The China Daily, a branch of Xinhua

April 15, 2015

The China Daily is the English language edition for one of China’s state-run newspapers. If you look at the internet address, you will also see Xinhua (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/xinhua/), and Xinhua is the official press agency of the People’s Republic of China. Xinhua operates more than 170 foreign bureaus worldwide and maintains one for each province in China. Today, Xinhua News Agency delivers its news across the world in six languages: Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic.

The editorial office is in Beijing and there are branch offices in most major cities of China as well as several foreign capitals. For instance, one office was established in New York City in 2009. You may also access the paper on-line (click above link).

The paper is regarded in the West as the English-language mouthpiece for China’s central government.

However, don’t think of the China Daily as only a source of propaganda. It’s a serious newspaper, and the people on the staff are professionals who see that the content of the paper fits the collective culture of China.

Any censorship usually doesn’t come from the leadership of the central government but from the reporters and editors of the paper. In fact, there have been times when the paper has been called by the central government and asked to cover a topic considered too sensitive by the staff.

Since China is still changing at a rapid pace, any opinions you hold about China may be obsolete. The country, culture, and lifestyles of the people are changing as fast as the economy.

 
If you are interested in hearing from an insider who worked at the China Daily in 1997, I recommend reading Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana by Stephanie Elizondo Griest.

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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 love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Random thoughts thanks to “Anais Nin” and “Amy Chua/Tan”

July 8, 2011

What kicked off these random thoughts was caused by a Chinese friend quoting Anais Nin, “The only thing psychoanalysis achieves is to make one more conscious of one’s misfortunes.”

I Googled the quote from Anis Nin and found it on Solar Powered Visions and then found the following quote from PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE TRAGIC SENSE OF LIFE by Richard L. Rubens, Ph.D., “To undertake such a journey is what is asked of patients in psychoanalysis. It is a journey into territory neither analyst nor patient knows completely, and both participants must recognize that they cannot know in advance what they will ultimately discover.… It (psychoanalysis) calls on man (or woman) to recognize his (or her) position in the forward sweep of time and to choose to live his (or her) life in full awareness of the loss that is inextricably bound up with the process of growth and change.”

That resulted in my thinking of two of Amy Chua’s critics on the Amazon Forum for Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and that these two are unable to grow and change from what they have learned.

One of these anonymous critics calls herself Mandy Wu and the other JLee—both claim to be Asian and/or Chinese.  In fact, JLee started out claiming to speak for all Chinese women when she voiced her opinions as a fact that Chinese mothers are not like Amy Chua. Later, the China Daily would prove her wrong, which led to JLee calling me a Cyber bully.

Both Mandy Wu and JLee have demonstrated that Western psychoanalysis has made them aware of how miserable they are and they have identified this misfortune with Amy Chua’s parenting style as described in her memoir. These two critics are unable to recognize their position in the forward sweep of time and to live in full awareness with the process of growth and change. They are stuck.

I replied to my friend, “Amy Chua’s critics should just ‘eat bitterness’ and get over it.”

He said, “That’s not what ‘eating bitterness’ means.  It really means to endure hardship in order to build a better life.”

I asked, “Does that apply to both physical and mental hardships such as depression?”

He said yes.

As I walked away, I thought of, “Amy Chua and Amy Tan.”  I turned around and asked, “Why is Amy such a popular name among Chinese?”

My friend laughed and replied, “In Chinese ‘Amy’ means ‘love rice’ and Amy is one of the most popular names that Cantonese give to their female children.”

I then went to the MDBG online Chinese dictionary and discovered that “Ai” means love 爱, which in Chinese is pronounced the same as the beginning of “Amy” and then I typed in “rice”, which appeared as “mi” or 米.  In Chinese, Amy is written as 爱米 .

Discover Amy Chua Debates Former White House “Court Jester” Larry Summers

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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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The Ugly Face of Intolerance – Part 3/3

July 5, 2011

Then on April 22, 2011, Patrick Mattimore (chinadaily.com.cn) wrote Do ‘Tiger Moms’ make the best parents?

The question was, “So what is Chinese mothering and is it superior to Western parenting? Should all moms ascribe to be Amy Chua?”

What follows are a few excerpts from the China Daily opinion piece.

“First, Chua is using the terms ‘Chinese mothers’ and ‘Western parents’ loosely. The Tiger Mother/Chinese Mother can be found in many cultures and is not exclusive within any culture….”

