China’s famous Flying Pigeon
These are trying times, for everyone, everywhere.
I remember on my first visit to China in 1990 that I felt the worst karma possible was to be reborn as an animal foodstuff. At the very bottom of the pile was the humble chicken, constantly running from an inevitable pot, with only the meagre consolation that the time before liberation and reincarnation was likely to be brief.
Markets were full of snakes, turtles and just about anything that moved. In “Behind the wall: A journey through China”, Colin Thubron relates the horror of fellow travellers as he released an owl bought in a local market from a train window into the wild night; horror at the waste of such a tasty dinner.
I pride myself that I will eat anything once, although on my return in 2005, I drew the line at dog. Could I ever have looked into Emile and Duplo’s labrador eyes again?
This said, a reflection that the Chinese appeared prepared to eat anything is a long way from suggesting that Coruna virus Covid-19 is their fault and that it’s a Chinese virus. To put China in its context, back in 1990 my lasting impression was that one billion people, about15% of the world’s population at the time, was an awful lot of mouths to feed.
I do not think China was, or is, a place particularly concerned with the individual and his or her rights. India which I had visited two years before displayed human suffering like an open sore. Death, disfigurement and hunger were obvious reality for many more than you could count.
Of course, it was possible the same existed in China, just hidden away. However, I suspect that China was, and remains, a successful model of efficient man management, if undeniably dour, bleak and grey. Just feeding a billion people is in itself a fearsome governmental task. With that many people to feed, I have always felt China’s heavy-handed rule may remain the only practical solution.
Of the two countries, I held my own opinion of where I would rather live, and I was lucky in my opulent, self-indulgent, occidental mindset not to live in either
In 1990, Beijing was thronged by commuters on Flying Pigeon bicycles; by 2005 it was Audis and Peugeots. There is no crime in that, every Chinese citizen has as much right to aspiration and improvement as any Londoner, Parisian or Somali.
It strikes me that the issues are far more global than that. My eldest daughter was set a philosophical question: Who will win, human or nature? Perhaps my response was simplistic, but I told her, unequivocally, nature.
Nature detests a void, and even if humanity continues to destroy this planet with apparent impunity (sic) or blow ourselves to Armageddon, one remaining bacterium on rotten, demised human flesh will be proof that nature is strongest, because surely nature will remain, if nothing else, the passage of time.
And so today, as the Covid-19 virus sweeps across the world, unselectively contaminating all colours, nations and creeds is this not nature’s response? Enough is enough. Too many people, too much travel, too much…period. For all our 21st century science and technology, nature is ahead of us, beating us hands down. So many inevitable and regrettable deaths are perhaps nature’s redressing of the balance. I myself, with respiratory issues, am at risk, so I have to be careful, show a little discipline and rigour.
Perhaps when this is over, and it will no doubt, be over sometime, there will be lessons to be learned. Whether anyone learns them or adheres to them, my goodself included, is an entirely different question. But this seems very much like nature’s final wake up call.
Update: and as if by magic this in The Guardian today. I refer to my earlier piece on Venice here.
Legless in Burgundy 