Renewing Pride One Win at a Time

June 10, 2011

Recently a Chinese friend was proud to announce that Li Na won the French Open in Tennis on June 6.

Li Na is the first Chinese woman ever to win an Open Tennis women’s final title and become a world champion.

My friend watched it on a Chinese language cable news station the morning Li Na won, and said, “I bet the American media will not report this, and we won’t see it on the evening sports news.”  The Chinese news anchor said that all of China would have been watching the game even if they had to give up sleep.

However, my Chinese friend was wrong. I Googled “Li Na wins the French Open” and discovered that ESPN, Yahoo Sports, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Huffington Post, the Wall Street Journal, CBS News, Fox Sports, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, ABC News, etc. had reported Li Na’s win. The comment my friend made reflects an attitude among many in China.

In fact, there may be a little truth to what the said. After I searched the first two pages of Google hits, I still hadn’t seen the New York Times and I’m not surprised. Over time, I have discovered that the New York Times along with The Economist in the UK seems to be particularly antagonistic toward mainland China in the way the news is reported about The Middle Kingdom.

The morning before Li Na won the French Open, I heard from the same Chinese language news source that Chinese military and police snipers had won four out of five events at the 10th Military and Police Sniper World Cup in Budapest. The Chinese snipers placed first in four of the five events winning four gold medals. Source: The Firearm Blog

For those that watched the 2008 Beijing Olympics, you may remember that although America won the most medals at 110, the Chinese were a close second at 100 and China won 51 gold medals to America’s 36.

What Li Na accomplished at the French Open and what the Chinese military and police snipers won is a sign that the Chinese are regaining confidence and rebuilding the pride that was lost after Western imperial powers won two Opium Wars, destroyed the emperor’s Summer Palace in 1860, the failure of the Boxer Rebellion by Chinese peasant in 1900, the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the anarchy that followed, the invasion by Japan during World War II, the loss of Taiwan to an American supported dictator, and the fact that the Western media won’t stop criticizing China over Tibet or let the world forget 1989 and what happened in Tiananmen Square.

What angers most Chinese is the Western media criticizing China over Tibet and Tiananmen Square based on falsehoods (you know—half lies).  Most Chinese know the whole truth but many Westerners don’t and do not care to know.

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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.

1 Comment | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese men, Chinese women, history, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Tibet’s Murky “Western” Cloud

April 22, 2011


Jonolan is an anonymous Blogger who writes opinions at Reflections from a Murky Pond.

The name of Jonolan’s Blog is appropriate because his knowledge of Tibet and China is often “Murky”. However, that is not unusual since most people outside China are ignorant of the facts.

One of many definitions for “Murky” reads, “Hard to see through, as a fog or mist; Gloomy, dark, dim; Obscure, indistinct, cloudy; Dishonest, shady.”

“Jonolan’s political leanings are far to the Right on some issues and equally far to the Left on others. In areas of foreign policy, he favors isolationism in the vein of walk softly but carry a big stick. On social issues he favors a more liberal view that follows the guidelines of Do what thou wilt shall be the whole Law and An it harm none, do as thou wilt.”  Source: About Page of Reflections from a Murky Pond


Listen to the Facts — not Popular Myths

In response to one of my posts, Border Crossing and the Blood on Our Hands, Jonolan wrote, “Again I’m forced to point out the difference in situations. Tibet is a conquered / occupied territory. Its people are not allowed the same freedoms, such as they are, that are allowed the Hans. Do you really believe that the Chinese didn’t murder Tibetans trying to reunite with their government-in-exile? Don’t get me wrong. China won that war and I accept the restrictions placed upon conquered peoples until their culture can be destroyed and their population assimilated. The world-at-large doesn’t though.”

As usual, my “reply” was too long. I can’t help it. I’m more of a novelist than a Blogger.

Since I’ve already covered the Tibet topic in depth, I built a menu for “The Tibet Issue” and placed every post I’ve written of Tibet in that menu on the home page for iLook China.

Anyone interested to learn the facts of Tibet, may visit the Home Page, scroll down and  hopefully discover enough to blow away the cloud from a “murky pond” that obscures this issue from “the world-at-large”.

Just because Hollywood types such as Richard Gere, considered His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s most high-profile disciple, parrots the words of the Dalai Lama, that does not mean those words are the truth.

Instead, those words are the myths people want to believe.

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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 » | China, Chinese minorities, media, politics, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Tibet as a Province of China – the unresolved issue

March 2, 2011

While Korea is the unresolved war, Tibet is the unresolved issue. Both events are more complex than the propaganda that the media often presents.

China maintains that Tibet has been part of its territory for centuries, but many Tibetans say the region was functionally independent for much of its history.

Since Tibetan separatists have claimed that China “never” ruled over Tibet prior to Mao’s reoccupation in 1950, every time the Dali Lama wins another award for humanitarianism or meets a world leader, it is a slap in the face for most Chinese — not just their government.

Have you ever been treated as if you were a liar when it wasn’t true?

The Chinese are proud of their history, and they don’t like foreigners believing lies about their country.


