12/16/2023 0 Comments Mystic messenger emails culture(Could that help explain why both SARS and the current epidemic broke out during that time of year?)Įating exotic wildlife has long been endorsed by scholars and elevated to mystical heights, including in the medical treatise “The Inner Bible of the Yellow Emperor”, written some 2,000 years ago and still revered by many health-conscious Chinese today. Winter is said to be the season when the body needs more “jinbu” foods. Rare plants and animals from the wild are thought to bring the best replenishment, especially when eaten fresh or raw. Illnesses result when the body is depleted of blood and energy - though not the kind of blood and energy studied in biology and physics, but a mystic version. It is better to cure a disease with food than medicine, so starts the holistic theory. Some of its practices are folklorish or esoteric, but even among Chinese people who don’t follow them, the concept is pervasive. There is, in particular, the aspect of Chinese eating culture known as “jinbu ,” (進補) meaning, roughly, to fill the void. And now, muzzling the messenger has helped spread the deadly COVID-19, which has infected thousands of people.Ī second cultural factor behind the epidemic is traditional Chinese beliefs about the powers of certain foods, which have encouraged some hazardous habits. It is not an invention of modern China under the Communists - although the party, true to form, has perfected the practice. Punishing people who speak the truth has been a standard practice of China’s ruling elite for more than two millenniums and is an established means of coercing stability. These are recent examples, but that doesn’t mean they should be pinned solely on the Chinese Communist Party: The practice of punishing whoever brings embarrassing truths has been the order of the day since at least the time of Confucius, in the sixth century B.C. Four years later the whistle-blower credited with first exposing the problem was stabbed to death under mysterious circumstances. (Six infants died 54,000 had to be hospitalized). In 2008, a scandal erupted over tainted baby formula, after major Chinese producers were found to have added melamine to milk powder. Similarly, the epidemic of SARS - which was caused by another coronavirus - that broke out in southern China in late 2002 was covered up by local authorities for more than a month, and the surgeon who first sounded the alarm was held in military detention for 45 days. He died recently after being infected with COVID-19. The first is China’s long, long history of punishing the messenger.Ī doctor who had flagged on social media the risk of a possible viral outbreak was among several people summoned by the police in Wuhan in early January and warned not to spread rumours. And now for the controversial aspect of this argument: Both of those factors are quintessential, though not uniquely, Chinese. FIRST, let’s talk about the cultural causes of this epidemic.Īs far as the current outbreak goes, two cultural factors help explain how the natural occurrence of a single virus infecting a single mammal could have cascaded into a global health crisis.
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