Quote:
Originally Posted by don.ald
not sure, but i dont see it as attacking another culture. we tend not to find it acceptable and thats ok. its also ok to speak out. as for shark fins and overfishing tuna. well, thats worldwide. including northamerica and euope.
aisans are not the only people that have distructive traditions. for example the whales. our first nations peps here on the west coast hunt whales for ceremonial purposes yearly. (although they use the carcus it is controversial)
our fishermen also shoot seals regularly while fishing.
what about seal hunts?
the list goes on. my point not just asians. pick any culture and you will find traditions or not, that are distructive.
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No disagreement... every culture has it's dirty practices. However, North American and European cultures tend to have more of a social conscience with these things. You won't find many people in Calgary or New York (outside of the Asian communities) who would be really enthusiastic about having Shark fin soup, or Bear liver pills, or Rhino Horn powder, etc. Yet in Asia, the market for these things is enormous. I read a relatively recent national geographic article that discussed the illegal trade in endangered species parts, and the percentage of poaching due to the demand for traditional asian medicines was astonishing. Culturally, they seem to have a much lower respect or awareness about the impact they have on the planet than we do.
Native "ancestral" rights are a bit of a farce, but that's a whole other can of worms that I think we should steer clear of in this thread
Anyways, my beef is when we see something like this and call it for what it is, Barbaric, people get all upset and say it's their culture and we shouldn't criticize because we're not perfect ourselves.