The facts presented in this video are supported by the October 1912 issue of National Geographic Magazine and Robert Hart’s 19th century journals.

Tibet was first occupied by China during the Yuan Dynasty (1277-1367), and it was a Mongol emperor or king that made a Dalai Lama the spiritual leader for Tibet in the 13th century.

Before that, the Tibetans were a warlike race and were a plague on a peaceful China. Warlike Tibetans, not exactly the image the Western media paints, raided China for centuries from their mountain fortresses.

When the Ming Dynasty drove the Mongols from China in 1368, the Ming emperor sent an army to Tibet.

For the next six hundred years, the Tibetans were never easy to rule.

Sir Robert Hart, considered the godfather of China’s modernization, said the same thing. He wrote in 1888, “China will regard England as an ally and helper in reducing trouble-some tributaries (meaning Tibet) to a proper sense of position!”

Discover Invisible White Elephants

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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.

 

Note: This post first appeared on iLook China February 8, 2010 as post # 34. This revised version reappears as post # 1098.

3 Comments | China, Chinese history, history, politics, religion, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Sensitivity over Tibet – Part 2/2

December 7, 2010

Since the two best-known spiritual rulers in the world are the Dalai Lama and the Pope, I’m going to compare the two.

The Dalai Lama seems to get about as much attention as the Catholic Pope in Rome, who rules over the Vatican in Rome. The Pope is also the spiritual leader of about one billion Catholics.

What about the Dalai Lama and Buddhism?


The working class peasants/serfs in old Tibet before 1950

Buddhanet says that it is generally agreed that about 6% (or 350 million) of the world’s population are Buddhists.

Then Adherents.com says, The number of adherents that follow Tibetan Buddhism is estimated to be between ten and twenty million, (which is about the same as the population of New York state in the US).

There are four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama is the temporal head of the Gelug(pa) “Way of Virtue” school, and Dalai Lamas have been the “spiritual” leaders of Tibet from the mid-17th to the mid-20th centuries.

The 2000 population census in China reported that about 2.62 million lived in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

If those facts are correct, today’s Dalai Lama is technically the spiritual leader of about 2 million in Tibet and between 8 to 18 million globally that are citizen of other countries.


The ruling class in old Tibet before 1950

The only explanation for the attention the Dalai Lama gets in the media is that a very vocal following of fanatics has grown around him turning him into a cultish godlike figure.  At best, the Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of about one third of one percent of the global population. 

At the low end, the Dalai Lama only represents about one tenth of one percent, which may represent the number of followers he has in China compared to the total population there.

Learn more About Tibet or return to China’s Sensitivity over Tibet – Part 1

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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.

1 Comment | Buddhism, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, history, politics, religion, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Sensitivity over Tibet – Part 1/2

December 6, 2010

Earlier this year, Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reported on China’s sensitivity over Tibet. 

He says the Dalai Lama has long been a thorn in the flesh of the Chinese government. Beijing openly calls him a Jackal in a Monk’s Robe. The Dalai Lama has met every US President since George Bush Senior in 1991.

Birtley says, China state media often says that Tibet has always been part of China long before Hawaii become part of the United States.

The Dalai Lama’s people, on the other hand, claim that China never ruled Tibet and the Dalai Lama’s global followers blindly accept this claim as the truth.

Since Birtley offers no evidence in his report to support China or Tibet’s claims, I offer two sources of primary evidence from unbiased and non-Communist sources that support China’s claim.

I will start with the oldest source. Robert Hart (1835 – 1911) worked in China from 1854 to 1908 and was the most powerful Westerner in China’s history. 

In a letter Hart wrote in October 1885 to Campbell, his agent in England, he mentioned a diplomat from the British Foreign Office was seeking friendly relations and trade with Tibet. However, China did not want “Tibet, its tributary”, exposed to Western trade and influence.

In another letter in December 1903, Hart mentions the Chinese Amban in Tibet.  An Amban was the title for the political governor assigned to Tibet by the Emperor in Beijing.

Granted, Tibet was remote and difficult to reach and manage, and there were times during those 636 years where it may have appeared that the Tibetans managed themselves.

However, the facts show that China does have a claim that Tibet was part of China.

The second source appeared in The National Geographic Magazine (NGM) in October 1912 when the medical officer of a Chinese mission sent to Tibet in 1906 wrote a piece about Tibet for the magazine.

If you want to read about and see Tibet of that time, I suggest reading Dr. Shaoching H. Chuan’s The Most Extraordinary City in the World (pages 959 -995). 

The NGM also published about 60 photos the doctor shot.

On page 979, Dr. Chuan describes the government of Tibet, “the Ambans are appointed by the Chinese Emperor every four years. All governmental affairs have to undergo examination by the two Ambans…”

The reason Tibet declared its independene from China in 1913 was due to British political medling.

Tibet stayed free less than 40 years before Mao sent the PLO to reclaim territory China ruled as a tributary state since the 13th century.

Learn more about Buddhism in China

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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.

2 Comments | Buddhism, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, history, politics, religion, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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