 and plans to marry his 27-year-old step-granddaughter. I hadn’t heard that before and I didn’t check any further.

I don’t judge Freeman for his personal life.  If Woody Allen can do it, so can Freeman.

Then I ran into Hunter Seeker.com — another Blogger hiding behind a fake name.

Seeker said, “Well you can imagine my surprise when I heard his (Freeman’s) voice in a commercial for Visa who are sponsors of the Beijing Olympic! I was not only shocked but disappointed that he had done the commercial. I would have thought the he of all people would have declined to do it. I guess I was wrong. I guess the only question I can ask is Why?”

Without much evidence, many in the West fall for emotional messages and do not check the facts to learn if China is guilty of all the things it has been accused of.

One comment at Hunter Seeker.com from Karen Byrne is a perfect example. “Does that mean I love China and all the horrible things they do to their population — NO! NO! NO!”

Karen, what horrible things has China done to their population recently?  Do you know?

In fact, the government that replaced Mao after he died in 1976 has done nothing horrible to at least 99.9% of China’s huge population.

In fact, China took the 20% literacy rate in 1976 and in the next thirty years raised it higher than 90%. 

The new government also improved the nation’s schools and lifted all but 10% of China out of poverty while modernizing the cities, and building more roads, railroads and airports to help the country and the people prosper.

China’s central government has also made deals globally to make sure China’s people do not starve and die again as so many did under Mao during the Great Leap Forward.

I don’t care who Morgan Freeman marries or sleeps with. I don’t care where his Visa commercials air and I believe that China’s current central government is not as guilty as the Western media and American politicians have made it seem for gullible people like Seeker and Karen Byrne.

Learn the facts — Dictatorship Defined

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

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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