“Unlike in the West where children are encouraged to experiment and develop their own individual talents, Chinese parents believe the child is an extension of oneself. Chinese parents believe they know what is best for their children and therefore override the child’s preferences. Chua concludes that it may come down to a matter of choice. Westerners believe in allowing children a large measure of freedom to choose their own paths while the Chinese parent makes choices for her children.…”


Amy Chua’s daughter Sophia as seen on her Blog

”Trying to untangle Chinese mothering and Western parenting and pick one style of raising a child or the other as the exclusively right way is ultimately a fool’s errand. Certainly, there are elements from both that are worth adopting. Parents can be consistent without being inflexible. They can have high expectations and demand that children work hard without setting up gulag conditions. They can listen and adapt to their children without giving up control or responsibility for raising them.…”

“In the final analysis, Amy Chua has provided readers with a provocative memoir about how she raised her daughters. Certainly, her ideas are worth considering and many are worth adopting. However, no parent should believe that Tiger Mothers have infallible blueprints for raising successful children. Parents still need to chart their own course and be prepared to vary the course according to the needs of each child.”

Instead of listening to the intolerant opinions of inflexible fools from America, why not read what Sophia, Amy Chua’s oldest daughter, has to say in her letter to the New York Post or go to her Blog and discover for yourself that her tiger mother has not damaged her.

Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld’s Blog may be found at new tiger in town.

Return to The Ugly Face of Intolerance – Part 2 or start with 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.

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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The Ugly Face of Intolerance – Part 1/3

July 3, 2011

Recently an an expatriate American living in China sent me a link to a piece published in the  China Daily on June 3, 2011. The author was Amy Chua, who is known as the Tiger Mother.

What I read revealed (once more) that after decades of struggling to get rid of intolerance in America, that this ugly beast is very much alive in chat rooms, Internet Forums and Blogs.

As a noun, intolerance means an unwillingness or refusal to tolerate or respect contrary opinions or beliefs. As an adjective, it means lacking respect for practices and beliefs other than one’s own.

Terrorism is an example of intolerance as is racism.

The ugly face of intolerance appeared soon after an essay was published in the January 8, 2011 Wall Street Journal of Why Chinese Mothers are Superior.

A few days later, Amy Chua’s memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was released and a firestorm of intolerance spewing hate, ignorance and opinions expressed as facts appeared as if a volcano had erupted.

Then Amy Chua’s July 3 piece, The real hymn of the tiger mother (mentioned in the first paragraph) appeared in the China Daily.

Cartoon from China Daily

Chua wrote, “For a while, I was getting 500 emails a day. Some were vicious, but many others were extremely positive and inspiring.”

It has been reported that Amy Chua also received death threats.

The problem is that often what we read on Internet Forums and Blogs are opinions written as if they are the truth, which may influence a few that cannot see the difference to react violently since the Virtual World, without the filters used by the traditional media, quickly spreads hate and lies.

Lest we forget, this sort of intolerance where opinions are expressed as facts may have encouraged Jared Lee Loughner to shoot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona in the head, kill six (one of the dead was six years old) and wound thirteen.

“Ironically,” Chua wrote in the China Daily, “compared with many parents in China, I might not even be considered very strict. My husband is Jewish-American, and he always insisted that my daughters got a lot of fun and freedom.”

Interestingly,” Chua says, “when it comes to child rearing I think the East and the West have opposite problems. So perhaps what the Chinese can learn from my book is the opposite of what Westerners can.

“In general, I think Western parenting gives children too much freedom at too young an age. The average American child spends almost 70 percent more time watching television than attending school.”

Continued on July 4, 2011 in The Ugly Face of Intolerance – 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.

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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Covered by the China Daily

August 23, 2010

For a Western photo journalist to be featured in the China Daily says a lot when the topic he writes about is China.  For Tom Carter, who has written guest posts for iLook China, it is like a coming of age for a journalist to receive such recognition for his work.

The China Daily is the English language edition of the state-run media.  In China, it is comparable to the London Times, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times or the San Francisco Chronicle.  When I say it is comparable, the key to that description is “in China”.

The China Daily says of Tom’s work, “There is no single image that can adequately represent the diversity that is China. This is partly why Tom Carter’s 638-page tome of photographs taken during his tour of the country between 2006 and 2008 works so well.”

Photo of Tom Carter in China

“The goal was to portray China as it portrayed itself to me,” Carter says of his travels with his trusty Olympus Camedia C4000, a no-frills four-megapixel camera.

It seems both foreigners and Chinese are hungry for what Carter has to say about “all” of  China.

Recently, Carter had an author event in Shanghai at a bar on the Bund where more than a hundred people came to hear him (paying a 65 yuan cover charge to boot) talk about his journey across China. There was standing room only with a line out the door.

Tom Carter’s book is China: Portrait of a People and is available in the United States through Amazon.

See more about The China Daily

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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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