Freedom

May 7, 2010

If you have been reading “iLookChina.net”, you may have discovered that many Chinese have similar freedoms to Americans. 

Every citizen in the US has a right to a mandatory education to twelfth grade. China has mandatory education too, and the better the education, the higher earning power.

Americans may buy property but so can the Chinese. In America, most homeowners have to pay annual property tax but not in China. In fact, if one has the money, he or she may buy anything sold in China just as in the US. But most Chinese pay with cash and still manage to save.

The average American carries $8,000 in credit card debt. If you are an American, are you one of those credit card slaves?

 

Recent estimates say sixty-five million Chinese globetrot as tourists. In 2007, it was estimated that fifty-seven million Americans traveled internationally.

About the only freedom the Chinese don’t have is they aren’t free to publicly criticize their government. The punishment is severe, but that is spelled out in their constitution. It isn’t a secret.

In America, we might have a Bill of Rights to protection us from our government, but we don’t have any protection from violent street gangs that clog every American city. China has one person in jail for about every 867 Chinese.  In America, it’s about one out of every 31 adults.

What does freedom look like to you?

To learn more, see “You’ve come a long ways, Babe“.

Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning novels My Splendid Concubine and Our Hart. He also Blogs at The Soulful Veteran and Crazy Normal.

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Where are the Parents – Part 3/4

April 14, 2010

Obesity and diabetes among American children is an epidemic. Many children and teens are not eating nutritious, home cooked meals. Instead, they are surviving off Coke, Pepsi, French fries and fast food. I often had kids come into my class after lunch with sixty-four ounce Cokes. Their speech would be slurred; their eyes glazed. Research shows that too much sugar messes with long-term memory and the area of the brain that solves problems.

Teen drug abuse

Many American kids cannot find the family they need at home, so they find one on the streets. In Los Angeles, there are one-hundred-thousand kids that belong to street gangs. Other major cities also have street gangs. Street gangs become the family of choice when parents are not there or not talking. Drug use among teens is also a problem leading to depression and low self-esteem. This may result in decreased interest, negative attitude, drop in grades, many absences, truancy, and discipline problems.

When we pick our daughter up from school, we see the ratty dressed kids on their skateboards hanging out by the graffiti covered walls in the mall parking lot. Our daughter says many of the kids she knows at her high school get drunk regularly and smoke.

Continued in Where are the Parents – Part 4 or return to Part 2

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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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