Posted on 08/21/2007 7:56:19 AM PDT by Dan Calabrese
As The Economist recently reported, in China tradition demands that a man be buried with his wife. If an unmarried male passes, he too must be buried with a special lady friend and the burial ceremony will bind them together forever. How can you ensure that you too will cross over to the other side with your better half? Depends on how much you are willing to pay.
Grave-robbing has found a new market: Corpse brides. However, to satisfy the exponentially growing demand, the necro-matchmakers are now turning to a new source of the dead – the living.
(Excerpt) Read more at northstarwriters.com ...
The Chinese can have this one.
On reading the whole article, the author seems to blame western civilization for the corpse-bride stuff in China and the practice of gender-selective abortions in India. The end of the article gets confusing as to what point she is trying to make. Something about assigning dollar values to life.
Looks can be deceiving. Rumor has it, that one is still alive.
Contrary to what many commentators have hoped for, the Western economic freedom that was supposed to free minds from antiquated traditions have only perverted them further by adding a foreign, impersonal side that does nothing to mitigate their repugnance. In a twisted way, these acts seem more familiar because they can now be translated into our currency, giving us a point of reference.
The parallelism between the demand for women’s bodies in China and the disdain for girl’s bodies in India only erodes our understanding of a global market standardizing cultural needs. Instead of a global market that promotes our values and opens the door so that Western ideals can run rampant and destroy the local culture, it is becoming more apparent that after a period of fear for the survival of native culture, the Western economic principles are being internalized.
The message was clear. capitalism bad. Communism good. The commies had tried to wipe out such nasty habits, but unfortunately, capitalism is forcing its return.
At least, according to that writer.
Ah, I see... This ancient Chinese tradition is:
BUSH'S FAULT!!!
Sorry, had to be said
You mean Chinese people never sold bodies or killed people for money before being exposed to capitalism? Ah, how we corrupt all we encounter.
Mrs VS
Just remember, no culture is "better" than any other culture. They are all good in their own way.
Of course the Indians never practiced “purdah” before the West arrived. And the Chinese started binding women’s feet only after the Opium Wars. Oh, and muslims didn’t start marrying off 6 year-old girls (after mutilating their genitals) until the Crusades forced them to do it.
Yep. I think what's really happening is that through western technology, these acts are being publicized instead of swept under the rug. Assigning a monetary value to a life is definitely not a western invention.
These people are morons. Communism is Western economics. Free market trading is a Chinese tradition dating back thousands of years. Note that it was the private Chinese banks of antiquity that introduced the notion of paper money - precisely to facilitate purchases and sales by traders.
Under the Mongols (Yuan dynasty) nevertheless. I think the Han dynsties (Qin, Song, Ming, etc.) were less Free-Market and more authoritarian and isolationist. Partly why they burnt up their armada after Zheng He.
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