China’s Kung Fu Metamorphosis

May 22, 2011

Last June (2010), Tom Carter wrote five guest posts about Martial Arts in China, and the same month I wrote about a movie, The Karate Kid, starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chang.

I’ve never been to Wudang Mountain (at last not yet), which is well known for its deep-rooted tradition of wushu (martial arts).

Watching Jackie Chang and Jaden Smith climb that long, narrow stairway reminded me of mountains I’ve climbed that challenged my breath and made my heart pound.

Tom Carter’s guest posts came with a few of the photos that he shot while there.

However, in the March 2011 National Geographic Magazine (NGM), we read of the Battle for the Soul of Kung Fu and discover that as the world and China changes, so does this ancient world of Martial Arts that has been steeped in tradition for millennia.

In Tom Carter’s first guest post on this subject, he wrote, “Located atop the western peak of the sacred Song Shan Mountain in northern Henan province, 800 year-old Shaolin Si has been destroyed and rebuilt time and again, weathering attacks by emperors, warlords, cultural revolutions, and now its most reoccurring invaders – the modern tour group.”

It’s the modern tour group Carter mentions that challenges China’s Kung Fu.

NGM says the city of Dengfeng (population about 600,000), China’s kung fu capital, boasts some 60 martial arts schools and attracts about 50,000 students from all over China.


Shaolin Si

A time line in the NGM piece shows the oldest Chinese reference to martial arts was in the 11th century B.C., more than three thousand years ago, and in 2010, the Shaolin Temple was named a UNESCO World Heritage site.

One element of the philosophy behind Kung Fu was explained by a master, “In each boy, he looks for respectfulness and a willingness to ‘eat bitterness’, learning to welcome hardship, using it to discipline the will and forge character.”

It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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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 Elephants

May 13, 2011

I’ve written of China’s Giant Panda and Siberian Tigers in northeast China, but I had no idea that China also had elephants and not caged in zoos but living in their natural habitat.

It it hadn’t been for Go Daddy’s CEO, Bob Parsons, shooting an elephant in Zimbabwe and stirring up PETA, a Politically Correct gang of animal lovers in the US, I may have never been curious to see if China had elephants.

I discovered China may offer a safer haven for elephants than most nations that still have pachyderms living in their natural environment.


Wild Kingdom – China’s Wild Elephant Valley

Elephant Aid says, “Most people associate China and elephants with the demand for ivory but although China only has a small number of elephants it is one of the only range states where numbers are on the rise.

“China’s elephants can only be found in the extreme south of the Yunnan province bordering Burma and Laos. Their range includes Xishuangbanna (XSNB) and the Nangunhe Nature Reserves.”


BBC – Wild Elephants in China

“The elephant is a protected species in China,” Elephant Aid says, “and the government has taken steps to conserve areas of elephant habitat including moving people out of the reserves in a bid to minimize human-elephant conflict.

“Chinese official have reported that the population is growing through both reproduction and immigration of herds from Laos. This is attributed to the lack of a threat from poachers in China and the abundant availability of fodder.”

According to Elephant.se, there are about 450 captive elephants in the US and less than 4,000 captive elephants globally.  China has about 30 captive elephants.

All About Wildlife.com says there are 40 to 50 thousand wild Asian elephants and between 470,000 and 690,000 wild African Elephants.

Two hundred or more wild elephants live 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.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Chinese tourists Buying “Made in China” in the US – Part 2/2

May 7, 2011


I’ve been in the Number One Shanghai department store off Nanjing road and seen Chinese consumers taking TV’s from the box to insure they work.

Recently, my father-in-law and his wife were up at four in the morning walking to the Apple Store a forty-minute walk from our Bay Area house.

To buy an iPad 2 in America, they were willing to get up that early and wait in line for several hours until the store opened to buy this new Apple product.

When I asked why not buy the iPad 2 at one of the Official Apple Stores in Beijing, I was told  if you buy something in the US even if made in China, the buyer can be assured of the quality.

