Daughter of Xanadu – Part 4/4

April 20, 2011


A review (guest post) by Tom Carter of Daughter of Xanadu by Dori Jones Yang

By story’s conclusion, Messer Polo, who witnessed and wrote about the Mongols’ real-life battle against the Burmese in his book, The Travels of Marco Polo, has elevated “Emmajin the Brave” into the living legend she wanted to be, though she now regrets it.

“These men needed a hero, but I no longer needed to be one.” She resigns her sword and rank, and departs with Polo back to Europe as the Khan’s emissary of peace, leaving the literary door wide open for a sequel.

Dori Jones Yang, who also penned the best-selling Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time, is a skilled historian.

In researching Daughter of Xanadu, Yang, fluent in Putonghua, traveled all the way to the ruins of Xanadu in remote Inner Mongolia, which this itinerant backpacker can personally attest is no easy journey.

The short chapters and brief sentences, edited with razor precision for a younger audience, along with a helpful glossary for ESL students, make reading Daughter of Xanadu a breeze, though adults will admittedly want to beg this book back afterwards from their tweens.

Return to Daughter of Xanadu – Part 3 or start with Part 1

View as Single Page

______________

Travel photographer Tom Carter is the author of China: Portrait of a People (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review), a 600-page China photography book, which may be found at Amazon.com.

Discover more “Guest Posts” from Tom Carter with Is Hong Kong Any Place for a Poor American?

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

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, Chinese women, cultural differences, history | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Daughter of Xanadu – Part 3/4

April 19, 2011


A review (guest post) by Tom Carter of Daughter of Xanadu by Dori Jones Yang

Authoress Dori Jones Yang is a Caucasian American, yet she is no stranger to writing from the perspective of conflicted adolescent Chinese girls, as evinced in her previous, award-winning novel, The Secret Voice of Gina Zhang.

In Daughter of Xanadu, she hones in even deeper into the physiological confusion and emotional conflictions that make youth such a joy, turning Emmajin into such a hormonal wreck that this male reviewer often found himself gritting his teeth in frustration at such contradictive revelations as, “if he had pursued me, I would have rebuffed him. By holding himself aloof, he challenged me to win back his esteem.”

Daughter of Xanadu is not all-teenage angst.  As our protagonist matures, so does the content of the story.

Emmajin eventually persuades Khubilai Khan to allow her to train for war against the Burmese at the Battle of Vochan (present-day Yunnan province), where the embarrassment of getting her period in front of the all-male troops is a bloody omen for what’s to come.

Upon seeing her cousin slain, innocent Emmajin is transformed into a “mindless killer.”

  Bloodlust unleashed, the young princess swings her sword indiscriminately (“the hatred pounded in my ears…killing him felt good”), resulting in hundreds of men dead by her hand alone.

One can only imagine all the Mulan vs. Emmajin fan fiction that this novel will inspire!

Continued on April 20, 2011 in Daughter of Xanadu – Part 4 or return to Daughter of Xanadu – Part 2

View as Single Page

______________

Travel photographer Tom Carter is the author of China: Portrait of a People (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review), a 600-page China photography book, which may be found at Amazon.com.

Discover more “Guest Posts” from Tom Carter with Is Hong Kong Any Place for a Poor American?

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

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, Chinese women, cultural differences, history | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Daughter of Xanadu – Part 2/4

April 18, 2011

A review (guest post) by Tom Carter of Daughter of Xanadu by Dori Jones Yang

The merchants’ young son turns out to be one Marco Polo, the now-legendary Venetian journeyer credited for introducing Asian culture to the west.

To Emmajin, however, he is just another “colored-eye man,” a court curiosity from Christendom whose gallantry and romantic gestures are as ridiculous to the manly Mongolians as his facial hair (“his beard was so thick I could imagine food sticking in it”).

Try as she might, however, Emmajin, caught in the peak of puberty, is unable to resist Marco’s western charm, and quickly finds herself enamored by his worldly vision (“I had learned to see the world through Marco’s eyes”) as well as his pelt.

“What would the hair on his arm feel like?” she often fantasized about at night.

But she was a Mongolian first, and reluctantly sacrifices her blossoming relationship with the foreigner to complete her spy mission (“He was not a friend but a source of information.”).

Continued on April 19, 2011 in Daughter of Xanadu – Part 3 or return to Part 1

View as Single Page

______________

Travel photographer Tom Carter is the author of China: Portrait of a People (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review), a 600-page China photography book, which may be found at Amazon.com.

