Banning Virtual Love for the Troops

July 5, 2010

Tragedy has struck before with online dating like Krista Elizabeth Merry, a 15-year-girl, who vanished after meeting someone on the Internet. Love Fraud.com even offers 7 points to remember about dating and predators.

Knowing how dangerous looking for love can be on the Internet, it should come as no surprise to learn that the People’s Daily announced that China’s military leaders are taking online dating as a serious threat to national security and banned online dating for the troops.

Traditional Chinese Wedding

However, young military men are not in the army to become monks, so China’s officers have had matchmaking added to their duties. Source: IBN Live

Becoming a military matchmaker may not be so easy, because there is a growing shortage of women in China. CNN reported that some 24 million Chinese men of marrying age will find themselves without a wife by 2020.  In that case, being in the military might be an advantage since patriotic Chinese women could move military men to the front of the line—that is if enough women are ready to marry.

Discover You’ve Come a Long Ways, Babe

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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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The Prince’s Garden

June 26, 2010

These photos were taken inside Prince Kung’s (1833-1898) palace and garden (once called Gongwangfu). This palace is in Beijing’s Beihai district. Prince Kung was Emperor Hsein Feng’s (1831-1861) younger brother.

As Inspector General for the Emperor of China, Robert Hart, known as the Godfather of China’s modernism, lived in the same hutong that Prince Kung lived in.  The Forbidden City was on the far side of Tiananmen Square.

Robert Hart, the main character in “My Splendid Concubine” and “Our Hart”, often met Prince Kung in this garden.

After 1950, for several decades, this palace and the garden became a communal home for many Chinese. In recent years, the garden, considered one of the best in China, was renovated and is now a tourist attraction, which attracts thousands of visitors daily.

To design a proper Chinese garden one must build a big place in a small space.  Prince Kung’s garden and estate is surrounded by a high wall and outside is Beijing.  Once inside, it is easy to forget that outside the walls is a crowded city. It was also easy for the Qing (Manchu) royals to forget about what was happening throughout China.

Discover The Summer Palace

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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.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The First Emperor: The Man Who Made China – Part 9/9

April 23, 2010

In the seventh month of 2010 BC, the first emperor’s search for immortality has ended. At the age of fifty, Qin Shi Huangdi is dead.

While China’s first emperor is being buried according to his wishes, a power struggle rages outside the tomb. By tradition, the oldest son should have become the emperor but several ministers want a younger son on the throne. The others are assassinated and there is a slaughter.

The emperor is also not going alone into the afterlife. While his chosen successors are being assassinated, hundreds of his favorite concubines will stay with their master and die with him. The tomb’s designers and builders will be sealed in the tomb too. Everyone who knows the way dies.

Qin Shi Huangdi left a legacy–a unified nation with a single written language and a system of administration that is still used today.

You may return to Part 8, or start with The Man Who Made China, 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. 

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The First Emperor: The Man Who Made China – Part 7/9

April 22, 2010

By 215 BC, Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s tomb is almost finished. The chamber where his body will rest is the size of a football field and will be hermitically sealed.  Then the tomb will be covered with a million tons of earth creating the hill we see today.

View of Qin Shi Huangdi's tomb

However, the Emperor doesn’t plan to die. Seeking advice from his doctor, he is given mercury capsules. At the time, it was believed that mercury would increase longevity.  Having lots of sex with multiple partners was also considered another way to increase life. The emperor follows the doctor’s advice and sends the doctor on an expedition to find an elixir for immortality.

The emperor isolates himself and delegates the power to rule the empire to those he trusts most. These men suppress free thought. Entire libraries are burned. Those who try to hide documents are branded on the face and sentenced to a life of force labor–mostly on The Great Wall. Anyone who resists is buried alive.

Professor Jeffrey Riegel, University of California, Berkeley, says that Chinese archeologists have no immediate plans to unearth the tomb, because there is no way to safeguard the contents from decay.

Go to Part 8 for The Man Who Made China or return to Part 6

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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. 

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

 

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The First Emperor: The Man Who Made China – Part 6/9

April 21, 2010

The totalitarian philosophy in the new Chinese empire was called legalism. There are rules that govern every part of every citizen’s daily life with the punishment spelled out. Physical punishment could mean mutilation. For example, if two are caught having sex, they will be beheaded. Every aspect of private life is part of Qin law.

In 220 BC, Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi goes on an inspection tour of his empire.  With the major wars over, millions of troops are put to work finishing the Great Wall of China to stop the nomadic tribes to the north from raiding into China, which they have done for centuries.

The Great Wall of China is the greatest engineering project of the ancient world. It is thirty feet high and more than three thousand miles long. At one point, over a million people are working on the wall and about a quarter of them will die.

The emperor makes more demands. He sends hundreds of thousands to build a tomb that fits his rank as the first divine emperor of China. The burial mound, larger than the largest pyramid in China, is at the center of an above ground and underground city. His tomb is made of bronze surrounded by mercury rivers and oceans.

Recently, using ground penetrating radar and other instruments, a three dimensional model is built of the underground complex.

Go to Part 7 for the Man Who Made China or return to Part 5

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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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