Posted on 12/10/2007 2:48:58 AM PST by Flavius
GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) - Scorpions scamper in bowls, water snakes coil in tanks and cats whine in cramped cages, waiting to be slaughtered, skinned and served for dinner.
Welcome to the Qingping market in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, where everything from turtles to insects are sold alongside fowl and freshly caught fish.
An outbreak of the SARS virus in 2002 resulted in a local gourmet favorite -- the civet -- being banished to the black market. The racoon-like animal was blamed for spreading SARS, which infected 8,000 people globally and killed 800.
But exotic wildlife and squalor have returned to the Qingping market, making health officials worried that another killer virus could emerge.
"We face similar threats from other viruses and such epidemics can happen because we continue to have very crowded markets in China," said Lo Wing-lok, an infectious disease expert in Hong Kong.
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.reuters.com ...
The CDC warned about this decades ago. The huge poultry and swine population of China is a repository of sorts for virii, and often both types of livestock live literally with their human hosts. There is no way to eradicate this relationship, not in the near term.
These are the people that we borrow a Billion dollars per day from just so we can buy more of their slave labor crap.
These are the people that are building up their military at an alarming rate just so they can wage war with the free world. They have already threatened to evaporate Los Angeles if we defend a free Taiwan.
These are the people that are poisoning our children with tainted toys etc.
They are Communists and they are the enemy and they will continue to be our enemy until they are all dead.
No
We spent a couple months in Guangzhou when my husband was there on a job assignment. We have photos that we show our friends just for the “shock” value. But the market is like a train wreck, you visit it because you can’t believe what you’re seeing. I was phobic about our shoes because you walked through all the “gunk” from the slaughtering of animals and so I’d make sure our family washed their hands everytime we put on or took off our shoes (because who knew what kind of germs we had walked through...btw, the odor is something beyond description.)
Cat-the other other white meat...
Poor things kept their heads above water for an hour or more.
Good cat !
Ping for later.
Yummy. The next time I eat at an "authentic" Chinese restaurant, I'll insist on cat.
I walked out of the hospital... twice... refusing to let them put any instruments or needles into my arm. My friends had to drag me back in, but I was still not happy to be there. The first 4 people to handle my dripping open wound had no gloves on. They wanted to probe for more bits of glass, although the X-ray showed nothing, and the windshield glass shattered exactly as expected, into small chunks about 1/16 inch wide and thick (which would presumably show on the X-ray). The room I was brought to had multiple stains on the gurney where they asked me to sit, and a 12 inch clumpy purple blood smear on the floor. I called my brother-in-law (an M.D.), and we assessed the risk of infection from the dirty windshield glass against the risk of infection from poor sanitary habits with forceps, hands, and needles. I eventually allowed a tetanus shot, and likely due to my odd insistence on cleanliness (two white-coated workers were openly laughing at me), I was given the shot by a lovely and congenial young nurse who was wearing gloves amd had exceptional technique. I barely felt a thing.
Needless to say, other than the nurse who gave me that shot, I was terribly unimpressed with Guangzhou overall. China's incredibly poor reputation for quality is well-earned, consistent, and there are precious few stories to counter-balance the myriad of bad stories coming from this region (especially Guangzhou, which is at the center of most of the stories involving the poor quality of imports to the US).
In October, I hosted a few friends from Guangzhou here in the states, and the expected amusing cultural differences were numerous. Most of them centered upon avoiding dirt and germs. You can see why.
By the way... The hospital visit, with shot and X-ray and doctor’s prodding, cost a grand total of 265 in Chinese yuan... about $35. You get what you pay for, I guess. The X-ray machine itself was mostly modern (about the US equivalent from 1990-ish), although they had me contort into interesting shapes to get the right angles on my arm. The bed and film tray could not be moved, so I had to be moved into position.
I spent six months in China twenty years ago. I have never considered going back.
A business aquaintancenad his associates took me out to a very popular restaurant in Surabaya.
In this part of the world the Chinese race is looked down upon as being second class citizens.
The conversations turned to the Chinese eating dog meat.
I had a hard time eating after that as we were in a Chinese restaurant.
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