Cannibalism in China

The practice of cannibalism (喫人) has a peculiarly rich history in China.[1] According to Key Ray Chong, whilst the Chinese are not especially different from other cultures when it comes to the practice of "survival cannibalism", they are utterly unique in their use of so-called "learned cannibalism". Learned cannibalism, as termed by Key Ray Chong, is quite the opposite of its survival-orientated counterpart, and is widely considered to be "an expression of love and hatred, and a peculiar extension of Confucian doctrine."[2]

Cannibalism for culinary appreciation

In ancient times, cannibalism was often practiced in China as a type of culinary appreciation.[2] Exotic dishes were prepared for jaded upper-class palates in times of both health and sickness. According to the historian Jitsuzo Kuwabara, the following were the most common cooking methods for human flesh:

  1. Fu (脯 fu3): slicing and drying meat
  2. Geng (dish) (羹 geng1): boiling in soup
  3. Hai (醢 hai3): mincing and hashing meat
  4. Luan (臠 luan2): slicing meat

Hai was also a punishment in ancient China.

As late as the 19th century, it was still not unusual for Chinese executioners to eat the heart and brains of the criminals they dispatched. As well as eating some of the flesh for health reasons, they sold what was left for a profit.

In 2006, the Public Security Bureau and local media of Lanzhou confirmed the discovery of two human arms "mixed with ginger and chili" in a Lanzhou landfill.[3]

Cannibalism as medicine

Practising cannibalism for medical purposes is not uncommon in the world. Since the middle Tang Dynasty, some devoted sons have been said to cut out their thighs to let their sick parents eat them. Despite banning the practice several times, the sons were classified as "dutiful sons" in official and unofficial records. In later years, however, the practice was criticised by Neo-Confucian scholars, and may have been faked or purely symbolic in many cases.

The idea that the consumption of human flesh could have medicinal effects has, throughout the years, even driven some to commit murder: one report details the crimes of a eunuch, who ate the flesh of virgin boys to try and restore his sexual ability; another recounts the story of a man, who drank the blood of young women in a desperate attempt at rejuvenation. Chinese literate has also experienced its fair share of medicinal cannibalism. In the iconic novel "Medicine", written by the famous Chinese literator Lu Xun（1881-1936), we learn about an executioner, who secretly sold steamed bread soaked in the blood of executed prisoners (血饅頭) as a cure for "consumption". [4]

Ming dynasty polymath, Li Shizhen, frequently detailed the use of humans for medical purposes.[2] According to him, for example, human meat was a good cure for tuberculosis. He also wrote a detailed account on how to use human sweat, urine, sperm, breast milk, tears, dirt, nails, and teeth to treat disease.

In 2004, The Sydney Morning Herald reported a Chinese man in Beijing who was arrested on suspicion of stealing 30 corpses from local graveyards, cooking their flesh in soups, and crushing the bones to heal his sick wife.[5]

In 2003, the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Bureau sought to block reports that some restaurants in the southern province had cooked dead babies in soups and sold the food to businessmen from Taiwan and Hong Kong. In the nineties, also in Guangdong, it was discovered that foetuses were being trafficked and boiled to make soups marketed as beauty treatments.[6]

As of 2012, human placentophagy is reported as "not uncommon" in China. [7]

Arthur Waldron, professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, has linked the notion of cannibalism to recent charges by Harry Wu, that the Chinese government is transplanting organs of condemned prisoners.[8]

Cannibalism for ideological purposes

There have been some reports of cannibalism for ideological reasons during the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. The most well documented example is in the village of Wuxuan, Guangxi Autonomous Region where in the local officials began to practise cannibalism between May and July of 1968 during the Cultural Revolution, resulting in the imprisonment of 15 local officials. Although the Party and the relatives of the victims are aware of this, it has yet to be made public in China. In 1986 and 1988, Zheng Y (Cheng I), a former Red Guard and the author of Scarlet Memorial, went down to Guangxi where he obtained documents detailing the cannibalism. "For the first time in our long history Chinese ate people, not because there was a famine and they were starving to death, but for political reasons. I think thousands participated in the cannibalism and at least many hundreds were eaten. The Party knows all about it," said Zheng.[9] According to Cheng, hundreds of men, women, and children deemed enemies of the Revolution were killed and eaten by the perpetrators, who even gave comments on the best way of preparing the meat - apparently by broiling not boiling.[10]

Cannibalism driven by animosity

In dynastic histories, there is often the description of isolated cannibalism in the context of eating one's enemy. For example, the dynastic histories describe an instance in which Wang Mang, who took over the Han Dynasty, was sliced up by soldiers, before having his tongue cut out and eaten.

Also described in the Old Tang book, Wang Juncao stabbed Li Junze to avenge his father. He cut open his belly, and ate his heart and liver. Wang Ban joined Sui Dynasty's expeditionary force to Chen Dynasty to exact vengeance on the former Emperor Wu. He broke into the emperor's mausoleum, burnt his bones, added water to the ashes, and proceeded to drink them. His action is recorded in the section on filial piety and justice in the Book of Sui.

Cannibalism in Chinese literature

Cannibalism is also a very common motif in Chinese literature. The famous writer Lu Xun penned a story the Diary of a Madman in which a madman gradually became convinced that the history of Chinese civilisation could be summarised in two words, "eat people", and that his friends and relatives all intended to eat him.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kuwabara, Jitsuzo (桑原隲藏) (1919). 支那人の食人肉風習 (in Japanese). Retrieved 2007-10-30.
  2. 1 2 3 Key Ray Chong (August 1990). Cannibalism in China. Hollowbrook Publishing. ISBN 9780893416188.
  3. ↑ "Gansu police discover remains of cooked children". AsiaNews.net. April 5, 2006. Retrieved 2007-10-30.
  4. ↑ Lu, Xun (2014). Call To Arms. Foreign Languages Press. ISBN 9787119087641.
  5. ↑ "Man snatches 30 bodies". The Sydney Morning Herald. April 29, 2004. Retrieved 2007-10-30.
  6. ↑ "Gansu police discover remains of cooked children". AsiaNews.net. April 5, 2006. Retrieved 2007-10-30.
  7. ↑ "Eating placenta, an age old practice in China". inquirer.net. June 25, 2012. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
  8. ↑ Arthur Waldron (July 1997). ""Eat People" - A Chinese Reckoning" (104). Commentary: 28–33.
  9. ↑ Jonathan Mirsky (October 8, 1999). "Media Perception of the PRC" (DOC). The Sigur Center for Asian Studies. Retrieved 2007-10-30.
  10. ↑ Zheng Y (Cheng I) (1993). Cannibal Banquet - Modern Chinese History Erased (食人宴席—抹殺された中国現代史). Kodansha. ISBN 4334005438.

Further reading

  • Zheng Y (Cheng I), Scarlet Memorial: Tales of Cannibalism in Modern China (Westview Press, 1998) ISBN 0813326168
  • Gang Yue, The Mouth That Begs: Hunger, Cannibalism, and the Politics of Eating in Modern China (Duke University Press, 1999) ISBN 0822323419
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