From: utingli@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Tingli Pan)
Subject: Re: Cannibalism in China
Organization: Educational Computing Network
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 14:04:39 GMT

In article <199208180007.AA10809@thames.bu.edu> lix@BUCRSB.BU.EDU writes:
>T.T. Wu wrote:
>
......

>In article <etxmow.714043998@garboc34> etxmow@garboc34.ericsson.se (Mats Winberg) writes:
>>       In today's "Dagens Nyheter" (17/8) the largest morning paper
>>       in Sweden, there is a long article claiming that many cases
>>       of cannibalism occured in China during the '60s. The article
>>       written by a Chinese, claims that tens of thousand of people
>
>First of all, please note the number "tens of thousand"
>
>>       were massacred and eaten. First they were condemned as "enemies
>>       of the people" and then slaughtered. I will spare you the grisly
>
>Second, please note the manner -- "slaughtered and eaten" in a legal ways.
>
>>       details, but the author claimed that the career in the communist
>>       party were easier for those who participated in the abhorrent
>>       murders.
>
>Third, the author is trying to find a reason why it was of large scale and
>legitimate.
>
The author might be right in this account. This was happened in 66, the
first year of CR. In several counties in Hunan, Guangxi provinces,
people with suspecious background were slaughtered and some of the
killers did eat the hearts or something like that of the dead. All the
family members were included, even those who were in the universities
were telegramed back for their fate.

The whole action was encouraged from the level of the county
governments, or district government. 

I don't know how wide spread of this massarcre or how isolated of this.
I hope CCP could have an investgation of the whole incident. It is a
dark page in Chinese history. Don't blame it in Mao only.

>>       Does the article lie ? (second question deleted)
>>       (To relate to another thread in s.c.c., no cannibalism took place
>>       in Norway during the '60s, to the best of my knowledge...)
>
>So my conclusion is "Yes", the author is lying, and is insulting Chinese
>people and Chinese culture. Your points 2) and 3) above agree with me:
>
>Cannibalism was not permitted or encouraged by either Chinese culture or
>Chinese government even in the famine from 1959-1962. As to individual,
>isolated criminal cases? I said:
>
>>However, there was no such thing
>>as cannibalism happened in China in such period, to the best of my knowledge.
>
>This is a truthful statement learned from the Norway netter. "HeXueHeYong":-)
>Maybe I should add: I did hear a few such stories without 3W for me to
>verify, and none of these stories were told in an encouraging tone:-)
>
>Some of my respectable friends also sent me emails, warning me careful to
>answer "Yes" to the question of that Norway netter. I am very confident
>that is a lie, not based on I never knew such case, but the three points
>of the original, which I listed above.

The cannibalism was certainly in a much small scale, yet it did happen.
I remember in the seventies, there was a execusion in our city. People
did brought bowl to the place to get some brain, of course it is not out
of hunger, but for "Bu". The body was left there as nobody wanted to pay
for the bullet.

Tingli Pan