Discover more “Guest Posts” from Tom Carter with Is Hong Kong Any Place for a Poor American?

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

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, Chinese women, cultural differences, history | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Qing Dynasty’s Banner Armies

February 14, 2011

I have a book on the elite troops of China’s Qing Dynasty, and used The Manchu Way for research (along with lots of other work) while writing My Splendid Concubine and Our Hart. I spent from 1999 to late 2007 researching, writing, revising, editing and rewriting the manuscript.

I wanted 19th century China to come alive and be another character in Hart’s Concubine Saga.

Mark C. Elliott wrote The Manchu Way. I was attending a NCIBA Trade Show in Oakland, California several years ago and met Elliott.  When I expressed interest in the book due to my project, he gave me a copy.

History Today said of Elliott’s book, “This is a wide-ranging and innovative book. Furthermore, it is written in a lively, accessible style… Overall, it is undoubtedly a scholarly achievement of the highest order.”

I was fortunate to have this resource while writing of Robert Hart’s early years in China. In fact, Hart was the only foreigner the emperor trusted and Hart worked for Qing Dynasty for most of his life.

The Qianlong emperor (pronounced “chien-lung”) was the fourth monarch of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) who reigned from 1736 to 1795.

The four-minute video starts by saying that during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor there were several rebellions in Sichuan province.

The Qing banner armies fought wars against the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Evenks and Mongols. Unsuccessful costly wars were also fought with Vietnam and Myanmar.

Although millions of square miles or kilometers were brought into the empire, the strain on China’s treasury and military due to casualties and deaths resulted in a military decline.

This decline contributed to China’s weakness a few decades later when the British Empire and France invaded China to force the Qing Dynasty to allow opium to be sold to the Chinese people and give missionaries total freedom to convert the population to Christianity, which caused more wars and tens of millions of deaths during the 19th century.

The Qing army was divided into eight banners. Each banner had its own color scheme, which was reflected in their clothing, armor and flags. There were eight Manchu banners, eight Mongolian banners and eventually eight Han Chinese banner armies for twenty-four armies. In 1648, there were between 1.3 and 2.44 million people in the Chinese, Manchu and Mongol Banner armies.  By 1720, the numbers were estimated at between 2.6 and 4.9 million.

China has a history of maintaining large armies for more than two thousand years mostly for defense.

Discover China’s Greatest Emperors

______________

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.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, Christianity, history | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Ma Yan’s Story – Part 2/2

February 11, 2011

A few days after Ma Yan hears that her family cannot afford to continue her education past fifth grade, Pierre Haski, the French journalist, visited her village.  After seeing the diaries, Haski promised that he would help her continue school then go to a university or even further than that.

Needless to say, after the publication of her diaries, Mao Yan continued on to middle school along with lots of attention from the media.

Ma Yan says that most of the media asked her about her experience at school and she wanted to tell them what it was like so the world would hear of the other poor children that wanted to go to school longer.

Because of that media attention, the students at her elementary and middle schools received offers of help.

That outpouring of interest led to the founding of Children of Ningxia, which will soon celebrate its tenth anniversary. The Children of Ningxia reports that the nonprofit has reached out to more than 2,500 students, scholarships to more than 150 and fourteen have finished their university studies since 2009.

China’s government also abolished school fees through ninth grade but many remote, rural families still struggle to pay for boarding fees.

One student, who is still in school, said she would have been doing farm work if it hadn’t been for Children of Ningxia.

As the Al Jazeera segment of Ma Yan’s Story ends, I thought of the billion people living in poverty around the world.  Less than 10% of those people live in China and this story is only of a few of those people.

Return to Ma Yan’s Story – Part 1

______________

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.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese minorities, education, family values | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Ma Yan’s Story – Part 1/2

February 10, 2011

In January 2010, Al Jazeera Witness reported the story of Ma Yan, a young Chinese girl that lived in rural China in the same poverty that rural Chinese have lived with for centuries and how The Diary of Ma Yan was published in many countries including China (where it was a best seller) and the US.

The village where Ma Yan lived is described in Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China, but since that time, few outsiders have visited it. The United Nations says this is a region unfit for human habitation. Source: China.org.cn

Contrary to popular opinion, the poor in China did not get this way because of the Communists. The hardship and poverty of Ma Yan’s people and many others in China has been that way for centuries.

