Famine and strife in China has certainly not been limited to the
Mao/Communist era. While it is now well known that millions of people died
from famines during his time in power it has been a facet of life in China
for decades if not centuries. My brother was on the second U. S. boat into
Shanghai in 1945 and was there for several months. He said that there were
body carts, which on a daily basis picked up bodies off the streets, bodies
of people who had died of starvation.



During my more than a year in Korea I never saw either a cat or a dog. I
spent three or four months in Masan in 1952, which is a port city of perhaps
200,000 people. I have also been to Pusan, Seoul, and other cities, again,
without ever seeing a pet, birds included, of any kind. I am heartened by
the eventual prosperity, but one has to wonder what has happened to all of
the wildlife of Korea - particularly North Korea. While in what is now the
demilitarized zone, I don't remember any birds (though I was not interested
in them at that time) and the only animals I ever saw were - rats. You
would see them from time to time in the bunkers, and as I stood in the
trenches at night you could hear them constantly foraging through the tin
cans and garbage out in no-man's land. Added to that, the vegetation on
both sides and in the middle was near non-existent from the constant barrage
of artillery and mortars pounding in all over the landscape. Recent
pictures of lush vegetation behind the fences of the DMZ simply astound me.
One has to wonder about the wildlife of North Korea in light of their
continuous food shortages.



Relating to the way that factory workers live in China from an earlier post,
reminds me of a tour of the largest silk factory in China (Beijing) that I
made in 1984. It employed 5,000 people and they all lived in the same
apartment complex right next to the factory. I later learned that there was
one communist commissar assigned to every thirty workers who knew each and
everything they did - including - when a woman missed her menstrual cycle,
so as to ensure the one family one child rule that they had in place at that
time. Also in this quick, ten day trip, I did not see one cat or dog in
China. Yes, we in Tweeterland are blessed with heaven on earth.



On a city tour in Hong Kong our tour guide took great delight in explaining
in exquisite detail, to her western guests, how a local restaurant served
monkey brains, from a live monkey. While this is now supposedly banned I
think the line "east is east and west is west and never the twain shall
meet" by Kipling, is still applicable.



Jim Brewster
Tacoma
BrewsHome at thewiredcity.net



Judy wrote:



I second that!



Equally depressing, I think, is a non-industrialized landscape devoid of
wildlife and other animals. About 5 years ago I became interested in what
birds might have become locally extinct in China and areas of Tibet during
the 1900's and a fellow birder recommended the following book by Joseph
Becker: Hungry ghosts: Mao's secret famine. Emotionally this book is a
difficult read, but an eye opener. Joy's message reminded me that I would
like to continue this research as time permits. Anyone else know anything
about the decline in bird populations during the famines and strife in
China? I got started on this track after readng a book about travel in
Tibet (can't remember the author and title at the moment) in which the
author mentioned local declines/expatriation/extinctions in duck populations
in Tibet.



Judy