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.
Another flaw behind this concept of Christian dominated, Western Humanitarianism and democracy led to the 2008 global financial crises which left a few individual Wall Street bankers very rich while causing about 64 trillion US dollars in global loses leading to tens of millions of vanished jobs and much suffering for people around the world.
In China, the West’s concept of Humanitarianism will not work well, since the safety, stability and harmony of the group is more important than the individual—the opposite of Western style Humanitarianism as advocated by the Nobel Peace Prize committee and Liu Xiabo.
For example, those US bankers that brought down the global economy in 2008 are still free to cause more global economic havoc while growing larger personal fortunes.
In China, the men that caused the 2008 financial crises would have been executed or locked up for life for the financial loses and suffering that was caused by unbridled individual greed. Many of the employees that worked for these men may have also earned prison sentences.
If you want to learn who those men were, I recommend visiting the Website for Inside Job, a documentary of the global financial crises.
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.
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.
In this segment, I will write about the self-esteem movement in America and make the connection that Western style democracy and Humanitarianism are not right for cultures such as China.
The self-esteem movement in the US had its start in the 18th century and as a cancer grew from there to the epidemic that now threatens the foundations of the United States.
The self-esteem movement makes sure that children hear only positive praise and that before turning 18, that the facade of success and getting good grades (not necessarily earning those grades) in school are guaranteed.
In the last few decades, this leg of Western style democratic humanitarianism has put much pressure on teachers to deliver the impossible.
However, in China, students must earn school grades through hard work (there are no gifts to help one feel good) and the competition is fierce while failure is crushing, which explains the high suicide rate in “all” of Asia (where the self-esteem movement in the US did not take root) and not just China.
Most US children have been told that if he or she can dream it, he or she will achieve that dream as if every child can become the next Tiger Woods, Bill Gates, a super star of some kind, or a future president of the US.
Then those American children with high false self-esteem turn 18 and reality bites, which may explain the high incidence of drug and alcohol use in the US.
Then there is Frankenstein of Humanitarianism — armed nation building where Western democracies are willing to start wars to create nations that will support the West’s concept of Humanitarianism. This mutated arm of Humanitarianism led to the Iraq and Afghan wars.
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.
The more I learn about China, the more I realize that most of what happens in China has everything to do with cultural differences and little to do with the Communist Party.
Lisa Wang writes, “The digital copying of music, images, and video, and their distribution over the internet (in China) can provide hours of entertainment for the general public and multiple migraines for rights holders.”
Many in the West that read this may think infringement of copyright in China is done to make money by selling fake copies but that isn’t always the case.
The Economist of December 4 published a piece of how difficult it was to make a profit in the toughest recorded-music market in the world, which is China.
It seems that the Chinese will not pay to download music on the Internet.
Instead, the people download music free from a number of sites where other Chinese have made the music available.
In the November 20 issue of The Economist, I discovered that despite government censorship, many in China are downloading pirated video online and watching the latest movie releases and television shows from America.
In fact, pirated television on-line is so widespread, Wentworth Miller, who is best-known for his role in the Fox television show Prison Break, was mobbed by his fans when he visited China.
However, Prison Break is not broadcast on Chinese television.
If censors block a foreign TV show or movie, the Chinese may often watch pirated DVDs or go on-line to watch pirated versions free.
I know an American expatriate living in China that watches the latest American movies free a few days after they hit the theaters in America, and he watches on-line.
The Chinese have a reputation for being frugal and saving money and this may be another way to achieve that goal by cooperatively helping each other.
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.
A Western activist Blog, 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 to the post in Left Coast Voices that supported Liu Xiabo continues.
When America was still a republic, convicted criminals were quickly executed within a matter of weeks.
Today, in the democracy that has replaced the US republic, it takes more than a decade for a convicted monster to reach the death chamber at a cost of millions of US dollars.
