“But everything I’ve experienced … and heard from journalists there, suggests control over the message has reached obsessive proportions. Even background (anonymous) interviews morph into ‘background with authorization,’ so that a quote from ‘an official’ must pass the review process lest ‘an official,’ should misspeak.”
The West often criticizes China for censoring the Chinese Internet and the media. What they don’t tell us—this is the way it has been for more than a thousand years.
“Chinese media have been tightly regulated since the presses started running some 1,200 years ago …. When Mao Zedong founded People’s Daily as the official mouthpiece of the CCP in 1948, he basically just followed in his predecessor’s imperial footsteps.” Source: Around The Blockby Stephani Elizondo Griest
That quote at the top of this post sounded like a criticism of China, didn’t it? Wrong. That quote came from an opinion piece in the New York Times and Roger Cohen was writing about Washington D.C.
Mao Weitao is considered a living treasure in China. She imitates men in the opera roles she plays—a reversal from Imperial China when women were not allowed on stage so men played female roles.
Mao Weitao is on the left
I was introduced to Yue Opera in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province about a decade ago. Mao Weitao and her husband have their own theater company near the shores of the famous Westlake. My wife translated while I watched the live-opera performance in fascination.
The costumes were lavish and the acting and opera was dramatic with a backdrop of classical Chinese music.
The challenge today is to keep this form of Chinese opera alive. The audience for opera is shrinking dramatically in China while remaining popular with the older generation. Television, movies and the Internet are claiming the shorter attention spans of the younger people.
Mao Weitao, considered an innovative genius on stage, adapts and works to keep the art form alive. According to her husband, no two performances are exactly alike.
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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On October 1, 1949 the People’s Republic of China was formally established in a speech given by Mao Zedong from the Imperial Gate at Tiananmen Square. I stood at the very spot where Mao gave his speech and took the photo at the right. From speaking with people – in China – who lived through his reign it was beyond believable. What he put his people through is an unforgivable act of power and brutality. However, it is images from Mao’s era that some – outside of China – still have of the Chinese people. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
Mao Speech
I never met a Chinese government official – did not even see one at least that I can recall. What I did meet were the people of China – the people with whom I had my business and personal interactions. I did not ask them questions about their government nor did they ask questions of mine. The only political statement that I ever heard was a reference that China’s policy would probably change when the younger generation came into power, someday. (for more on this topic read Changing the Guard at http://wp.me/pN4pY-e9)
In meetings, over two years ago, I heard about the oil pipeline being built directly from Iran to China. None of the people in that meeting expressed an opinion one way or the other regarding this pipeline. It was a decision the Chinese government made. Maybe my associates did not approve of dealing with Iran—maybe they did? The point being here is their government made this decision—not my associates.
Whether the officials in power in the US are republican or democrat, they have all made decisions of which I don’t agree. They did not consult me or ask my opinion—am I my government in these situations?
The point I am trying to make is that I found the Chinese people I met just like me in a lot of respects. I enjoyed doing business with them – learning their culture – and becoming their friends. No government – or its actions – is ever going to change that for me!
The changing role of Chinese women has been dramatic since Mao won China in 1949. Prior to that time, China was ruled by the Kuomintang—a dictatorship. There were never national elections held in China. There wasn’t much that changed under the Kuomintang leadership regarding the role of women. When my wife was born in the late 1950s, her grandmother had bound feet.
The changes ushered in by Mao set the stage for his wife to become China’s leader after her husband’s death. The only reason she did not assume the leadership was because she was arrested as a member of the Gang of Four and sent to prison for crimes committed during the Cultural Revolution.
Modern Chinese woman
Since Mao, the changes have been even more dramatic. Woman own businesses, hold political posts in the government, have jobs, and cannot be sold to become a wife or bought to serve as a concubine. They are not property. They are equals to men in many ways.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. 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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During one of our trips to Shanghai, China, my wife and I went to see a film called Mao Zedong and Edgar Snow. It was in Mandarin and wasn’t subtitled, so I had to watch carefully to understand what was going on. Today, I Googled the move and found little about it on the Internet. I discovered that Edgar Snow’s wife threatened to sue China if the movie was released.
Edgar Snow and Mao
There’s no doubt that Mao had to have had charisma to lead so many men in battle for so many years to win the revolution. Mao changed after he became the modern emperor, and the power corrupted him. The evidence—The Great Leap Forward, The Cultural Revolution and the purges that killed so many. Students of China may want to see this movie, but the only place one may buy a DVD of this movie is probably China.
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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