There is some truth to that. My father-in-law’s wife arrived with a new camera bought in China.

The camera stopped working the first week she was here so she bought an expensive Sony and loved it because it worked just as promised and kept on working.

It would seem that Chinese manufacturers have a long way to go to earn the trust of the Chinese consumer.

Meanwhile, sixty million Chinese tourists are leaving China annually and buying “Made in China” outside of China then taking those purchases home.

Ironic, isn’t it?

Start with Chinese tourists Buying “Made in China” in the US – Part 1 or discover Chinese Gold from Dead Tibetan Caterpillars.

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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

Chinese tourists Buying “Made in China” in the US – Part 1/2

May 6, 2011


Shaun Rein, a CNBC contributor, reported, “China is on the verge of overtaking Japan as the world’s largest consumer of luxury good, spending $13 billion, or 22 percent of the world total, in 2010.”

However, In Who Buys Guccis and Omegas in China? Not Just the Billionaires, Rein says, “Only 40 percent of the $13 billion worth of luxury items sold to the Chinese last year were transacted (bought) in the country.”

Reign says that is because it is 30 percent cheaper to buy luxury products in another country due to taxes and tariffs.

There is another reason why many Chinese tourists buy “Made in China” in other countries.

While my Chinese father-in-law and his wife were visiting in the US, I learned why Chinese buy in the US — quality.

If you read the China Law Blog, you may know that in China there are several levels of quality that do not exist in the US.  When buying anything in China, there is always a risk you may end up buying a fake or the real thing but of a lower quality.

From what I have read at the China Law Blog, it seems there is no way to tell which level of quality you are buying when in China.

That doesn’t mean “Made in China” is always of a poor quality. The language of the contract between the foreign buyer such as Apple and the Chinese manufacturer is important.

In fact, most of the products Apple sells globally are assembled in China and many are manufactured there too (Apple has manufacturing facilities spread around the world but assembles most of its expensive electronic items such as the iPad in China).

This explains why the Chinese in China often if not always make sure a computer or a TV (along with other merchandise) works before buying and taking it home.

Continued on May 7, 2011 at Chinese tourists Buying “Made in China” in the US – Part 2 or discover the Copy Cat Middle Class 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.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Shanghai Scams, The Man Trap – Part 3/3

January 28, 2011

Serpentza talks about how someone giving you shopping tips of where to shop gets kickbacks, which means whatever price you pay is probably double or triple what you should be paying.

However, what Serpentza doesn’t tell you is it is okay to haggle over the price except maybe in a Shanghai Wal-Mart.  Yea, they have Wal-Mart’s in China.

Anyway, Serpentza says to shop by yourself unless you know someone local.  That is good advice.

Actually, I have this hand carved wood sculpture that I wanted.  The shop owner thought my wife, who is Chinese, was my guide and he told her if she could convince me to buy this carving, he’d give her a kickback.

Needless to say, she found out how low he was willing to go, that’s the price I paid for the sculpture, and she refunded me the kick back.

Meanwhile, Serpentza says the beggars all have an angle—don’t trust them.

He then says if you are a single man out walking and a woman approaches you, be suspicious.  He then goes into detail what he has learned from a friend.

The story Serpentza tells is similar to what happened to me in 1965 when I was twenty and in the US Marines stationed in Okinawa.

The Shanghai Scams Website says to watch out for “Practice English”: two (mostly good-looking) Chinese girls approach you and ask you if you want to join them for a drink so they can practice their English. After you go to the washroom or make a phone call the girls disappear and the bill arrives for an astronomical price. If you refuse to pay, the owner would call some locals who tell you that you had better pay, otherwise…   Advice:  tell them to call police as you obviously are not drunk and never consumed that many whiskies. Call their bluff.

Of a “Lady Spa / massage”, usually a tout or a female approaches you to offer you “special services”.

That’s illegal in China and therefore you should not even think about it.

Return to Shanghai Scams Part 2

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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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