The Seven Wonders of China: Part 2/5

February 12, 2013

2. Hanging Monastery

Another popular tourist site is the fifteen-hundred year old wooden Hanging Monastery. The monastery is suspended fifteen stories above the valley floor on the side of a sheer cliff.  It is a mystery why the monastery was built there and why.

One reason might be the floods that once plagued the valley. Today, a dam controls the water. The monastery was built in an indentation in the cliff below an overhand.

What cannot be seen from the valley floor is the Hanging Monastery was built into the cliff’s face. More than forty caves and rooms were dug into the rock. This process allowed supports to be built into the cliff.  The thin wooden pillars are only there for decoration and were added in the last century.

3. The Great Wall

One of the world’s greatest treasures is the almost four-thousand mile Great Wall that took two-thousand years to complete.

The early great wall was made of layers of pressed earth and straw. The Qin Dynasty completed the first wall. The Han Dynasty extended the wall toward Mongolia. The Ming Dynasty built the wall stronger of stone and mortar. The Chinese used smoke and fire to send messages over long distances to warn of enemy attacks.

Continued on February 13, 2013 in The Seven Wonders of China: Part 3 or return to Part 1

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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

The Seven Wonders of China: Part 1/5

February 11, 2013

1. Xian, the first emperor and the Terra Cotta Warriors

From this Discovery Channel program on the Seven Wonders of China, we learn that there are 55 ethnic groups and 235 living languages. The first of the seven wonders is near Xian, which was the capital of thirteen of China’s Dynasties.

In 1974, Chinese farmers digging a well near Xian discovered the first of the terra cotta warriors guarding China’s first emperor, Shi Huangdi, of the Qin Dynasty (221 – 207 BC).

The terra cotta warriors are one of China’s most popular tourist attractions. About 10 million tourists visit annually.  No two terra cotta soldiers look alike.

The first emperor centralized the government, standardized the written language, currency, and weights and measures. With these changes, he created China’s national identity. Forcing hundreds of thousands of workers, he also had The Great Wall completed.

Most Chinese believe in the immortality of the spirit and life after death.

It is tradition that the Chinese believe there is continuity between life and death, and people may take things with them for comfort in the spiritual world, which explains why the first emperor had such an elaborate tomb built.

Continued on February 12, 2013 in The Seven Wonders of China: Part 2

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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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Jackie Chan’s Cultural Collections

February 4, 2013

If you enjoy watching films, you probably know who Jackie Chan is. However, outside China, many may not know he is a collector of Chinese cultural things such as rocks, old Chinese wood houses, wine, and ceramic tea cups and saucers.

Chan started acting in movies in 1962 and now has more than 100 films under his acting belt. You may remember Rush Hour 1 to 3 (1998 – 2007); The Karate Kid in 2010, and many others.  According to Celebrity Networth.com, Chan’s estimated net worth is $130 million.

What I didn’t know until my wife and daughter returned from China on New Year day 2013 was that Chan also has been building cultural collections for decades.

Jackie Chan magazine cover

In China, my wife bought a magazine that was exclusively about Jackie Chan’s life, film career, charitable giving and his collections.

one Jackie Chan ancient Chinese wooden structures

Asia One.com says, “Mr. Chan had started his collection (of older Chinese houses and wood structures) some 20 years ago. His collection currently comprises seven houses and an opera performing stage, dating from the Ming and Qing dynasties.”

Jackie Chan rock collection

Then as Chan aged, he became concerned that his collections survive after he is gone, so he is donating them to Singapore and Beijing.

Jackie Chan wine collection

Zee News.India.com reported, “Kung Fu movie legend Jackie Chan wants to donate historical Chinese houses worth more than 67 million US dollars to a university being set up in Singapore … Chan will give the campus seven wooden houses and a performing stage from his private collection …”

Jackie Chan china collection

From Asian Fanatics.net we learn that Chan’s “collecting passion was also influenced by his late father, who loved old Chinese wooden houses. Chan’s dad, Charlie, died … at the age of 93 after battling cancer. The star’s love of all things historical can be seen in his property purchases here. He owns the 105-year-old Jinriksha Station at 1 Neil Road, once the central depot for rickshaw drivers in Singapore, and the four-storey The 50s complex. Both are historic buildings within the Neil Road conservation area.”

