Jewish Studies in China

August 6, 2013

The Chinese and Jews have a common bond—Sinophobia and Anti-Semitism.  Archaeological evidence suggests that Jews were in China as early as the 8th century having arrived from Persia along the Silk Road.

And in China, Jews found a home without Anti-Semitism, which suggests that Anti-Semitism only exists in Christian and Muslim dominated countries.

In Shanghai, there is the Jewish Refugees Museum located in the former Ohel Moishe Synagogue, which offers a history of refugees who were sheltered in the city during World War II.

There is also a graduate program at Nanjing University, the China/Judaic Studies Association, which furthers the study of Judaism in China at the Glazer Institute for Jewish Studies. The chair for this graduate program, Professor Xu Xin, is the leading Judaic Scholar in China.

Professor Xu said, “Not to understand the contribution of the Jews to world history is not to understand the world … not to understand another people is a failed opportunity to counteract hatred and bigotry.”

The Chinese government now recognizes Jews as an official Chinese ethnic group. Source: Los Angeles Chinese Learning Center

Discover Deep Family Roots

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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.

His latest novel is the multiple-award winning Running with the Enemy.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Facts about Education — China and the world versus America – Part 1/3

July 28, 2011

Tired of reading endless criticisms of just about everything global, I dropped my weekly subscription to The Economist magazine (TE) with its emphasis on Sinophobia.

To me, it seemed that most of TE’s staff does not have the intellectual ability or knowledge to write with much depth. I only remember one piece that was well researched and written that impressed me.

Instead, I have shifted to Foreign Policy (FP) magazine, which comes once every two months, and from what I’ve read so far in a few issues, the writing and ability of its staff is on a much higher level than TE.

Maybe that’s because FP has more lead-time to research, think, write, revise and edit before the next issue comes out.

This isn’t the first post I wrote due to something I read in FP. The first came after reading Chicago on the Yangtze, and the post that followed was Bo Xilai’s 32 Million.

This post is from reading FP’s Think Again: Education. The journalist was Ben Wildavsky, a senior scholar in Research and Policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the author of several scholarly books.

Knowing who wrote what is a big leap from TE, which is probably wise since what TE publishes is often insulting, biased and flawed.  However, it is better to know who wrote what since writing in anonymity may lead to lazy, biased and sloppy writing.

What Wildavsky does in FP magazine is debunk the lies and myths about the American educational system, and he does an excellent job.

MYTH: “American Kids are Falling Behind”

ANSWER: To this myth, Wildavsky says, “Not Really”, and explains, “the U.S. education system … doesn’t look to be failing so spectacularly.

“The performance of American students in science and math has actually improved modestly since the last round of this (PISA) international test in 2006 … and reading scores … are more or less unchanged since … 2003.”

Continued on July 28, 2011 in Facts about Education – Part 2

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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.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Keeping Mao Alive in the West – Part 1/4

June 29, 2011

Even though he’s been dead since 1976 and his politics were swept away decades ago as if they were dust to be replaced with a Chinese socialist form of capitalism, there must be a reason for the Western media keeping Mao Zedong alive.

In fact, The Economist is doing its share to keep this ghost in the mind of a Western audience.

The answer might be to feed another kind of monster. The Economist for May 28 published Boundlessly loyal to the great monster to feed the Sinophobia mob’s fears of China and probably to boost sales.

To achieve this, The Economist left out a few facts and threw truth into the flaming maw of a Western fire-breathing dragon.

The only thing worth repeating was a quote from Mao Yushi (no relation to the Mao that died in 1976).  Mao Yushi says it is time to end the “idolization” and “superstition” surrounding Mao Zedong and assess him as an ordinary man.

Although this may be a good suggestion, it will not be that easy to make happen. Too many people in China think of Mao as the George Washington of China and the man that liberated China from feudal landlords and the brutal upper class supported Nationalist dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek.

In fact, most of Mao’s mistakes were made during the last decade of his 83 years during the Cultural Revolution, where he flipped society upside down by putting adolescents and those that were mostly illiterate and living in severe poverty in charge of the country while demoting the educated and middle class to the lowest socio-economic status level after stripping their wealth and privileges away.

Many of the people that Mao liberated from feudalism also know that Mao had a softer heart and was a different person long before he ruled China. Discover Mao Zedong, the poet

Continued on June 30, 2011 in Keeping Mao Alive in the  West – 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.

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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Every Vote Counts

October 28, 2010

Fear tactics still grab votes or American conservatives would stop using them.

Since America’s 2010 midterm elections are being held in November, the Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) ran a political video designed to exploit fear of China.

Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool most of the people some of the time and some of the people most of the time…” 

Evidently, the CAGW decided they could fool some of those people in time to make sure they vote against Democrats.

New York Magazine ran a piece, Is this Really the Best Political Ad This Year, which proves why it is dangerous to be a democracy instead of a republic.

Ben Smith of POLITICO writes, “This slickly-produced new ad from Citizens Against Government Waste … attacks spending in the Mandarin-speaking voice of a gloating, future Chinese professor.”

The sad thing is that millions of Americans believe these distortions.

According to the PEW Global Attitudes Project, 36% of Americans view China with an unfavorable view.

It is no secret that Rush Limbaugh is a Sinophobe and has between 14 and 30 million listeners (depending on who you read).  Glenn Beck has about two to three million. 

In fact, the people that Rush and Beck appeal to must be some of the voters the CAGW is hoping to influence.

The National Center for Educational Statistics shows us that forty-three percent of Americans read at or below basic, which means 93 million votes could be influenced through fear of China.

After all, the illiterate and semiliterate are the easiest voters to fool and that’s why they shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

Learn more at Democracy, Deceit and Mob Rule

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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. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 7/7

October 25, 2010

Another reason China is moving toward a more open republic is China’s growing, highly educated middle class. Even most of China’s peasants have seen lifestyle improvements — not as fast as urban areas but there has been growth.

“Growth in (China’s) peasant income, which had reached a rate of 15.2% a year from 1978 to 1984, dropped to 2.8% a year from 1986 to 1991. Some recovery occurred in the early 1990s, but stagnation of rural incomes marked the latter part of the decade.” Source: Asia Times

Between 1978 to 1984, rural income improved almost 100% within six years.  That growth slowed to 14% between 1986 to 1991. 

Yet, Western critics that blast China for this slow growth seldom mention that rural India has stood still for the last twenty years. There must be an unwritten rule about criticizing other democracies, which is censorship.

China’s Western critics act as if they expect an infant to walk the day he or she is born, and run a marathon, become a rocket scientist and a Nobel laureate all within twenty-four hours.

The China Law Blog said I wasn’t being fair to India when I wrote Comparing India and China’s Economic Engines.

In fact, the West’s Sinophobic critics are the ones guilty of being unfair.

China will open the door to more freedom when China is ready and that door is open wider now than it was in 1976.

I never said “when” China would be finished building a more open, modern republic, and it may never happen until a majority of the people demand it and there may even be bloodshed.

However, the signs are there for anyone who takes the time to look.

When China arrives at that destination is in the hands of the planners, engineers, scientists and architects who lead and rule China—not the Western politicians, the media or Sinophobic critics.

In fact, in 2012, the seventy million members of the Party will have an election and the leadership of China will change again.

However, the West will still refer to the elected president of China’s republic as a dictator without mentioning that in a republic not everyone has the right to vote as it was in America in 1776.

Return to Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – 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. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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