Romance of the Three Kingdoms

March 3, 2010

When I was a kid, I loved reading historical fiction like those about Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan. I still do. I also see historical movies and for that reason, I bought the movie version for the Romance of the Three Kingdoms—an epic from China’s history. Don’t let the title fool you. This story is not about romance as Westerners think of it. It’s about the romance of politics, war and conquest. There’s even a love story with sacrifice.

The novel was written in the 14th century and was more than a thousand pages long with 120 chapters. The translated English version is longer. After the Han Dynasty collapsed (206 BC to 219 AD), China shattered into three warring kingdoms. This story is about how China was reunified as one nation again. I’ve seen it once and plan to watch it again. The DVD version has 84 episodes and runs for more than fifty hours. It has even been made into a game.

Before watching this epic, you may want to read these posts to help you understand the behavior of the characters better.

See the First of All Virtues or Honor Chinese Style, along with Face

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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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Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese literature, media, politics | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Mao Zedong and Edgar Snow

March 3, 2010

During one of our trips to Shanghai, China, my wife and I went to see a film called Mao Zedong and Edgar Snow. It was in Mandarin and wasn’t subtitled, so I had to watch carefully to understand what was going on. Today, I Googled the move and found little about it on the Internet.  I discovered that Edgar Snow’s wife threatened to sue China if the movie was released.

Edgar Snow and Mao

There’s no doubt that Mao had to have had charisma to lead so many men in battle for so many years to win the revolution. Mao changed after he became the modern emperor, and the power corrupted him. The evidence—The Great Leap Forward, The Cultural Revolution and the purges that killed so many. Students of China may want to see this movie, but the only place one may buy a DVD of this movie is probably China.

The next best thing would be to read Snow’s book about Mao, Red Star Over China and/or discover about Health Care During Mao’s Time.

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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

In the National Interest

March 1, 2010

In World War II, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and woke the sleeping tiger, America.

Then in the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban missile crises, brought the United States to the brink of nuclear Armageddon. He did this believing it was in the National Interest.

Last night (2/28/2010), I watched an episode on 60 Minutes about a Taiwanese man in the pay of China gathering information about the 6.5 billion-dollar arms sale to Taiwan. Does that make China evil? This morning, I had my answer.

From the dawn of rival civilizations, there have been spies.  It’s all about survival and the national interest. Robert Hart (19th century), who knew the Chinese better than any Westerner, wrote, After China picks its conquerors’ brains; it will be a super-power again. I don’t know what they will do when that times comes. They will decide to either get along with the world or seek revenge for what the world did to them.

In the 19th century, France, England, Germany, Russia, Japan, and the United States attacked China in a series of wars. The devastation visited on a peaceful China started with the Opium Wars and ended with World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Those wars woke the sleeping dragon.

America supports Taiwan—China’s Cuba. The difference is that China sees Taiwan as part of the mainland. What would America do if Hawaii separated from the union, and China supplied the islands with weapons to defend itself? Don’t be surprised if China responds the same way over Taiwan.

The China Americans learned about in school has changed. 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. 

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 » | America, business, China, Chinese Culture, government, media, military spending, politics, Taiwan | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Respecting Cultural Differences Out-of-Focus

February 26, 2010

I read at Crooked Timber that three Google executives were convicted of violating Italy’s privacy laws. That taught me that China is not alone in having laws different from other countries that limit activity on the Internet.

When China censors the Internet, or hires mothers to go after on-line pornographers, the family centered culture drives those actions. Most of China’s arrests of dissidents and executions of criminals are also driven by the family centered culture influenced by Confucian, Taoist beliefs.

Confucious

A few years back, a Japanese citizen, wife and mother attempted suicide in the United States and killed her children in the attempt, but the mother was saved by bystanders. She tried to kill herself and her children, because she had lost face when it was discovered that her husband had an affair with another woman.

When the American legal system was going to try her for murder, the Japanese government protested and said her actions were driven by her culture. Respecting the differences between the two cultures, the United States allowed her to return to Japan.

If we really respect the differences between cultures, why does the Western media and American politicians go out of their way to treat China without respecting the cultural differences that explains why China’s government acts the way it does?

To understand China more, I recommend piety, face and heroes.

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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

More on Hacking Google

February 24, 2010

It seems that Global Voices Online has a lot to say about the accusations made implicating China in cyber attacks against Google and others.

If you want to read the conversation, click here. Making Fun of Charges for Hacking Google

I’m sure that those in America that have already made up their minds that China’s government is guilty of everything they read and hear about them will claim this conversation was contrived by the “Communists” to mislead.

Anything is possible, but prove it. According to the conversation, this technical school trains students to repair cars like programs found at two-year community colleges in the United States.

If you haven’t read the original post on this incident, check out what I wrote about Google.

Hillary Clinton

If the facts in this conversation are correct, shame on the New York Times, shame on Google and shame on Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton for finding China guilty before the facts could be verified. The only thing China may be guilty of is calling their one political party (with seventy million members) “Communist”.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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