If you live in the United States or Canada and are interested in this copy of the Jackie Chan magazine, leave a comment for this post letting me know, and I will hold a drawing March 2013, and then mail the magazine to the winner. If no one is interested, the magazine will be recycled.

Discover China’s Rising Film Industry

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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

Walking on a Glass Sky

January 31, 2013

My wife forwarded me an e-mail with photographs attached of walking on glass on Tianmen Mountain, China.  After looking at the photos, I searched YouTube and found a few videos worth sharing.

In the first two videos, you will see tourists walking on glass attached to the side of a cliff 4,700 feet above sea level.

The Daily Mail says, “Don’t look down!”

Another perilous site may be found on the slopes of China’s Shifou Mountain. Thousands of feet up, these Chinese workers are building another cliff-walkway with little or no safety gear.

Shifou Mountain is located 82 miles from Tianmen Mountain. When finished the wooden ‘road’ – which is the width of a dinner table – will stretch for 1.8 miles making it China’s longest sightseeing path.

Then there is walking on air at Huang Shan in the Yellow Mountains.

Next to last but not least, the Hua Han plank walk.  At my age, I’d rather walk on glass. Huckberry.com says, “This is no pirate’s plank walk. Located 7,000 feet above sea level on China’s Hua Shan Mountain, the Huashan Plank Walk embodies peril of a different kind.

“The ascent begins with a short set of steps carved into the side of a mountain. Soon after, the steps turn into a “ladder” of iron rods. Both require very, very careful steps to compensate for precarious footing. Then comes the notorious plank.”

Hua Shan has also been named the “Most Dangerous Hiking Trail in the World” by tourists.

Last, we join trekkers on their way to the top of Huangshan. Is that girl—the one that sits down—in high heels? You may notice that they are not letting go of the rope. Would you?

China Mike says, “Since Huangshan is a top tourist attraction and popular travel destination for the Chinese, book ahead, especially on summer weekends.” The photographs on Mike’s site are worth seeing.

Discover the Huangpu River Tour – Shanghai

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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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A US President’s half brother and Disneyland in China

January 1, 2013

President Obama’s half brother, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo, has lived in Shenzhen, China since 2002, and he is married to a Chinese woman. Ndesandjo speaks fluent Mandarin and practices Chinese calligraphy. In a TIME interview, he said, “I’ve experienced the warmth and the graciousness of the Chinese people.” Ndesandjo is overwhelmingly positive about his life in China.

Mark runs an Internet company called WorldNexus that advises Chinese corporations how best to reach international customers.He graduated from Brown University, studied physics at Stanford University, and received an MBA from Emory University.

In 2008, TIME magazine reported that a Shanghai Disneyland was approved in China, and according to a report by the Burbank, California based Themed Entertainment Association, “Chinese consumers have a lot of love for Disney. They’re more excited about Disneyland than the EXPO 2010 Shanghai China.”

The opening ceremony for the construction of Shanghai Disneyland was held on April 8, 2011 and the park is expected to open December 2015 on 963 acres in Pudong, Shanghai.  It will be about three times the size of the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort.

Hong Kong Disneyland opened in September 2005 and is located on reclaimed land in Penny’s Bay, Lantau Island and has hosted over 25 million guests.

To give you an idea how much Chinese love the American lifestyle, visit Zhang Yimou’s musical, the Impressions of Liu Sanjie. This musical with a cast of hundreds is staged on and alongside the Li River in Southeast China near Vietnam. The theater reminded me of similar theaters at American theme parks like Six Flags or Disneyland but the music was local and ethnic.

Discover Eating Turkey in China

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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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