Zhouzhuang, China’s Ancient Water Town

April 27, 2016

We arrived early when the parking lot and the streets were about empty.  That’s the best time to get there.

Zhouzhuang is surrounded by water, and boats are needed for most short trips.

Zhouzhuang history is rooted in China’s Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC – 476 BC) more than a thousand years before Venice was established. However, it would not be called Zhouzhuang until 1086 AD .

The town is well known for its preservation of numerous buildings from the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Zhouzhuang, the Venice of Asia,  is on the United Nations Reserve List for the World Cultural Heritage and the Dubai International Best Practice to Improve the Living Environment.

As you can see, it gets crowded. Most of these tourists were Chinese citizens from the growing middle class.

This is where I was a photo thief. I wanted to take a picture of these captured birds but the owners wouldn’t let me.  He pointed at a sign that said I’d have to pay.

I walked a distance and used my meager telephoto lens to take this shot of the birds tied to the owner’s boat.

For a comparison with Europe’s Venice in Europe, while there are no historical records that deal directly with the founding of Venice, available evidence has led some historians to agree that the original population of Venice were refugees from Roman cities near Venice (420 – 568 AD), and then from the ninth to twelfth centuries Venice became a city state.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

IMAGE with Blurbs and Awards to use on Twitter

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

On the Great Wall: Part 2 of 3

April 7, 2016

In 1999, we visited The Great Wall at Badaling.  We returned to visit a different section in 2008. The second time, I carried a digital camera (a few of the photos appear with this post).

Smithsonian Magazine reported, “Few cultural landmarks symbolize the sweep of a nation’s history more powerfully than The Great Wall of China. Constructed by a succession of imperial dynasties over 2,000 years, the network of barriers, towers and fortifications expanded over the centuries, defining and defending the outer limits of Chinese civilization. At the height of its importance during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), The Great Wall is believed to have extended some 4,000 miles, the distance from New York to Milan.

The sections of The Great Wall we visited are about an hour out of Beijing. The most popular site is at Badaling.  I think the second choice, Mutianyu, is more dramatic. This portion of The Great Wall runs along the ridge of a mountain range. Badaling, meanwhile, starts in a mountain pass fortress.

The best way to reach The Great Wall is by taxi or bus. After you get there, you’ll discover the usual tourist shops. Since I enjoy haggling, I spent time shopping.

At Badaling, there were camels and horses you could pay a fee to sit on while having your photo taken.

Once you reach Mutianyu, you have a choice—take a few hours to climb the mountainside  to The Great Wall or ride a ski lift to the top in fifteen minutes.

China’s Great Wall was not built by one emperor. It was built in segments by the kings of several nations over a period of centuries. Those walls were eventually linked together by China’s first emperor in 221 BC.

When you are on The Wall, if you get thirsty or yearn for a snack, there are vendors that carried their goods up the mountain often using horses.

Once you are ready to leave The Great Wall at Mutianyu, the toboggan ride is worth the price.( see the embedded video with this post)

Continued on April 8, 2016 in Part 3 or start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

#1 - Joanna Daneman review posted June 19 2014

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On The Great Wall: Part 1 of 3

April 6, 2016

Like so much about China, The Great Wall is also the victim of myths that are not always true. Did you know that the history of the Great Wall of China started when fortifications built by various states during the Spring and Autumn (771 – 476 BC) and Warring States (475 – 221 BC) periods were connected by the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huangdi? But the best-known and best-preserved section of The Great Wall was built in the 14th through 17th centuries A.D., during the Ming Dynasty—more than two thousand years later.

If you want to know more about The Great Wall, I suggest reading Peter Hessler’s Country Driving. The first part of his book is about the months he spent driving the length of The Great Wall all the way to Tibet.

If you watch the video you will discover that before there was one wall, there were many—all built by different kingdoms before China was unified in 221 BC.

Although I enjoyed reading Country Driving, I think that the hundred and twenty-two pages that focus on The Great Wall are the best part.

Before reading Hessler’s book, I wrongly believed, as so many do, that The Great Wall was a failure as a defense against invaders. However, Hessler proves that myth wrong. For the most part, the wall did keep marauders out.

In fact, on page 116 of the paperback, Hessler quotes David Spindler who found evidence that the Ming Great Wall actually worked as a defensive structure.

The Great Wall failed when the unified Mongols invaded China in the 13th century but it didn’t happen overnight. It took sixty years for the Mongols to conquer all of China.

Before Genghis Khan unified the Mongols, there was no unified Mongolia—only nomadic tribes that fought amongst each other and raided into China whenever one or more tribes decided on a whim to go raiding. That is if they could fight their way past The Great Wall guarding China’s heartland.

