Wearing China’s Shoes

Is it any wonder that China is upset that the United States industrial military machine is selling Taiwan $6.4 billion in weapons?

The rest of “Wearing China’s Shoes” may be found at iLookChina.net.  “Learning China” is moving to “iLook China” where new posts will appear.  If you want to read “Wearing China’s Shoes” click this link.

http://ilookchina.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/wearing-chinas-shoes/

The Failure of Multiculturalism in the United States

I taught in the public schools for thirty years and Multiculturalism in the schools was an attempt to create respect for other cultures around the world. If you read this blog about Multiculturalism, you will learn why it isn’t working. The neo-conservative political alliance with conservative evangelicals have done all they can to sink this attempt to learn about other cultures and respect them for their differences.

The radical right has demonized Multiculturalism in the public schools as they have demonized the word liberal. The motivation for this is because they believe they can rebuild the world to be a mirror image of American neo-conservative, Christian values through the use of war induced nation building. Anyone who disagrees is considered a godless liberal.

When we hear attacks on China in the media or from American politicians (from both the radical right or liberal left) for violations of human rights, what does that mean? Sometimes those criticisms are justified when dictators like Kim Jong-il in North Korea abuses his power.  However, when a country is doing something that could be explained through the context of the culture, it may not be a violation of human rights. Americans should know more before passing judgment.

Read the Introduction to iLook China.

China’s Heart and Soul

The Introduction for China, Heart and Soul by Stephen L. Koss says what I thought when I first went to China in 1999.  “My impressions had formed from decades of Cold War Red scares…” I am sure that most Americans who have never visited China still feel the same. Most of the Western media earns a FAILING grade when it comes to reporting on China. They are all wrong in so many ways.

If you are open minded and want to discover the real China and learn the differences between what you read and hear in the Western media and from American politicians, I suggest you visit Tom Carter’s work and spend two minutes and forty-two seconds to see China through his eyes.  Or, even visit China from the eyes of someone special and precious to Tom Carter. This Blog is written in English and Chinese.

Another way to learn about China is to start reading the 2008 China Trip – Part 1 — the introduction to this Blog

Doing Business in China

I’ve talked to an American doing business in China who was frustrated with the process while another American like Bob Grant wrote I Like the Chinese People.

After all, Bill Gates Went to China. It seems many American businessmen are getting along better with the Chinese than the Western media and politicians. When’s the last time you heard something nice about China from the Western media or an American politician?  For some reason, China has become a scapegoat turning the attention of the American people away from the problems we have in the United States.

In the meantime, General Motors and Ford are doing great in China while they are struggling in the debt ridden United States. The Chinese love American cars. The Chinese also seem to have a passion for McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, KFC and Starbucks.

Wal-Mart is in China too.

If America wants to get along better with the Chinese government, we should turn businessmen like Bill Gates or Bob Grant into diplomats.

Human Rights Chinese Style

Beijing holds forum on human rights

Just like China created capitalism Chinese style, the Chinese are building a bridge to human rights the same way. But they see things different from Western democracies that are burdened with debt, crime, serious drug problems and swelling prison populations.

Due to Confucius’s teachings from twenty-five hundred years ago, most Chinese value family and piety above all else—something that has all but vanished in the West due to a different definition of freedom.

Sure, China isn’t perfect and China admits that. But they also point out “China believes that human rights, like other rights, are not ‘absolute’ and the rights enjoyed should conform to obligations fulfilled. China opposes separating rights from obligations,” said Luo Haocai at the Beijing Forum on Human Rights.

Many Chinese know what Western freedom is like. After all, China’s future leaders, like many Chinese, have attended universities in Western countries and they speak English. They experienced freedom Western style and learned that the Western concept of freedom doesn’t match Chinese values. Family obligations come first in China. To understand the Chinese better, read The First of All Virtues.

Who’s Hacking Whom?

China rejects claims of Internet hacking attacks by Gillian Wong, Associated Press Writer.

Why is it that everything that happens in China is the government’s fault?  At least that’s how the Western media and politicians tell it. If the Chinese government is to blame for what every Chinese citizen does, then every senator, congressmen, Supreme Court justice and the president of the United States are responsible for everything happening in America.

China has every right to deny they are responsible. After all, where is the evidence? I always thought people were considered innocent until proven guilty. Shouldn’t governments have the same right. Isn’t that the foundation of American justice? China has a huge population using the Internet. Anyone could be doing this. How would you like to keep track of 1.3 billion people? Heck, the government of the United States can’t even control its people, and I know that China does not control their people as much as Westerners believe.

Here’s an example of what happens when Western Yellow journalism and politicians stir the pot. One Blogger Who Found Them Guilty Evidence that “simple” minds jump to conclusions based on propaganda, which is a two way street.

