Quote:
Originally Posted by Hack&Lube
I can't remember the actual statistic but it's something like 60% of gazelles usually escape being chased by a lion. It's a pointless stat and ultimately meaningless but they do get away quite a lot in nature. That has nothing to do with this topic.
The entire point is the societal attitude toward animal rights or lack thereof also translates to other social behaviors that are somewhat disturbing to westerners and even myself, somebody who is Chinese. It's not a sentimental concern about the poor animals that get eaten by lions or butchered in slaughterhouses. This is about cultural attitudes and how they reflect on a people and the kinds of things they derive entertainment from that are literally outlawed in most western nations.
Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBIg80dkB4U
Did you enjoy it? Well it's just pirhana's getting fed which is a neccesity and even something that could happen in nature...But in nature it's not by your hand. Is there a more humane way of doing it? Of course...but then it wouldn't be so damn entertaining...Do you feel for the mouse or do you cheer the pirhanas?
I'll admit, I smiled once when I first watched that video but I'm not going to pat myself on the back or pay to see it. I killed birds with rocks when I was a kid, I enjoyed it up until after I realized what I just did. Haunts me to this day. It's probably part of an evolutionary instinct (stronger when you are young, like how kittens play-fight to learn hunting skills as adults) to enjoy hunting/killing/using violence as those were all neccessary and beneficial survival skills for our ancestors...but in today's day and age, it sickens me to see such things in Mainland China and this isn't because of this one isolated spectacle but many others prevalent things I have seen and heard first-hand reports of in terms of both animal and human cruelty...or just plain bad manners.
|
I think you made a very good point here.
You have more in common with the white guy down the street than a person from Mainland China.
Your ancestors may be chinese like mine are european but to say that I have much in common with my european bretheren is silly. Skin colour, possibly language and not much else.
I always get a kick out of Japanese Canadians/Americans that come to Japan expecting to be one of the boys and then are treated more of an outsider than I am. Quite the shock. Met 6 in my time here. 5 went back home and lost the hyphen forever and learned a valuable life-lesson. The 6th became Japanese.
I wonder if it is much the same for Chinese Canadians? I wonder...many came from Hong Kong. Mainland China would be a shock I think.