It didn’t help when the Communists won China’s civil war and the defeated Nationalists took the nation’s treasury and most of the ancient Imperial treasures to Taiwan leaving China nothing but people and the land.

In this segment of Witness, we travel with Mao Yan as she breaks the cycle of poverty.

By chance in 2001, a French journalist was visiting remote Ningxia province in northwest China when a Muslim woman wearing the white headscarf of the Hui people thrust her daughter’s diaries into his hands.

Ma Yan writes that the economy where she lives has not been developed. However, Mao Yan is not alone wanting to escape the hardship of poverty.  She wrote that her life was like a death sentence.

Then the French journalist read the diary Mao Yan’s mother had given him and was so impressed, he arranged for excerpts to be published in one of the French daily newspapers.

By 2007, Ma Yan passed a university exam and was one of the first girls from her village to be eligible for a university education. Her next move was to Paris where she lives with a French family and attends a university there.

Discover Mao Zedong and Edgar Snow, who wrote Red Star Over China.

______________

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.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese minorities, education, family values, parenting | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Qing – China’s Last Dynasty – Part 1/3

December 11, 2010

The Qing and/or Manchu Dynasty was established due to a revolution led by Li Tzu-cheng (1605-1645), who attacked Beijing in April 1644.

The Qing Dynasty survived from 1644 to 1911 AD.

After the rebels entered the city, the last Ming Dynasty emperor hung himself on a hill that is part of the Forbidden City.

Meanwhile, a Manchurian army led by Dorgan was allowed through the Great Wall, defeated the Chinese rebels, executed Li Tzu-cheng, and made Fu-lin, a Manchurian, the emperor of China, which was the beginning of the last imperial dynasty.

This was the second time in China’s history that foreigners ruled the Middle Kingdom. The first time was during the brief Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1277-1367 AD).

A CCTV 9 Travelogue History Special takes us on a tour of the Qing Dynasty.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, many wealthy businessmen built large estates on the fertile lands of Shanxi province not far from Beijing.

The Wang family’s estate is situated in Lingshi county. This mansion is an example of the architecture of the Qing Dynasty

This estate covers 150,000 square meters (about 180 thousand square yards).

There was even a school for the family’s children.

The host of this program says that walking into the estate’s courtyard is like walking into a museum.

Everywhere you look, there are works of art. Every stone carving, every statue means something. The art represents either family tradition or the Qing Dynasty culture or the social status of the family.

Continued in The Qing – China’s Last Dynasty – Part 2

______________

.

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.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, Confucianism, cultural differences, history, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Sensitivity over Tibet – Part 1/2

December 6, 2010

Earlier this year, Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reported on China’s sensitivity over Tibet. 

He says the Dalai Lama has long been a thorn in the flesh of the Chinese government. Beijing openly calls him a Jackal in a Monk’s Robe. The Dalai Lama has met every US President since George Bush Senior in 1991.

Birtley says, China state media often says that Tibet has always been part of China long before Hawaii become part of the United States.

The Dalai Lama’s people, on the other hand, claim that China never ruled Tibet and the Dalai Lama’s global followers blindly accept this claim as the truth.

Since Birtley offers no evidence in his report to support China or Tibet’s claims, I offer two sources of primary evidence from unbiased and non-Communist sources that support China’s claim.

I will start with the oldest source. Robert Hart (1835 – 1911) worked in China from 1854 to 1908 and was the most powerful Westerner in China’s history. 

In a letter Hart wrote in October 1885 to Campbell, his agent in England, he mentioned a diplomat from the British Foreign Office was seeking friendly relations and trade with Tibet. However, China did not want “Tibet, its tributary”, exposed to Western trade and influence.

In another letter in December 1903, Hart mentions the Chinese Amban in Tibet.  An Amban was the title for the political governor assigned to Tibet by the Emperor in Beijing.

Granted, Tibet was remote and difficult to reach and manage, and there were times during those 636 years where it may have appeared that the Tibetans managed themselves.

However, the facts show that China does have a claim that Tibet was part of China.

The second source appeared in The National Geographic Magazine (NGM) in October 1912 when the medical officer of a Chinese mission sent to Tibet in 1906 wrote a piece about Tibet for the magazine.

If you want to read about and see Tibet of that time, I suggest reading Dr. Shaoching H. Chuan’s The Most Extraordinary City in the World (pages 959 -995). 

