MM_Haider
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****** India Photos, Chinese Netizen Reactions
I don't know if it is appropriate to post this in this forum but I just can't help it.. why Indian's just throw the corpses of their loved ones like that.. it is just inhumane ..
the blog goes like
Note from Fauna: The following post and collection of photographs spread on the Chinese internet in 2008.
On Tianya, Mop, LiuLiu (and many other Chinese forums):
Reflections in the midst of extreme poverty and ***** a record of a trip in India
India is the dirtiest country I have ever been to. I have heard people say that Pakistan, which is to the west and Bangladesh, to the east, are worse, but that is probably beyond the limits of my imagination.
In two months in India, I went from south to north, visiting some tourist towns that I had read about. I also went by train and bus to countless towns and open fields that werent so famous, and everywhere there were people had something in common dirty, messy and stank. Interestingly, I also saw countless foreigners having a great time.
Tourists have been coming for years to the small town of Bodhgaya , the place where 2500 years ago Buddha achieved enlightenment, bringing their foreign money to the pockets of a few hotels and tourism operators, but still they live in abject poverty. The streets are lined with rubbish, wild animals squabble to find their breakfast in it. Look carefully and find wild pigs, dogs, mountain goats, and sometimes even cows, which are considered sacred, make an appearance. No wonder the locals dont each much meat, these animals depend on trash to survive.
Cow dung is the most environmentally friendly fuel source
India is very dry, and vegetation scarce. Sometimes youll sweep your eyes over the horizon and only see a barren expanse. Rural villagers use firewood, but like using cow dung more. In cities and towns, sacred cows fill the streets, defecating wherever they please. Cow dung is the most eco-friendly kindling of all, and this means less trees need to be cut down. Moreover if the manure that is produced is not removed daily, a small town would probably quickly drown in it.
You often see see women collecting fresh manure, packing it together with hay using both hands, then carefully sticking it against a wall to dry. The manure largely contains grass that the sacred cows are unable to digest. For Indians, this kind of smell is natural, and tourists who have stayed awhile get used to it. In my two months in India, I learned to accept the piles of cow dung that fill the streets, and their all pervading odor. Compared with the smell of the dung of carnivores, the smell isnt as strong. Indians have an undying reverence for their sacred cows, which makes me automatically think of people in the modern age and their frivolous materialism.
Puri is a tourist hot spot on the east coast, where heaven and hell come together. One side of town is the hotel area, with its picturesque beaches, the other side is a poor fishing village. The inhabitants straw huts are lonely islands in a sea of trash, and I got the feeling that its never taken away. The most shocking thing: every villager would defecate on the beach. It wasnt only villagers who would take a crap on the beach, out in the suburbs youd get used to seeing people doing it on the side of the road, and the Indian men would do it out in the open, never sneaking off to a secluded spot in the undergrowth. Everywhere from small towns to large cities would have men showing the special characteristics of their culture; even in the major city of Kolkata [Culcutta], on the most upmarket of streets, were white collar workers carrying briefcases walking past crowds of people urinating against walls.
One cant criticise people for reliving themselves on the beach or in a field, after all this is what our ancestors had to do, all the Indians are doing is preserving a natural way of life that has continued for tens of thousands of years. This is one of the most natural parts of the way people there live, and its only we foreigners who make a fuss about it. Its just that urinating on the street in a big city after all isnt very decent, but I am sure that with the increasing pace of modernization, Indias cities will very quickly take on a new look. Chinas toilet usage/habits have come a long way in the past ten years, so is there any reason that India, another ancient Eastern civilisation, cant do the same?
I am ******, but I am brilliant. In the ancient city of Varanasi [Benares], on the banks of the Ganges, all the sewage created by people relieving themselves on the ground in corners, and the rubbish, everything flows into that sacred river, the same water where pilgrims come from all over, brushing their teeth, washing their faces, bodies, and swimming. However, the dirty Ganges and Varanasi are Indias most beautiful place, lots of foreigners love it, staying for months at a time. I lived there for a while, living like a local, swimming in the river like one of them. The ancient towns intense artistic spirit and religious fervour made me forget material poverty. This important part of the Indian psyche is passed down even today: the spirit is greater than physical riches.
India is indeed dirty, messy and smelly but I have gotten more out of it than any other place I have been. If this wasnt the case in my two months I wouldnt have met so many expats who return often, or never leave. As the Taiwanese dancer Lin Huaimin said, whenever he is stuck for artistic inspiration, he goes back to India.
Maybe only in the most disgusting of material surroundings, and the basest living conditions can we find the most profound spiritual enlightenment.
[Warning: This post contains graphic images.]
[Note from Fauna: Not every copy of the post includes the same captions or all of the same pictures. We have translated from the Liu Liu version of the post, which appeared later than the Tianya and Mop copies. ]
see photos here...
****** India Photos, Chinese Netizen Reactions – chinaSMACK...
& don't kill the messenger...
