tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post8430413581569324001..comments2024-03-19T21:41:42.835+01:00Comments on Poemas del río Wang: BordersStudiolumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377777909296284368noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post-23949445525560350932010-02-07T15:26:01.571+01:002010-02-07T15:26:01.571+01:00P.S. By speaking of “anthropological constitution”...P.S. By speaking of “anthropological constitution” in the last paragraph, I obviously refer to <i>cultural</i> and not any kind of <i>physical</i> anthropology.Studiolumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06377777909296284368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post-31328318516362455352010-02-07T15:05:15.144+01:002010-02-07T15:05:15.144+01:00Thank you for your comment and the links. I will i...Thank you for your comment and the links. I will insert the ones questioning the authenticity of the Express article in the post as a caveat.<br /><br />However, if you check the illustrated report linked above, you will see that is not about Zhu Yu’s performance which I also know and which I obviously regard as false. The report, as its Chinese text explains, was made in Guangdong by Shen Mingfang and Li Side, special correspondents of nextmedia.com.tw. The story, as I have just checked, has been taken over by a number of Chinese online journals and blogs (see for example http://www.twbbs.net.tw/1703556.html or http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/88888888888888-88888888888888/article?mid=-2&prev=3913&l=f&fid=109), and I have not yet found any confutation of it. Of course, none of these facts guarantees its authenticity. I just want to point out that this one and Zhu Yu’s one are two different reports.<br /><br />On the other hand, the two, apparently well-documented articles quoted from Guardian on the Chinese use of fetuses for medical and beauty products seem to never have been either questioned or refuted.<br /><br />I consider the use of “blood libel” for these stories, whether they are true or false, a misleading term that is just as hype as the use of the same stories for pseudo-Christian and truly racist purposes. “Blood libel”, as it has been historically used against early Christians and later against Jews throughout the past two thousand years refers to the killing of children with the purpose of consuming their blood or flesh. There the main crime is killing a human being; consuming him/her is “just” an additional perversity. In the above stories, however, the case is totally different: here people allegedly consume (either as food, or as medical and beauty products) something that has already ceased to be living and human in a legally permitted (or even prescribed) way, and that would be a waste not to turn subsequently to useful purposes (as it was encouraged for example in ancient Chinese handbooks on materia medica).<br /><br />Thus the basic question of this post has been whether there is a difference between the anthropological constitution of the West and of China, a difference that makes acceptable there what is unacceptable here (and of course the eventual post-mortal consumption of fetuses is but a sub-case here that could be omitted without making the basic question void). This question has been explicitly left open in this post, as I sincerely do not know the definitive answer. But if such difference exists, then the use of the term “blood libel” in these cases is not only too vaguely applied, but also a gross Western ethnocentrism that denies and thus prevents the examination of such differences.<br /><br />Thank you once more for your comment that gave me occasion to rethink and to clarify these points.Studiolumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06377777909296284368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post-50174953763384559462010-02-07T04:58:17.833+01:002010-02-07T04:58:17.833+01:00I'm afraid Kopytoff has been taken in by an ur...I'm afraid Kopytoff has been taken in by an urban legend, and so, it seems has the translator. I refer to the illustrated report regarding the consumption of aborted fetuses, said to be widespread in Guangdong. Those photos were made by a performance artist named <a href="http://www.snopes.com/horrors/cannibal/fetus.asp" rel="nofollow">Zhu Yu</a> and were part of a project he presented in 2000.<br />I would also direct you to <a href="http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/horrors/a/eating_babies_2.htm" rel="nofollow">this account</a>, which quite correctly places this urban legend in the long history of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel" rel="nofollow">blood libel</a>. I would hope you would not want to take part in that ugly history.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post-83338918939397701972010-01-28T20:59:18.134+01:002010-01-28T20:59:18.134+01:00No, no. That was my mistake. I should have correct...No, no. That was my mistake. I should have correctly written “husband AND wife”, like in the other three.Studiolumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06377777909296284368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post-32163786429538498432010-01-28T13:34:07.627+01:002010-01-28T13:34:07.627+01:00Thank you, that was clarifying.
One more doubt: yo...Thank you, that was clarifying.<br />One more doubt: you say Confucius says "husband TO wife"... It's not husband AND wife like the others. So there's another asymmetry in that relationship?Juliahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16419101761966668410noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post-71088208949735485702010-01-28T10:34:22.366+01:002010-01-28T10:34:22.366+01:00I think the Chinese do have an idea of friendship ...I think the Chinese do have an idea of friendship of their own, but it does not seem to be exactly like ours.<br /><br />In fact, the “four kinds of possible relationships between person and person” distinguished by Confucius include the relationships between 1. ruler and ruled, 2. father and son, 3. husband to wife, and 4. elder brother and younger brother. All these are unequal relationships. In this scheme there is no place for the egalitarian “amicus alter ego”, “the friend is another I” type friendship defined by Plato and Erasmus.<br /><br />The existing friendships between Chinese people that I had occasion to observe usually resemble the fourth kind, the relationship between elder and younger brother. In a Chinese friendship there is always one who stands higher and one who stands lower. Traditionally these roles do not change. The most we could achieve in our friendship with Chinese people, however deep and affectionate our relationship was by the way, was the occasional change of these roles according to who was more “at home” in a certain situation.<br /><br />But modern, post-Cultural Revolution Chinese culture is a deeply destroyed one. I wonder what was the real content of traditional Chinese friendships like that of Wang Wei and Pei Di.Studiolumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06377777909296284368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post-69865962521540706332010-01-28T00:09:14.649+01:002010-01-28T00:09:14.649+01:00¿Pero no se dan entre los chinos relaciones de ami...¿Pero no se dan entre los chinos relaciones de amistad tal como las conocemos en occidente? Tema de especial incidencia en este blog que debe su nombre a la correspondencia de dos amigos chinos, ¿no?<br /><br />La mutua incomprensión entre las dos posturas sobre el aborto es notable. El otro día una amiga se escandalizaba y horrorizaba sinceramente porque se había enterado de que uno de los posibles juramentos de quienes recibían aquí el título de médico incluía jurar protección "a la vida por nacer"... Creo que le parecía algo sólo adjudicable a oscuras posiciones retrógradas.Juliahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16419101761966668410noreply@blogger.com