"The Legend of the three kingdoms"

by
The salty and wet story teller
1/12/00

Some two thousand years ago, we had the famous three kingdoms in central China. Many heroic and romantic stories have been written and handed down through the generations. We hear about the "Battle of borrowed arrows", the story of "The two sisters--big bridge and little bridge (sounds like) ", the brotherhood of Liu, Guan, Chang and Chiu, and of course we are familiar with the opening poem of "The Legend of the Three Kingdoms" on our web page.

In recent time we may also have the situation of " The Three Kingdoms" again, and they are Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. In each Kingdom, very colorful events and adventurous acts occur often and regularly. This is quite different from what we used to call "Kingdom" and what took place in "the "Kingdom" back in Pui-Ching days.

" The first round "---The modern boxer unrest Normally an opening poem would be placed here, since THE POEM on our web page says it all, there is no need for such any more.

In the Kingdom of C, the followers of Far-lun Kung are unhappy and have been flexing their muscles. This uprising is quite similar to the " white lotus revolt" in the Ching dynasty. I hear stories from Peter Chang Han that even college grads can be followers. Peter practiced the " Chi Kung", but not the doctrines, of Far-lun Kung, and found it useless in his case. A Chai read one or more books authored by the Head of Far-Lung Kung, and found them rather far-fetched in that the Head claimed he was more powerful than Christ and all other religious leaders/gods put together. It does seem an unfounded or unproven claim. If the Far-lun Kung unrest becomes a real threat to the current regime in the Kingdom, this can lead to the situation of " The kingdom of the heavenly peace" again back in the Ching Dynasty. "Heavenly Emperor Hung Sul-tsun" almost made it. In fact he did for a short time.

The question is why The Ching Dynasty and the current regime faced such revolts from such ludicrous religious groups. Why did they have so many followers? The reason may lie in the unsound governing policy and practice of these regimes in question. Having said that we must also admit the existence of the peace demonstrators, the Moonies and other religious fanatics in the West, who are equally vocal and violent at times, perhaps, less so to the tune of armed insurrection. Since most of us accept that the West has a better political system, and yet we still have social unrest in the West, it is not clear what causes social unrest for the most part. The only correlation this Lighter can see is that the better the political and social environment, the less occurrence of social unrest, as we can see in Switzerland and in the Scandinavia. The other extreme is that the tighter the control of the people by the government, the less the unrest, as in North Korea, the former Soviet Union, and the former eastern Europe. Are there more than just these simple correlations to rationalize and predict most of the revolutions, revolts and uprisings in the world since time began?

We know that the West practices a rather tolerant policy with respect to the demonstrators in general. Since no massive arrests or shutdowns or other forms of repression have been reported in connection to the " FAR-LUNNERS" in Kingdom C, does it mean that the Kingdom is now more tolerant and would allow civil disobedience?

The answer, Dear Lighters, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind...

Stay tuned for "Round Two".