Saying Goodbye

March 28, 2010

To the Chinese, the hardest goodbye is when white hair buries dark. This week, a  friend of our daughter’s died a tragic death at 17. The lost daughter’s name was Faith. Her story, like so many, was told in The Lost Daughters of China by Karin Evans, a book about abandoned girls and their journeys to American homes with loving adopted parents.

The phone call arrived at midnight from Faith’s mother. When my wife answered, I could hear and feel the grief like a bullet—my eyes filled with tears and an ache formed where my heart beats. No mother should suffer the loss of a child.

On the way to the airport, I listened to a memory about our daughter and Faith when they were in preschool together and a boy took a toy from our daughter. He refused to give it back. Faith came to the rescue.  She was only four or five. She demanded the toy be returned. The boy refused and Faith attacked biting him on the elbow.

You see, she had learned to survive in an orphanage in China where life can be a challenge. She was loyal to those she loved, who loved her. As long as those memories are shared and kept alive, she will always be with those who knew her.

The rest of Faith’s tragic journey may be discovered at Earth to Earth, Dirt to Dirt, Ashes to Ashes

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You’ve Come a Long Way, Babe

March 27, 2010

Women in China have walked long distances on healthy feet since 1949 when Mao said, “Women hold up half the sky.”

Today, it seems Chinese women do more than hold up half the sky—they control it. I’m talking about Chen Lu Yu, a popular Chinese television talk show host who reaches an audience estimated at more than 140 million in China.

Chen Lu Yu

Chen has been called the “China’s Oprah”. Chinese media officials have censored the topics Lu Yu covers, but, according to Lu Yu, the show has yet to hear from the Chinese censors. She has talked about HIV, lesbians, transsexuals, marriage problems—you name it, and her Chinese audience loves her.

The show is called “A Date with Luyu” and it first aired on January 5, 2002. Chen has also appeared on America’s Oprah.

Discover Powerful Chinese Women

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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.

His latest novel is the multiple-award winning Running with the Enemy.

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Transporting Goods by Road in China

March 26, 2010

Originally Published (see more photos here) at Speak Without Interruption on February 19, 2010 by Bob Grant—publisher/editor for Speak Without Interruption. Posted on iLook China, 3/26/10 at 08:00

About any time, day or night, in major Chinese cities you can see any type of vehicle transporting all imaginable products on the roads. There are trucks carrying ocean containers and Mercedes carrying people. I have traveled to England, Ireland, Holland, Italy, Canada, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea, and China. I would not call myself a “world traveler” but, of all the countries in which I have traveled, I found China to be the most diverse in terms of the types of vehicles that transported goods on their roads.

Regardless of where my travels took me in China—rural or city—there were always a lot of people transporting goods in any type of vehicle that could move on its own, by animal, or under human power. The fact that people were busy working was not of particular note. It was the diversity of their means of transportation within a single view that was of interest to me. Also, they all seemed to move with purpose—whether carrying large or small items. I suppose that is really not so different than any other parts of the world—for some reason it just struck me as another admirable quality of the Chinese people.

Photo from original post on Speak Without Interruption

Most of the smaller commercial trucks are blue—I have no idea why? I asked a couple of times but really did not receive an answer. Maybe there was a sale on blue paint? I am certain there is a reason, but since I don’t know it, I can’t share it with you—rather just make reference to it.

I will say that with all those vehicles on the road it did add to the air pollution. In most states in the U.S., vehicles have to pass safety inspections before they can be licensed. I am not certain this is a rule in China—if it can move it is road ready. 

In my travels inside China for business, I found the Chinese to be very capitalistic in nature—certainly contrary to how I viewed the Chinese people prior to me actually visiting the country. The diversity in the means of transporting their goods is just one example of this fact at least in my mind.

Read more of Bob Grant’s guest posts at http://wp.me/pN4pY-gJ

 


The Changing Landscape

March 25, 2010

Regardless of what Political Correctness requires most Americans to say in public about other cultures and ethnic groups, America’s national interests (meaning Americans making money and spending more) have dominated the globe for decades clearly showing a lack of respect for other cultures.

Today, the world is on the verge of a major shift away from America’s national interests as China rewrites the rules on trade, technology, currency, climate change, etc.

中国
China/Middle Kingdom

The March 22, 2010, issue of Newsweek, “It’s China’s World—We’re Just living In It“, talks about those changes. Where the American dollar once ruled supreme, the Chinese yuan is appearing around the Asia-Pacific as an alternative currency.

As I pointed out about the Chinese space race, China is now the only country making major investments in space exploration and their reasons are not to earn bragging rights by putting footsteps in moon dust but to discover fresh sources of rare minerals that are quickly being depleted on the earth.

Looking for opportunities, China has become the leader in green technology.

Meanwhile, America is missing the boat as political/religious agendas rule the behavior of the ruling class who squabble over global warming, school prayer, abortion, health care, stem cell research, evolution versus creationism, etc.


Women’s Rights in China

March 21, 2010

Dramatic changes in women’s rights have been achieved in a culture where for millennia women were stereotyped as inferior to men, had no rights and served as slaves, concubines and prostitutes. Marriages were arranged—sometimes at infancy.

In 1949, foot binding was abolished and the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) was formed and supported by the Communist Party. Change in China, as in the United States, has been a painful evolutionary process. However, the struggle to gain equality appears to have moved faster than the United States where the women’s rights movement started in 1848 and still isn’t over.

10th National Women’s Congress in China

At the 10th National Women’s Congress in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, in 2008, Deputy-Chairwoman Huang Qingyi said, “Sex discrimination in employment should be eradicated and the income gap between men and women should be further narrowed.”

It was also been reported that domestic violence is a severe threat to women. Chinese authorities reported 50,000 complaints annually, according to figures released by the ACWF. The domestic violence fact sheet shows this is also a problem in the United States.

Sexual discrimination was supposed to have been abolished in China back in 1949, when Chairman Mao Zedong famously announced, “women hold up half the sky”, but it wasn’t.  It has only been a few years since China outlawed sexual harassment.

Today, statistics show China has about 27,000 women and children’s rights protection agencies.

Discover Changing Times for Women’s Rights

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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.

His latest novel is the multiple-award winning Running with the Enemy.

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About iLook China

China’s Holistic Historical Timeline