Just Take Viagra
By Thomas on August 31, 2007 | 3 Comments »
It was quite a shock coming out of our hotel thinking about breakfast only to discover a whole market full of endangered animal parts. We knew this existed in China, but we did not realize it would be displayed so publicly. An entire street, blanket after blanket, filled with Tibetan antelope horns, tiger paws, and what looked like rhino horns (but I suspect they might have been fake.)
Tony gathered a substantial crowd as he was screaming at the vendors. There were quite a few laughs when Tony started yelling at them in Mandarin, “What’s wrong with your penises? Why do you have to kill so many animals to fix your broken penises?
As the crowd grew, some bystanders clapped, some disagreed, and others just stared blankly like the police officer who acknowledged it was bad but then just turned his head and looked the other way.
On a related note, the sale of tiger products is outlawed in China but there is talk about legalizing it again and reopening the markets due to the abundance of farmed tigers and ligers waiting to be hacked apart and sold to impotent Chinese men.
Topics: China | 3 Comments »
August 31st, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Wow. If you weren’t standing right there (in your Tevas) seeing it with your own eyes and then telling me about it, I’m not sure I would have believed it.
Thanks for including the part where Tony was yelling. I learned how to travel in the Peace Corps where they ingrain in you rather aggressively the idea that you are to respect local culture no matter how offensive you find it to be. I need to be more Tony-esque in my travels and open dialogue on controversial issues–giving locals a foreigner’s perspective, just to ignite a healthy cross-cultural exchange. Hee hee–or yell about broken penises.
May I someday have the gall to yell at strangers in an exotic marketplace.
Until then, I’ll just continue adventuring vicariously through Thomas and Tony.
August 31st, 2007 at 2:50 pm
I am so proud of you, Tony. You tell them! In this day and age, sale of endangered animal parts should have been outlawed and aggresively enforced. Those do looked like your Tevas.
May 11th, 2011 at 11:23 am
one day aliens from outer space will hack our penises to cure their impotencie…. thats a way to teach those people…. nyahahahaha!!!!