Hessler points out that no archeologists or historians have studied the history of The Great Wall but there are amateurs that have, both Western and Chinese, and these Great Wall amateur (experts) have discovered original documents written by Ming Dynasty military officers and troops detailing the defense of the wall against nomads intent on raiding into China to loot, rape and steal. According to this information, the wall succeeded more than it failed.

Continued on April 7, 2016 in Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

A1 on March 13 - 2016 Cover Image with BLurbs to promote novel

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Discover Shanghai from the Huangpu River

March 30, 2016

Shanghai is considered the Paris of Asia. There’s a reason for this, and I hope the photos and video in this post will show that.

Notice the Chinese middle-class tourists on the boat (click on the photo to enlarge it). Study how they dress, see the cameras, and ask yourself this—if these people are so brainwashed and downtrodden, why are they out taking a cruise on the Huangpu River taking pictures as if they were visiting the Grand Canyon or New York?


Pudong side of Huangpu River

See the city skyline along the river.

This is only a small portion of Shanghai.


Shanghai side of Huangpu River – the crowded Bund

West of the Huangpu River is Shanghai. On the east bank is Pudong—fifty years ago, the land on this side of the river was farm land.


A close up of the crowded Bund on the Shanghai side of the river

Check out the number of Chinese tourists visiting the Bund in this photograph. I’ve waded through these crowds. These people are laughing, smiling, eating, taking pictures of each other, clowning around. They are having more fun than I see from most American tourists when I travel in the United States.

Look at the signs: Nikon, LG, and Nestle.

China has about five hundred million people living in its cities. Another eight hundred million live in rural areas. There are now more Chinese surfing and Blogging on the Internet (642 million), and that’s more than twice the population of the United States. And there are ways to get around the censors to visit forbidden websites hosted in other countries. The average time spent on the Internet in China is almost three hours a day or more than 19 hours a week.

The population of Shanghai—the undisputed largest and wealthiest city in China—has a population of almost 24 million people compared to the largest city in the United States, New York, with a population of 8.5 million.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

A1 on March 13 - 2016 Cover Image with BLurbs to promote novel

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The 1000-hand Guan Yin is about more than Deaf Dancing

January 6, 2016

In the United States, if a public school were to attempt teaching young, deaf and/or disabled students in the art of an intricate dance and required them to drill repeatedly as if they were in the Marine Corps, humanitarians and feminists—due to the attractive young women—would cry foul and soon there would be pressure to cancel it, make it illegal, or hold investigations. There might even be boycotts and protests.

As for autocratic corporate Charter schools that are stealing money from the community-based, democratic public schools in the United States, forget it. Corporations are in it for the higher test scores so they can brag and hijack more children from the public schools to boost profits.

In addition, critics of China infected with the Racist Sinophobia Virus (RSV), a mental illness learned while growing up, might chime in to crucify the Middle Kingdom once again for crimes against humanity reminding us—with more lies and exaggerations—of Tibet, censorship, and more.


From China (Thousand-hand ~ Guan Yin ~ 千手观音 )

But when it was established in 1987, the China Disabled People’s Art Troupe (CDPAT) was an amateur performance troupe supported by the government with members recruited from around the country.

In 2002, that all changed, after the troupe’s first commercial performance. The China Daily reported, “After its first commercial performance, in 2004, the troupe made 10 million yuan (US$1.21 million).”

Tai Lihua, the lead dancer and captain of the CDPAT, has visited many countries with her troupe. For instance, they have performed at the John F. Kennedy Centre in New York City and the Teatro alla Scala in Venice, two of the world’s most prestigious theatres.

The dance of the Thousand-Hand Guan Yin is named after the Bodhisattva of compassion, revered by Buddhists as the Goddess of Mercy, who is a compassionate being that watches for and responds to the people in the world who cry out for help such as the deaf and disabled members of the CDPAT.

Being deaf and mute, these disabled performers endured pain and suffering in vigorous training simply to deliver a message of love, and when you watch the embedded videos and see close ups of the performers’ faces, you will see their dedication.

When I first watched this video, I was reminded of Amy Chua, the Tiger Mother, and how she relentlessly drilled her daughters in piano and violin. US critics raged at this after Chua’s memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was published.  However, the oldest daughter, Sophia, went to Harvard and enjoys playing the piano.

Often, the rewards of enduring the pain and suffering it takes to achieve near perfection in an art such as playing piano or learning intricate dances comes only after years of challenging and demanding repetition.

What’s amazing about this dance troupe is that all the performers are deaf, making the choreography to the music even more incredible, and the difficulties encountered in training are beyond imagining.

However, four instructors, who can hear and speak, signal the rhythm of the music from four corners of the stage/room, and with repetition and diligent practice, the performance is nearly flawless.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

IMAGE with Blurbs and Awards to use on Twitter

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12 Comments | China, Chinese arts and music, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese women, cultural differences, tourism | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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