The NGM also published about 60 photos the doctor shot.

On page 979, Dr. Chuan describes the government of Tibet, “the Ambans are appointed by the Chinese Emperor every four years. All governmental affairs have to undergo examination by the two Ambans…”

The reason Tibet declared its independene from China in 1913 was due to British political medling.

Tibet stayed free less than 40 years before Mao sent the PLO to reclaim territory China ruled as a tributary state since the 13th century.

Learn more about Buddhism in China

______________

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.

Leave a Comment » | Buddhism, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, history, politics, religion, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

A Road to the Hajj from China – Part 2/2

November 30, 2010

Another devout Chinese Muslim in Xian is proudly transcribing the Quran into Chinese using traditional Chinese brush calligraphy. He says it took him over a year to transcribe the entire Quran this way. Now he is working on a second copy.

He has also taught his son and his grandsons how to write with the Chinese brush wanting to pass down this tradition to the next generation.

His son says that every generation should try their best to transcribe the Quran with the Chinese brush, as it is also a good way to reinforce our faith.

The original copy of the Quran in this family is over four hundred years old, a priceless relic transcribed by the Chinese imams. There are only a few remaining copies left in the world.

Jia Wen Yi, a Hajj pilgrim, says the trip to Mecca is important to him and his wife, an elderly couple. They have done a lot of preparation for the hajj. Mr. Jia goes into detail about the planning.

Going on the hajj for Yi and his wife, Jia Wang Yi, has been a dream for over two decades as they saved to have enough money.

Mr. and Mrs. Jia will be part of a group of 250 pilgrims leaving for the hajj from the city of Xian. It was a matter of saving most of their lives until they could afford the trip.

Since these Muslims are considered a minority in China, they are not restricted by the one-child policy, as you would see in the video when the family and friends gather to say goodbye before Mr. and Mrs. Jia leave on the long journey to Mecca.

There is no direct flight from Xian to Mecca, so the pilgrims will take a train to Beijing where they will board a flight to Saudi Arabia.

Whenever pilgrims leave Xian to go on the hajj to Mecca, thousands of Chinese Muslims show up at the railway station to say goodbye. This is the first time Mr. and Mrs. Jia have left China. They have never been apart from their family before.

Return to A Road to the Hajj from China – Part 1 and/or discover The Kaifeng Jews

______________

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.

1 Comment | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, cultural differences, history, Islam, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

A Road to the Hajj from China – Part 1/2

November 30, 2010

This two-part post may come as a surprise to many in the West that believe there is no religious freedom in China.

In fact, China handles religious freedom similar to how Singapore does, and Singapore is seldom if ever criticized in the Western media for this practice.

The U.S. Department of State says that Singapore’s government has broad powers to limit citizens’ rights and handicap political opposition, which it uses. One of those restrictions is a limited freedom of religion.

However, the Constitution for the Republic of Singapore offers the same fundamental liberties China and the US does, which includes freedom of speech, assembly and association and freedom of religion.

For example, Singapore bans the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Unification Church by making public meetings illegal. The Falun Gong has also had problems in Singapore.

China, on the other hand, recognizes five religions — Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism but has banned certain new religious movements that are considered cults. China does not recognize cults as religions.

In the video embedded with this post, Al Jazeera follows Chinese Muslims as they prepare to undertake the hajj pilgrimage.

The ancient city of Xian in Shaanxi province is home to about 60,000 ethnic Chinese Muslims.

Xian claims it has a Muslim history going back thirteen hundred years when Islam was first introduced to China in 650 AD.

In fact, the oldest mosque in China was built in 685-762 AD in Xian during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty.

Chinese Imam Ma Yi Ping speaks both Chinese and Arabic. He studied at the Islamic University of Medina and has made the hajj several times. He was taught to be a devout Muslim by his parents during Mao’s time when the mosques in China were closed.

Despite the persecutions that took place during the Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976), Islam survived in China.

Ma Yi Ping says that after Mao and the Gang of Four were gone and China opened for trade with the world, he did not have to study the Quran in secret anymore.

Since the 15th century, Xian Muslims have been going to Mecca in Saudi Arabia for the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

In the past, during the ancient days of the Silk Road, these journeys started and ended in Xian’s Muslim quarter. Today is no different.

Continued in A Road to the Hajj from China – Part 2

______________

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”, sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top right-hand side of this page and then follow directions.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, cultural differences, history, Islam, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 216 other followers