China’s Fast Track Growth

February 13, 2010

Here’s more evidence that Robert Hart and Jack London were right when they predicted that China would be a super power again. These two Western men spent time in China, got to know the culture and realized the potential of the Chinese people.

Bullet trains, something the United States doesn’t have due to the national debt and partisanship between political parties more interested in who packs the pork barrel than running the country efficiently, have raced into China providing jobs for hundreds of thousands of Chinese and a faster, fuel efficient way to get around.

With the Lunar New Year and more Chinese traveling home than the population of Russia, another, fast, energy efficient means of public transportation was needed.  When the economy collapsed under President George W. Bush due to real estate, banks and Wall Street greed, the Democrats and Republican’s started pointing fingers at each other and throwing more debt around.

In China, where debt does not rule and the savings rate is 40%, instead of arguing and tossing blame about, the Chinese started working. Is this evidence that one political party is more efficient than two?

My thanks to Ian Carter for bringing the Chinese bullet trains to my attention–visit his Blog to “see” more of China, or discover why China is Studying Singapore

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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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1 Comment | America, business, China, Chinese Culture, environment, government, politics, tourism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Guest Post—They All Look Alike

February 12, 2010

By Bob Grant — publisher/editor for Speak Without Interruption
Originally published at Speak Without Interruption on February 8, 2010

One of our US government officials reportedly made a comment with the word “retarded” in it.  There was also an attempt to make a joke using “Special Olympics” on a TV show in the past.  Why do people say the things they do?  Why have I said some of things I have said?  When I have made comments at the expense of others, I thought either it was funny or it made me feel important in some perverse way.  As I have gotten older, experience has taught me to think before I speak—at least a little more than I did in my younger years.  What someone says as a casual statement—or an attempt to make a joke—can offend others on a multitude of levels.

 There are a little over 1.3 billion people in China from the figures I have seen.  I have had people say to me, “With that many people, how do you tell them apart?  They all look alike.” 

 After having an association with specific Chinese people since 1998, I take great offense when someone says something like this to my face or within earshot.  To me, they do not all look alike.  They may all have similar physical features but I see each person I have met in my business dealings as a singular and unique individual just as I would feel about anyone I met throughout the world.  As you meet people—speak with them—get to know them, I think everyone has personal features, mannerisms, personalities that make them different from other people in the world.

 In terms of my feelings for China, and its people, it is only based on those who I have met personally.  As I view it, there are values that I have found all Chinese possess—the reverence of  family and respect for their elders.  I wish these values were more evident in the US. 

 With 1.3 billion people milling around China, how can they have these values when there are so many of them?  I once worked with a product that was to replace the toxic cleaner Nitric Acid.  In most instances, the shipping tanks in the ocean liners have to be cleaned out after they are emptied. 

 They send “Chinese People” into these tanks to spray them out.  One contact actually said, “There are so many Chinese that when one dies from being exposed to the Nitric Acid there are a million more to take their place.”  It was all I could do to keep my hands from going around his neck or punching his lights out — being older at the time, I felt he was not worth the hassle.

 I believe the respect for family—and elders—in China is not something just confined to my small group of acquaintances there.  I think this is something that is countrywide, and I feel this is a virtue beyond description.  During one of my visits, my friend and primary associate invited me to a party to honor his new young son. 

 We held this event in a large, private room within a very nice restaurant.  There were many people there, and as I have written regarding other situations, I was again the only non-Chinese in the room.  I felt completely at ease and extremely honored he would invite me to such an important “family event”.  The photo above shows me with my associate, his wife, his mother, and his new young son. I did, and still do, feel like part of their family.  To me they remain friends, family and associates, and they “certainly” do not all look alike to me!

See The First of All Virtues

If you want to read previous posts by Bob Grant, please see Love Affair

4 Comments | American culture, business, Chinese Culture, education, parenting | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Education Chinese Style – Part 6

February 11, 2010

Guess who taught me to read—my mother. When I was seven, education experts said I would never read. My mother didn’t blame them. She blamed herself and went to work to fix the problem. She told me she came home from that meeting and cried. Then she got out the coat hanger.

No matter how much I complained, I learned to read at home. Today, many American parents don’t spend enough time with their children.

Inside a Shanghai Bookstore

In America, many kids don’t like to read. To get the students I taught to read for half-an-hour a day was like pulling teeth with oily fingers. Instead, they watch television or spend hours on the Internet or hang out with friends after school.

The largest bookstore in Shanghai, China, is several stories tall with elevators and escalators. You have to wait in line to reach another floor. The bookstores I visit in Shanghai when I’m there are always crowded. On the other hand, in the United States bookstores are going out of business as if a book plague struck. In China, new ones are opening all the time.

  See Part 1

Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning novels My Splendid Concubine and Our Hart.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Education Chinese Style – Part 5

February 11, 2010

In America many children are bored with school and use excuses to not study or read. This has led to high drop-out rates.

Here are the most common complaints heard over the years:

“I don’t like to read.”
“Why do you give us so much home work?”
“This class is no fun.”
“The reason I don’t do the work is because this class is boring.”

An American High School

“You failed me.”
“You are boring.”

It was bad enough to hear this from students. The parents of many failing students I taught made the same accusations. Not once in thirty years did I hear one parent take the blame. It was always the teacher’s fault when their kid didn’t pass a class or improve their reading ability.

A lot of the blame for this attitude is because of the self-esteem movement that was based on flawed logic proven with research to be wrong. It seems, that once the Titanic was on course, there was no stopping the ship of education from hitting the iceberg.

See Part 1

Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning novels My Splendid Concubine and Our Hart.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Education Chinese Style – Part 2

February 10, 2010

There is no evidence that the Christian Bible supports literacy or education. After the Roman Empire collapsed, the Catholic Church did not attempt to educate the masses. It was much easier to tell ignorant, uneducated people how to live and what to do. The illiterate kings and peasants looked to the Pope and educated priests for guidance. It was sort of like those with sight leading the blind.
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Proverbs (Old Testament)
1:5 A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:
9:9 Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser; teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.
16:21 The wise in heart shall be called prudent: and the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning.

Daniel
1:4 children in whom was no blemish, but well-favored, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king’s palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chalde’ans.

Acts (New Testament)
26:24 And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.

Romans
15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.
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I looked for passages in the Bible that would focus on the importance of gaining an education similar to what Confucius taught.

Confucius

I didn’t find anything. If you find something, let me know. Instead, this is the sentiment that I discovered, “Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.”

 See Part 1

Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning novels My Splendid Concubine and Our Hart.

2 Comments | American culture, Chinese Culture, Christianity, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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