China 'Bodies' Exhibit Raises Hackles Here

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | June 21, 2007 | By Sally Kalson

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[WashingtonStateRepublican]

I was totally disgusted by the thought of an exhibit like this but for whatever reason my curiosity got the best of me and I ended up visiting this exhibit when it was in Seattle. It was really quite fascinating to be honest and is something I ended up recommending to others. I feel I have a much higher appreciation for just how complex the human body is.

[JACKRUSSELL]

China Turns Out Mummified Bodies for Displays
By David Barboza
August 8, 2006
The New York Times

DALIAN, China — Tucked away in the back of this coastal city’s export-oriented manufacturing zone is a place that can only be described as a modern mummification factory.

Inside a series of unmarked buildings, hundreds of Chinese workers, some seated in assembly line formations, are cleaning, cutting, dissecting, preserving and re-engineering human corpses, preparing them for the international museum exhibition market.

“Pull the cover off; pull it off,” one Chinese manager says as a team of workers begin to lift a blanket from the head of a cadaver stored in a stainless steel container filled with formalin, a chemical preservative. “Let’s see the face; show the face.”

The mastermind behind this operation is Gunther von Hagens, a 61-year-old German scientist whose show, “Body Worlds,” has attracted 20 million people worldwide over the past decade and has taken in over $200 million by displaying preserved, skinless human corpses with their well-defined muscles and sinewy tissues.

But now with millions of people flocking to see “Body Worlds” and similar exhibitions, a ghastly new underground mini-industry has emerged in China.

With little government oversight, an abundance of cheap medical school labor and easy access to cadavers and organs — which appear to come mostly from China and Europe — at least 10 other Chinese body factories have opened in the last few years. These companies are regularly filling exhibition orders, shipping preserved cadavers to Japan, South Korea and the United States.

Fierce competition among body show producers has led to accusations of copyright theft, unfair competition and trafficking in human bodies in a country with a reputation for allowing a flourishing underground trade in organs and other body parts.

Here in China, determining who is in the body business and where the bodies come from is not easy. Museums that hold body exhibitions in China say they have suddenly “forgotten” who supplied their bodies, police officials have regularly changed their stories about what they have done with bodies, and even universities have confirmed and then denied the existence of body preservation operations on their campuses......

China Turns Out Mummified Bodies for Displays

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

“I think it’s one thing for a person who has a legitimate interest in or need to know more about the subject to see a human body dissected, but it’s quite another to put human bodies on display as a show.”

Thank you. This is where I am coming from. But there is something more.

It would be as if we put our executed prisoners on display, skin them and send them for show all over the world.

If these were folks who had given their permission for the display of their bodies that is one thing, but it appears this may not be the case.

This is beyond unconscionable. It is beyond words.

Is there any speck of morality left in our country?

[Global2010]

We are attending Body Worlds Exhibit by the Doc who invented the are of plastination.

Tommarrow we travel to Portland Oregon to see it at OMSI.

Folks say it is an excellant exhibit.

Didn’t know they that an Asian version.

[Darnright]

I’ve taken anatomy classes, although we only used animal subjects. I find the images in this thread beyond grotesque. Who were these people? Did they commit a “crime”? I do not believe for a minute they died of natural causes.

Is there anyone left who mourns these souls? Or were they also eliminated as a matter of course?

Please, take a moment and pray for them.

[Dutch Boy]

I finding it amazing that when Gunther von Hagens does this same thing it is hailed as wonderful but then the Chinese do the same thing they are cursed. The world seems to be suffering selective outrage again.

[WritableSpace]

I’d say that merely going to see this exhibit, is tantamount to committing a sin. The “its educational argument shouldn’t fly.” We could view pornography as “educational” from a certain point of view. Learning about life does not mean you need to “experience” everything. These people are entitled to a decent burial and rest, as every human being is.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

I have a great idea.

We terminate (kill) those illegal aliens who make a run for it into our country. And when we do, we use plastination and have a show around the world depicting them in different posses as they are jumping token fences, running like hell into our country, packet 10 dozen into a van, and more.

Now this is a possibility.

Anybody disgusted with that?

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

“Anybody disgusted with that?”

A clarification…

Anybody who is not disgusted with this Chinese exhibit is okay if we do the same thing with illegal aliens?

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

all again:

An afterburner thought:

It sure would keep the illegals from coming over if this were a real threat...

[Grizzled Bear]

When the “human” is considered merely an animal species evolved to a higher order, you can do anything you want to their bodies. The skin was peeled. Lamp shades, anyone?

---

Despite the popular image; military leadership discourages elaborate tattoos for those who may be prone to capture.

Some of our enemies have been known to have odd tastes in “framed-art.”

[hoagy62]

BTW...while the exhibit was ikn Seattle, someone stole one of the kidneys from one of the cadavers. I believe it was later returned.

What does someone want with a plasticized kidney??

[Aquinasfan]

One opponent is Elaine Catz, an 11-year employee of the science center who resigned over "Bodies'' last week.

Good for him.

The perfect exhibit for a culture of death.

[Aquinasfan]

When the “human” is considered merely an animal species evolved to a higher order, you can do anything you want to their bodies.

Bingo.

[Aquinasfan]

These people are entitled to a decent burial and rest, as every human being is.

The same thing goes for the bodies that are dug up by archaeologists. They started this. I don't want someone in the year 3000 digging up my parents' graves and putting their skeletons on display in a museum.

[sockmonkey]

This from a newspaper article when Body Worlds was in Minneapolis:

“While education is the exhibit’s focus, it also aims to get people in touch with their own bodies, Wojda said. Visitors wiggled their own kneecaps while examining a plastinated leg. Teachers pointed out the locations of muscles to elementary students.”

Geez Louise, If I had seen something like these exhibits when I was in elementary school, I’d still be having nightmares. What parents or school would take young children to see this stuff?

[MHGinTN]

Website of the exhibting company: http://www.ourbodytheuniversewithin.com/about.htm

[GunRunner]

It would be as if we put our executed prisoners on display, skin them and send them for show all over the world.

I actually think this is a great idea. A way for them to make amends to society by providing their bodies for education.

[Grizzled Bear]

Very educational

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So is “Vivisection.”