Transcendence

At the center of Yu Hua's China in Ten Words is a confrontation with the current economic state of the China. Poverty in China is in many ways as mysterious as the culture and three thousand year history of the country. Yu Hua informs us, “Consider, in contrast, the following figures: if you define the poverty line in China as a 2006 income of 600 yuan or less, then there are thirty million Chinese living in poverty; if you raise the threshold to 800 yuan, there are a full 100 million.” (Hua 160) Hua does not include the exchange rate, which during my visit to China in 2010 was about 6 yuan to the dollar. The exchange rate is important for we Americans who already know $600 dollars is to little money for a person to live off of in this country. In U.S. dollars the numbers Hua gives us translate to somewhere near $100-$120 a year. U.S. poverty income level for 2011 according to the Department of Health and Human Services is $10,890; while a November, 2010 article on China B...

The I-Ching is the accompanying text for a oracle/divination system that exists in Chinese culture. The easiest way to explain divination to those who are not familiar with it is through the example of the casting of lots in the story of Jonah in the Bible. Jonah defies God's command to go to Nineveh and gets on a boat headed in the opposite direction. At sea the boat enters a great storm. The men on the boat think someone on board has done something wrong and cast lots to find out who they should throw off. Jonah gets the shortest lot and is thrown over the edge of the boat into the sea where he is swallowed by the whale. While divination is considered by many to be spookism, "NOI Reference" Christianity can often be characterized in similar ways. The power of Jesus is that he defies natural laws or at least understands natural laws other beings do not which in turn make him God like. Belief in God and the Son of man hinges upon his ability to do miracles and...