For comparison, before Macao was returned to mainland China in 1999, the Chinese triads in Macao were having a street war over control of the Portuguese colony. There were shootings and killings almost daily. Often, honest citizen were caught in the crossfire and killed.
The streets weren’t safe.
Representatives of the People’s Republic of China approached the leaders of these gangs in Macao and told them what would happen if the violence and killing continued. The day China took possession of Macao from Portugal, the gang wars in Macao stopped along with the killings.
Western style Christian influenced Humanitarianism is the belief that the individual is more important than society.
In theory, humanitarian work is simple: “you help people in need”.
However, this simple concept of individuals helping individuals turned into a monster with many faces such as the civil-rights movement in the US when it mutated into a quota system for minorities getting jobs or being accepted into universities while rejecting better-qualified individuals from racial groups (Caucasians and Asians) that were not considered downtrodden and disadvantaged.
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.
The Last Empress of China ruled the Qing Dynasty as a coregent after her husband, The Xianfeng Emperor died in 1861, and her son, The Tongzhi Emperor (1856 – 1875), was too young to rule China.
Technically, The Empress Dowanger Tzu Hsi (Cixi) wasn’t the last empress.
However, she was the last empress to rule China as a regent for her son then her nephew after her son died at 19.
Sterling Seagrave, the author of Dragon Lady, writes, “absurdly little was known about her life. The New York Times printed a long, error filled obituary calling her Tzu An, the title of her coregent who had died twenty-seven years earlier.”
Many current history texts have slandered the Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi (1835 – 1908) without much evidence as one of history’s most monstrous women—a ruthless Manchu concubine who seduced and murdered her way to the throne in 1861 to rule China through prevision, corruption and intrigue.
This is how many still think of Tzu Hsi.
She has been accused of murdering her son then years later her nephew, who died the day before she did.
Instead, her son may have died of syphilis because it was rumored he preferred prostitutes to his virgin concubines.
Some rumors claim that Tzu Hsi had her nephew poisoned, but Yuan Shikai may also have poisoned him. There is no evidence to support either theory.
How did the Tzu Hsi earn such a bad reputation? It seems that she earned this reputation similar to how today’s China has been smeared in the Western media.
To understand how this came about, I will make a comparison to Jayson Blair, a young reporter for the New York Times that wrote more than 600 articles for the newspaper. During his short career with the New York Times, Blair committed repeated “acts of journalistic fraud”, including stealing material from other papers and inventing quotes.
Blair’s fraud was revealed in 2003 while he still worked for the newspaper. Source: BBC News
However, Jayson Blair was not the first reporter to commit “acts of journalistic fraud”.
Edmund Backhouse did the same writing about the Tzu Hsi at the beginning of the 20th century, and his lies and deceit wouldn’t be discovered until Sterling Seagrave was researching Dragon Lady decades later.
Backhouse’s journalistic fraud served as the foundation for most history texts that have slandered Tzu Hsi.
To do Tzu Hsi justice and to discover the truth, one should read Seagrave’s Dragon Lady, The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China.
To learn whom the real woman was we may want to consider what Robert Hart had to say about Hzu Hsi in his letters and journals. Robert Hart arrived in China from Ireland in 1854. He returned to England in 1908.
For most of his stay in China, Hart was Inspector General of Chinese Maritime Customs and worked closely with the Imperial ministers and Manchu princes. Before returning to England, Hart met with the Dowager Empress in a private audience.
Hart referred to Tzu Hsi as “the Buddha” and later “the old Buddha” since she was a devout Buddhist and it is obvious that he thought of her with affection and admiration.
In fact, Hart, who is considered the Godfather of China’s modernization, at no time indicated in anything he wrote that Tzu Hsi was conspiratorial, sinister or manipulative. However, he did indicate that she was strong-willed and hot-tempered but she was clever and had ability.
Tzu Hsi died in 1908 a few weeks after Robert Hart left China. The Qing Dynasty collapsed in 1911.
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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