Three Hundred Years – Part 2 of 5

April 6, 2010

From Part 1, Liu Xiaobo’s last sentence, “I have my doubts as to whether 300 years would be enough.”, shows that he understands what it would take to change China’s people so they would accept a Western style government. To make this happen, China would have to be occupied by Western armies while hordes of Christian missionaries arrived to convert the population.  It would take generations to rid the culture of its Confucius Taoist influence—China’s cultural foundation.

Since the West attemped doing this during the 19th century, we already know what will happen. Tens of millions will die since there would be resistance.

Opium Poppy

During the 19th century, more than one of China’s emperors told Western representative that China had everything the empire needed and there was no need for trade with the West. This resulted in two Opium Wars started by England and France to force China to open its doors to Opium and other Western products and to allow Christian missionaries free access to convert the peasant population.

The result was catastrophic.  If it hadn’t been for World War II and Japan’s invasion of China, which cost almost forty million lives, the West might have eventually succeeded in another century or two to convert China into a Western culture as Liu Xiaobo said in Part 1 of this series.

See The Reasons Why China is Studying Singapore http://wp.me/pN4pY-2z

 


Farewell, My Concubine

April 2, 2010

Chen Kaige, self-trained as a filmmaker, was the director for this award winning 1993 film. Prior to “Farewell, My Concubine“, Chen received modest acclaim for the “Yellow Earth” and “The Big Parade”. With “Farewell, My Concubine,” he won the Palme d-or in Cannes.

Farewell, My Concubine

Although the film is in Mandarin with English subtitles, the story captured me from the beginning. If you are interested in Chinese history, this film spans several decades beginning near the end of the Ch’ing Dynasty. On the surface, it is just a story of two boys who happen to become famous, but have their difficulties like most of us lesser mortals do. However, the setting shows the  transformation of a nation from the Ch’ing Dynasty to a warlord dominated republic, the Japanese invasion of World War II and then Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

I saw this movie a decade ago and I remember this powerful, dramatic story of one man’s life from the day his mother took a knife and chopped off an extra finger on each hand so he would have five instead of the six he was born with.

The main character is apparently modeled after an actual person—Peking Opera superstar Mei Lanfang—some may imagine that Lanfang was ‘gay’. However, he only specialized in male roles. He was married at least three times and had children.

Discover Not One Less

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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.

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.


A Difference in Defensive Thinking

March 13, 2010

Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

I’m not sure that America speaks all that softly and that stick has been around the world more than once and has been expensive.  I did a bit of virtual sleuthing and the military budgets approved by the Congress between 1946 to 2009 have cost the American tax-payer about 23 trillion dollars. These figures do not include the wars since World War II.

Korea cost more than five hundred billion (2008 dollars).
The Vietnam War cost more than a trillion.
To date, the cost of war in Iraq since 2003 has cost 747.3 billion and Afghanistan 299 billion since 2001.

China intervened in the Korean War and sent hundreds-of-thousands of troops. To understand why the Chinese got involved, hear Mao’s words during the Vietnam War. “Vietnam is the gums to our teeth. What happens when the gums are gone?” Between 1965 and 1970, over 320,000 Chinese soldiers served in North Vietnam.

China's Military

“Rather than worrying about this development, we should understand that Beijing’s maintenance of a large, modern military is driven by history.” Source: Huffington Post  “On 4 March 2010, Beijing announced China’s declared defense budget will only increase by 7.5% this year — the slowest rate in 20 years.”

To learn more, read “When the Generals Laughed” http://wp.me/pN4pY-dG


In the National Interest

March 1, 2010

In World War II, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and woke the sleeping tiger, America.

Then in the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban missile crises, brought the United States to the brink of nuclear Armageddon. He did this believing it was in the National Interest.

Last night (2/28/2010), I watched an episode on 60 Minutes about a Taiwanese man in the pay of China gathering information about the 6.5 billion-dollar arms sale to Taiwan. Does that make China evil? This morning, I had my answer.

From the dawn of rival civilizations, there have been spies.  It’s all about survival and the national interest. Robert Hart (19th century), who knew the Chinese better than any Westerner, wrote, After China picks its conquerors’ brains; it will be a super-power again. I don’t know what they will do when that times comes. They will decide to either get along with the world or seek revenge for what the world did to them.

In the 19th century, France, England, Germany, Russia, Japan, and the United States attacked China in a series of wars. The devastation visited on a peaceful China started with the Opium Wars and ended with World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Those wars woke the sleeping dragon.

America supports Taiwan—China’s Cuba. The difference is that China sees Taiwan as part of the mainland. What would America do if Hawaii separated from the union, and China supplied the islands with weapons to defend itself? Don’t be surprised if China responds the same way over Taiwan.

The China Americans learned about in school has changed. See Deng Xiaoping’s 20/20 Vision

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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. 


An American Shadow Over the Philippines

February 16, 2010

After the Spanish American War, America took possession of the Philippine islands and waged war against the native people killing more than two hundred thousand. This went on until World War II.

An American flag flying over Fort Santiago in Manila, Phillippines-c1920s

In fact, the treatment of American Indians hasn’t changed much.  The United States government might not wage brutal war against Native American Indians today as they did in the past, but in recent times billions of dollars slated to support Native American Indian tribes on reservations went missing, and no one seems to know where all that money went or care, except the Indians. It would appear that the era of lies and broken treaties has not ended.

If you want to learn more about American Indians, I suggest you read what the New York Times said about the work written by Vine Deloria Jr., and check out Native American Literature worth reading. It’s best to stay away from Hollywood if you want to get closer to the truth.

It is always good to have the facts before passing judgment, and history does count.

Discover In a Dark Mirror Without Reflection

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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.

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.