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

Education Chinese Style – Part 7

February 12, 2010

One of the Five Great Relationships that Confucius taught was the one between father and son. Nothing has changed. In addition, because of the relationship between husband and wife, the wife is expected to support the husband. It is the husband and wife’s responsibility to see that a son or daughter grows up to be like the gentleman that Confucius described. To do anything less would be a ‘loss of face’, because the child’s failure or success is a walking advertisement to everyone that the parents did not do their job.

Jade Budda Temple, Shanghai, China

Because of Confucius, most people in China have mutual obligations and responsibilities to each other. If you watched the opening Olympic ceremony in Beijing on TV, you may remember the little boy that risked his life after the big earthquake in Sichuan province. He said it was his duty. According to Confucius, he was right. Buddhism also plays an important part in everyday life in China.

These expectations go back more than two thousand years—well before Constantine made Christianity the moral and ethical foundation for the Roman Empire and Western civilization. Does that mean that everyone in China follows what Confucius taught? Do all Christians, Muslims or Jews follow what their God, spiritual teachers and prophets taught? The answer is no, but the foundations of these cultures are still built on those teachings.

See Part 1

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

2 Comments | Chinese Culture, Christianity, education, parenting, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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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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Education Chinese Style – Part 4

February 11, 2010

In America, liberal minded professors talk about ways to limit entrance to the qualified and allow the unqualified in. I witnessed this dumbing down of America many times during my thirty years as a public school teacher, and I refused to take part. I challenged my students and was always under attack from parents and administrators. Some parents demanded that their children be removed from my class so the child’s self-esteem wouldn’t suffer.

In China, students spend most of their school years intensely studying to take exams that will allow a few to get into college. The universities in China  have room for only a few eligible students. For that reason, after school, many students are tutored or take private classes to get ready for the next school day.

Chinese elementary students where the pressure starts.

My wife told me a story about a boy she knew when she was growing up in Shanghai. His grades were horrible. When his parents found out, they took off their shoes and started to beat their son to death. The teacher had to step in and save the boy. The parents did not blame the teacher for the boy’s lack of success. They blamed themselves and the child.

 See Part 1

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

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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
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