The First of all Virtues – Part 4/9

January 31, 2010

I am sixty-four. I served in the United States Marines and fought in Vietnam. For more than four decades, I have lived with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

I spent close to a decade attending universities to first earn an Associate-of-Science degree and next a BA in journalism. The remainder of those ten odd years was spent at night in a variety of universities earning an MFA in writing. I spent my weekdays working as an English teacher. For a few years, I even taught journalism working some days from six in the morning until midnight.

I also held a number of odd jobs like being a maitre d’ for a Southern California nightclub called the Red Onion or as a supervisor for Pacific Motor Trucking. I worked for forty-five years starting at fifteen washing dishes nights and ended a thirty-year career at sixty as an overworked and underpaid, ‘often verbally abused’ teacher in California’s public schools.

Strange, I searched for a Blog that talked about teachers being abused by students and found thousands that did nothing but bash teachers. Then I found Who’s to Blame …  (a dim light in the wilderness). It seems that few in Western cultures care what happens to teachers. We are the one to bask or kick when you want to bash or kick something.

Go to The First of All Virtues Part 5 or return to Part 3

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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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The First of all Virtues – Part 3/9

January 30, 2010

Since the episode with the punk kids, that mother who thought I needed reason for keeping them off our driveway doesn’t talk to me or acknowledge that I am alive if we pass each other on the street.

After all, I ratted out her precious, perfect child and called the police about his pack of unruly punks. In addition, one of the other children that wanted to play in our driveway argued with me after I politely asked them to go somewhere else.

Of course, I’ve heard the, “kids will be kids” crap as a teacher. However, I do not except that excuse for rudeness and unruly behavior.

My wife and I value our privacy. That’s why we bought a house at the end of a cul-de-sac. We also don’t like the liability of kids using our steep driveway for cheap thrills since we live in a litigation nation where everything you worked hard for can vanish in a court of law.

In reading this post from Always on the Verge, I discovered one of the idiots that advocates a world run by rude punks. I don’t think this author has ever considered the other side of the coin beyond her small world.

Go to The First of All Virtues Part 4 or return to 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. 

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The First of all Virtues – Part 2/9

January 30, 2010

“Hey, old man, you can’t stop us. You can’t take our picture because it’s dark.” Those were the words I heard after dark one night during the summer of 2008 from a pack of kids taunting me as they raced in and out of our steep driveway on their bicycles.

I finally called the police, and the next day walked the neighborhood door to door seeking support to stop the harassment that had gone on for two years—mostly during the summers when school was out.

When I talked to the mother of one of these kids, she asked, “What was your reason for not letting them play on your driveway?”

Do I need a reason? In a piece about The Eternal Value of Privacy, the author never mentioned the tyranny of neighbors and punk kids.

Go to The First of All Virtues Part 3 or return to 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.

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The First of all Virtues – Part 1/9

January 30, 2010

I read ‘any damn fool can be a parent’, and it made me think that North America is not a comfortable place to be if you become a geezer. Geezer is the endearing term our teenage daughter used to call me.

When I was a kid, youngsters were to be seen and not heard. We treated our elders with respect. And I was born in America.

After the birth of Disneyland, fast food, MTV, the Internet and the iPod generation, something valuable caught a cancer that spread through too much of American culture. That something is killing off ‘respect’. In China it is called piety and piety is very much alive. In other Asian countries like South Korea, piety is just as strong. You can read more about this in Hello Korea.

Go to The First of All Virtues Part 2 or discover Deep Family Roots

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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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2008 China Trip – Part 2

January 29, 2010

While in Guilin, we took a slow boat down the Li River and attended a musical and lighting extravaganza “Impressions of Liu Sanjie” near the town of Yangshuo.

This outdoor show, with a cast of six hundred local people, takes place at night on a stretch of the Li River with real mountains as a backdrop.  The “Impressions of Liu Sanjie” is the creation of Zhang Zimou, China’s famous film director. Zhang is also world famous for directing the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

A scene from Zhang Zimou's nighttime spectacular on the Li River.

However, Zhang directed “Impressions of Liu Sanjie” several years earlier.

During the trip, I took a thousand pictures. While America’s inner cities team with street gangs and grafitti, people in China are friendly and courteous. Come back and visit often as I show a bit more about what I have learned about China and this ancient culture based on Confucianism and Taoism.

I’m sure that what I have learned in the last ten years is what caused Robert Hart, the main character in my novel, My Splendid Concubine, to fall in love with the Chinese culture and people.

What I find amazing about Robert Hart is that he did all this while staying connected to his family in Ireland and to his Christian, Irish, British heritage. After all, Queen Victoria made him a Baron late in his life. In addition, more than a dozen countries honored him with awards including the Pope in Rome.

Return to 2008 China Trip – Part 1 or discover Xian

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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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