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I have nothing against hunting and meat eating. But Chinese treatment of those bears to get their bile ranks high in barbaric acts towards animals. Truely disgusting and I never heard about it though I know a bit about Chinese herbal medicine and have used it. I have some concoction slow brewing right now in my cabinet. It's a combo of herbs your pour whiskey or vodka over and let steep for a few months.

Chinese love to take weird stuff for longevity and virility and bear bile is one of them. It's a bitter tonic I suppose and who knows if it really works

you are so right

when I saw the treatment of the bears, I wanted to take my gun and go over there and just shoot these cruel people. I understand that this is the work of businessmen who sell/supply the bears's biles, and I think the average Chinese are unaware of the methods used

I read that the Chinese people are Buddhists and Buddhism forbids the taking of any forms of life, and that's why the Chinese and Japanese peoples have a special class of people who are slaughterers/butchers and these are the lowest class in their societies, ie the untouchables

Anyway, there are 1.3 billion Chinese and the civet cats and bears are rare and endangered species, and we can assume that the average Chinese people are not involved in this cruel practices. In any case they cannot affoed the bear-bile or civet meat. Only a few perverts are indulging in these decadent practices

I just read in the news-papers that because of SARS the Chinese Govt is banning all forms of hunting

NB; the average Chinese can only afford vegetable, tofu, and ocassionally poulty or pork,

Many of my Chinese are very gentle towards animals and even insects, and I soon found out why

Because CHinese are Buddhists and they believe in reincarnation. One can reincarnate into a bear, a civet cat or a fly after one's death. Therefore the average Chinese person generally do not mistreat any forms of lives for fear that it may be their dearly-departed dad, mom, or best friend

Also I read that majority of Chinese do not eat beef because of their eternal gratitute to the water-buffalo was pulling the farm-plough for them all these centuries

There are bitter herbal replacements in TCM for bear bile, but in China man prefer the real thing. The end result is horrible,

My girlfriend has been practicing Kung Fu for a few years and is interested in TCM as an adjunct to western medicine, not as a replacement. Some of it is a load of hooey, but some of the herbal remedies are fantastic. She has this tincture (sounds like what you are making is a tincutur) called Dit Ta Jow or something that her first teacher (who is in China now at his teachers temple, preparing for his test to be a "master") brought back for her as a gift that is incredible at helping to heal muscle pain or injury.

On the other hand, I'll never let anyone stick acupuncture needles into me, that's total quackery.

Funny how the environuts make out 3rd world people to be more "connected with nature" than us first worlders - yet we are the ones with excellent conservation programs, and poaching of endangered species isn't the problem in the US that they have in many 3rd world countries, and we have laws against cruelty to animals here while in 3rd world countries they treat animals horribly. Stupid! since they taste better when they haven't been abused.