On October 24, 2009, this Blog was moved to:  
http://learningchina.wordpress.com/

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I am sure there are Americans and other Westerners that will read one of my blogs about China and think I am a traitor, crazy or both. To these people, it will not matter that I served in the United States Marines and fought in Vietnam against communism. It will not matter that I served my country by teaching in the American public schools for thirty years, schools surrounded by a violent, graffiti scarred barrio filled with street gangs. The only evidence these people will need to find me guilty is that I am not criticizing China like the Western mainstream media often does.

The truth is, I am not defending China's government. What I am attempting to do is blow away the fog of ignorance that so many in Western democracies live under when it comes to China. This ignorance has a lot in common with Western ignorance about China in the 19^th century that led to the Boxer Rebellion, the two Opium Wars, and the Taiping Rebellion, the second bloodiest conflict in history started by a man claiming to be God's Chinese son, who was also a Christian convert.

My wife’s mother was a Chinese Christian convert. She never left China. It was not safe for her to belong to a religion during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, so she was a closet Christian. She prayed at night but never let her children know that she was a Christian. She told her husband that having children was for God. Whatever her religious beliefs were, she kept to herself. Since she had a statue of the Virgin Mary and held it when she prayed, it should be safe to say that Catholicism influenced any form of Christianity she believed in. I understand Catholicism. When I was a child, I was a baptized Catholic and my family went to mass each Sunday. I even attended a Catholic elementary school for a few years.

I write about what I know, and I know only a little about other cultures outside the United States. However, I do know something about China. After all, my wife is Chinese. I have been to China a dozen times since 1999, and we have a flat in Shanghai. After nine years of researching China, I published my first novel, which takes place in 19^th century China. For the last ten years, I have been immersed in China and have learned that there is more to discover. I have barely scratched the surface.

The Western media often criticizes China’s government for human rights violations. On the other hand, every government on this earth can be found guilty of human rights violations if you dig deep enough. Do a bit of research and you will find plenty of examples of human rights violations in America in America from its inception to today.  So, why does it appear that there is an obsession in the Western media to paint China evil? The answer is simple. It is one word, ‘communism’.  Didn’t Jesus Christ say, Let he who has no guilt cast the first stone?

A conservative, Republican, born-again Christian, evangelical friend of mine that has never visited China was proud to E-mail me and say that Christianity is the fastest growing religion in China. He also told me that ‘communism’ was evil.

Taking one word and using that word as a definition for evil is wrong. Mao did evil deeds during the twenty-seven years he ruled as China’s modern emperor. Stalin and Hitler also were responsible for horrible atrocities. Words are not evil. Using a word to describe evil is dangerous. It leads to stereotyping. If what my friend said was true, than my mother-in-law, the closet Christian, would be evil since she lived in a communist country.

My wife and daughter returned from China before the 2008 opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics and said Christianity is popular in China. They said that wearing the cross was the stylish thing to do.

When religion becomes the stylish thing to do, I find that disturbing. That’s sort of like wearing clothing that is the latest fad and fads change often. If people are in a religion because it is stylish, what will those people believe next?

Once I started to understand the Confucian foundation of Chinese culture, I found it difficult to blame China's Communist Party for how organized religions are treated in China. If an Emperor ruled China today instead of the Communist Party, would things be the same or worse? After all, Emperors and popular peasant rebellions are responsible for slaughtering or throwing foreigners and their religions out of China more than once before communism was a concept.

Better yet, I will let Lin Yutang take the stage and talk about religion in China. Maybe that will help blow away the Western media induced fog of ignorance.

“For most Chinese the end of life lies not in life after death, for the idea that we live in order to die, as taught by Christianity, is incomprehensible, nor in Nirvana, for that is too metaphysical, not in the satisfaction of accomplishment, for that is too vainglorious, nor yet in progress for progress’ sake, for that is meaningless. The true end, the Chinese have decided in a singularly clear manner, lies in the enjoyment of a simple life, especially the family life, and in harmonious social relationships.

“The Chinese are a nation of individualists. They are family-minded, not social-minded... It is curious that the word ‘society’ does not exist as an idea in Chinese thought. In the Confucian social and political philosophy we see a direct transition from family, ‘chia’, to the state, ‘kuo’, as successive stages of human organization …

“The Confucian conception of man’s place in nature is that ‘Heaven, earth and man’ are regarded as ‘the three geniuses of the universe’.

“The Chinese, therefore, make rather poor Christian converts, and if they are to be converted they should all become Quakers, for that is the only sort of Christianity that the Chinese can understand. Christianity as a way of life can impress the Chinese, but Christian creeds and dogmas will be crushed, not by a superior Confucian logic but by ordinary Confucian common sense. Buddhism itself, when absorbed by the educated Chinese, became nothing but a system of mental hygiene, which is the essence of Sung philosophy.”

(My Country and My People, Lin Yutang. Halcyon House, New York. 1938. Pgs 94; 101; 103; 172, and 108)