Read Google Recycled for Another Possibility

Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning  My Splendid Concubine.

China’s Cheap Price Structure

In a YouTube video The End of Cheap China, the narrator said, “China is well known as the factory of the world, and Guangdong province is the factory of China. For over two decades, the cheap labor of the Pearl River Delta has made the worlds goods. But with costs rising fast, Guangdong is losing its competitive edge, and now the government wants to move away from its labor intensive, low wage low margin model, and move up market.”

Of course, this prediction was wrong. Compared to the rest of the world, China will always cost less. The government controls the value of the currency, saves money instead of running a deep debt and has goals to find a balance between an economy that exports and one that is fueled by a growing middle class.  No matter how much the world tries to under price China, the Chinese will work harder for less. The reason for that is piety.  If you are interested in seeing piety from a different perspective, read my series The First of All Virtues – Part 1.

Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning  My Splendid Concubine.

2008 China Trip – Part 2

On September 18, 2008, my wife and I flew to China (my ninth trip since 1999). My wife planned the trip and made all travel and hotel arrangements.

During the next twenty-eight days, with my older sister Nancy and her youngest daughter Jenny , we traveled China. Starting from Shanghai, we took a train to Beijing where we visited the Great Wall.

Several days later, we flew to Xian, the ancient capital of China where hundreds of emperors ruled the empire for more than a thousand years before the Ming Dynasty moved the capital to Beijing.

After a few days in Xian, we flew back to Shanghai and took a train to Hangzhou, better known to foreigners as the West Lake, where  the Southern Sung Dynasty (1127-1279) ruled what was left of China after invading barbarians conquered Northern China.

After Hangzhou, we took a slow train back to Shanghai and then to Suzhou, where I got sick. I returned to Shanghai to recuperate before we flew southwest to Guilin near Vietnam.

While in Guilin, we took a slow boat down the Li River and attended a musical and lighting extravaganza “Impressions of Liu Sanjie” near the town of Yangshuo.  

This outdoor show, with a cast of six hundred local people, takes place at night on a stretch of the Li River with real mountains as a backdrop.  The “Impressions of Liu Sanjie” is the creation of Zhang Zimou, China’s famous film director. Zhang is also world famous for directing the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

However, Zhang directed “Impressions of Liu Sanjie” several years earlier.

During the trip, I took a thousand pictures. While America’s inner cities team with street gangs and grafitti, people in China are friendly and courteous. Come back and visit often as I show a bit more about what I have learned about China and this ancient culture based on Confucianism and Taoism.  

I’m sure that what I have learned in the last ten years is what caused Robert Hart, the main character in my novel, My Splendid Concubine, to fall in love with the Chinese culture and people.

What I find amazing about Robert Hart is that he did all this while staying connected to his family in Ireland and to his Christian, Irish, British heritage. After all, Queen Victoria made him a Baron late in his life. In addition, more than a dozen countries honored him with awards including the Pope in Rome.

Read 2008 China Trip – Part 1 — the introduction to this Blog

Google Recycled

Last week, the media buzzed about Google being hacked and censored. Google threatened to leave China if this didn’t stop.  Obama and Secretary of State Clinton demanded that China fess up.

What’s going on?  It isn’t as if Google is the primary search engine in China. In fact, this claim that they are being hacked by the Chinese may be their way to get out of China without the red face of failure. The truth is that the Chinese haven’t taken to Google like the rest of the world.

After all, “Just like Chinese search engine Baidu trumped Google, online bookseller Dangdang outsmarted Amazon in China with better merchandising skills while Alibaba-owned Chinese auction site Taobao took the lead from eBay ( EBAY – news – people ) by giving sellers a free listing of their goods and charging only for premium accounts.”  source: Alibaba.com News

As I wrote in Honor, Chinese Style, it’s obvious that the Chinese prefer things done the Chinese way and the word is out on the streets in China. The Chinese prefer Baidu over Google.

Minority Treatment in China, Part I

This Blog was originally posted on Open Salon.com (September 14, 2009), and was moved to “Learning China” (WordPress), October 25, 2009

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China vs. America
Compare and Contrast Native Minority Treatment
Part One
(a four part series) This post will focus on the United States with some historical background. 

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Atrocities abound in the history books concerning treatment of Native American Indians during the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. The Spanish destroyed the Aztec and Inca civilizations with disease and warfare. The Catholic mission system in California enslaved American Indians. After the Civil War, the United States military was sent west and drove North American Indians from the land they had lived on for thousands of years and slaughtered men, women and children—millions died.

The American government went on to grab Hawaii from the native Hawaiian people against their will. (There’s a native Hawaiian nonviolent separatist movement asking for freedom from America.)

There’s also a chapter in the history of the Philippines. 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 people. This went on until World War II.

 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.