Lionel, I don’t dispute anything you say.  But it’s that people think that our way has to be enforced on others of different cultures that I object to!   The Chinese have already said they are clamping down on illegal trading.  They know the eyes of the world are upon them and it’s up to them to do something about it!  I’m quite sure they’ve got the message, if not, they will when the rest of the world starts restricting trade with them.  

It’s odd that we’ve been happy to take cheap Chinese labour for granted and we’ve been happy to pay peanuts for goods made in Chinese sweatshops.  The reason we pay peanuts, is because they’re paid peanuts!  So can we really complain that they try to make a living through a dangerous black market?  We can’t keep getting away with double standards!  In fact, it seems we are currently NOT getting away with it!

Originally Posted by: Caz 

Bloody barbarous and  dangerous to the whole world community to boot.   People stop being entitled to their own cultures when  those cultures  start impinging on Billions of other people and causing the death of Millions - enough already 

Originally Posted by: Bugglesgate 

It's just so easy to attack Johnny Foreigner.

Has everyone currently laying into the Chinese forgotten "Mad Cow Disease"?

The UK was an international pariah for years after feeding ground up nerve tissue to animals which passed into the human food chain causing vCJD.

https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/1040/mad-cow-disease/timeline-mad-cow-disease-outbreaks

Originally Posted by: RobN 

It's just so easy to attack Johnny Foreigner.

Has everyone currently laying into the Chinese forgotten "Mad Cow Disease"?

The UK was an international pariah for years after feeding ground up nerve tissue to animals which passed into the human food chain causing vCJD.

https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/1040/mad-cow-disease/timeline-mad-cow-disease-outbreaks

Originally Posted by: RobN 

You're not wrong. 

My own alcohol consumption has pretty much doubled. My morning commute now consists of clumping down the stairs at 8.50, then logging on to remote working and getting a couple of basic emails out, before having 30-60 mins of trying to gather my wits, sometimes with my head on the dining room table.

I'm finding a daily excuse to shop for 'essential' items. There's always loads of fresh fruit & veg reduced to clear. I cooked rhubarb for the first time ever, half in a crumble. Made an apple and blackberry crumble as well which we ate tonight (really nice!). Fruit for all cost the grand total of 45p.

The mates in our WhatsApp group are struggling with the isolation. We're all making jokes at the moment about how shitty it is, and reminiscing - but it's not been even a week. 

Originally Posted by: Saint Snow 

I reckon that I'll need something like that this evening. I've been outdoors for much of the day and there's a cold dry wind out there today. I can feel the dryness in my knuckles. It really comes to something when we're swapping hand moisturising tips on TWO🙂

Originally Posted by: Lionel Hutz 

And we were rightly condemned for it and pressured to change our ways. And we did. The same needs to happen to other cultures that do disgusting things. It’s a very patronising white-guilt attitude that avoids calling out barbarism just because it’s carried out by “other cultures”. (See also the bizarre reluctance of many liberals to speak out about misogyny and homophobia, which they would ordinarily deplore, when it is done in the name of Islam. “Because brown people”, I assume.)

Originally Posted by: Rob K 

It’s got to the point where my phone fingerprint reader no longer recognises my fingers! Not helped by the fact I’ve been doing lots of digging in the garden too. 

Originally Posted by: Rob K 

It's just so easy to attack Johnny Foreigner.

Has everyone currently laying into the Chinese forgotten "Mad Cow Disease"?

The UK was an international pariah for years after feeding ground up nerve tissue to animals which passed into the human food chain causing vCJD.

https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/1040/mad-cow-disease/timeline-mad-cow-disease-outbreaks

Originally Posted by: RobN 

Mad cow disease was  the result of rank stupidity.  The UK needed to change, and it did - but it was on a completely different scale  in terms of impacting world health and  world economic systems to this.

Originally Posted by: Bugglesgate 

Do you not see an ocean of difference between the traditions and customs of a country and an ill-considered misstep by the agricultural sector?

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

I don't think you'll find that "stinging your hands" is a good microbiological measure of how effective it is. Check and see if has over 70% alcohol. 

Originally Posted by: fairweather 

It was an "ill considered misstep" which even when pointed out, our government spent years denying. This is little different to the Chinese government's reaction to the wild animal "wet market" issue over recent years. I'm hopeful the China may now have a "Road to Damascus"  moment just as our government eventually did.

It seems that this extreme xenophobia is unjustified when we have made similar mistakes ourselves. At the time of the vCJD saga no one really knew what the consequences would be because of the long lead time before symptoms appear. Some estimates suggested that there thousands of truly horrible deaths. Fortunately this has turned out not to be the case. We dodged a bullet, but by good luck rather than good judgement.

Originally Posted by: RobN 

Hi Caz,

I was pondering whether there's some psychology involved in that announcement. Assuming things go well perhaps the restrictions will start to be eased in the summer, when some sensible 'social distancing' should be a little easier to achieve and well inside the six months.

I'm still more concerned about what we face come the back end of the year; the traditional virus season.

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

I accept your opinion but I disagree. As I said, in the case of the Chinese it's a matter of culture and tradition and therefore very much more difficult to eradicate.

I see no evidence of xenophobia at all. What I see is a perfectly understandable fury at the havoc unleashed by a combination of dubious habits and corrupt and incompetent bureaucracy.

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

Absolutely right.

We pussyfoot around condemning some of the cultures and practices within certain countries that are downright the actions of 'savages'. Just to avoid accusations of imperialism. 

Buy we should never shy away from speaking out against practices that are just plain wrong, especially when they create a game of Russian roulette that gambles with the lives of hundreds of thousands (or even millions) and lays waste to economies around the world. 

Originally Posted by: Saint Snow 

Lionel, I don’t dispute anything you say.  But it’s that people think that our way has to be enforced on others of different cultures that I object to!   The Chinese have already said they are clamping down on illegal trading.  They know the eyes of the world are upon them and it’s up to them to do something about it!  I’m quite sure they’ve got the message, if not, they will when the rest of the world starts restricting trade with them.  

It’s odd that we’ve been happy to take cheap Chinese labour for granted and we’ve been happy to pay peanuts for goods made in Chinese sweatshops.  The reason we pay peanuts, is because they’re paid peanuts!  So can we really complain that they try to make a living through a dangerous black market?  We can’t keep getting away with double standards!  In fact, it seems we are currently NOT getting away with it!

Originally Posted by: Caz 

I agree, but people are quicker to do that with other cultures than their own. People are talking about not trading with China because of this. Are we considering not trading with the US because they have a culture that thinks it's ok to allow people to have unlimited guns to facilitate mass killings and cause as many deaths of innocents as the virus?

Originally Posted by: fairweather 

👍

Xenophobia is an irrational fear or hostility to foreigners. That's not what's at play here. People have identified a genuine health risk in China. They want that risk dealt with. I would react no differently if there was a similar health risk in Co.Cork. Come to think of it,  they've got some funny eating habits in that neck of the world 🙃

Originally Posted by: Lionel Hutz 

I accept your opinion but I disagree. As I said, in the case of the Chinese it's a matter of culture and tradition and therefore very much more difficult to eradicate.

I see no evidence of xenophobia at all. What I see is a perfectly understandable fury at the havoc unleashed by a combination of dubious habits and corrupt and incompetent bureaucracy.

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

I agree, but people are quicker to do that with other cultures than their own. People are talking about not trading with China because of this. Are we considering not trading with the US because they have a culture that thinks it's ok to allow people to have unlimited guns to facilitate mass killings and cause as many deaths of innocents as the virus?

Originally Posted by: fairweather