The Bodies Exhibit- Made in China

There is a great way of dehumanizing society- by taking dead bodies without the person or his/her family member's previous consent, and then artistically stripping them down to nerves and muscles. Feeling naked yet?

A few friends of mine went to the Bodies Exhibit down in Rosslyn, Virginia where they saw bodies of muscles held only by bones and the process of plastination in various positions- playing basketball, giving themselves a high five...etc... At first it sounded like I missed out on a huge lump of grotesque that I would be interested in just to see how much my stomach can handle, but a day later, they dug up some more information about what they saw and found out the crazy lady singing on the street outside of the exhibit was actually right- they were bodies obtained from the Chinese government. So below is a link to 2 articles I briefly found while googling and quoted some of the important aspects that I found.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/business/worldbusiness/08bodies.html

"Here in China, determining who is in the body business and where the bodies come from is not easy. Museums that hold body exhibitions in China say they have suddenly “forgotten” who supplied their bodies, police officials have regularly changed their stories about what they have done with bodies, and even universities have confirmed and then denied the existence of body preservation operations on their campuses. "


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BODIES..._The_Exhibition


"The cadavers were donated for research by the Chinese government, because all the bodies at the time of death allegedly had no close next of kin or immediate families to claim the bodies."

"Due to the fact that the cadavers featured in the exhibition are Chinese in origin, critics suspect that some or all of the bodies may be those of Chinese political prisoners or Falun Gong practitioners, who may have been subject to arrest and execution without due process, in order to be sold as cadavers.[2] These critics cite previous accounts of Organ harvesting in China and the questionable state of Human Rights in the People's Republic of China.

There have also been legal process problems with these displays. State Anatomical boards normally oversee the handling of bodies for medical purposes and have objected to the lack of oversight for bodies for public display. Dr. Todd Olson, director of the Anatomical Committee of the New York Associated Medical Schools (NYAMS), suggests that without state or federal laws “you have no documentation of who this is”. In addition, there are claims that the exhibit of bodies for commercial profit has reduced the donations of bodies for medical learning."

Being that it's China, I can very well believe that they pull off stunts like this that will only further strengthen the black market and other money making schemes. I've heard of crazy stories where Falun Gong members have been killed for their organs since they have a cleaner body. When I told my Chinese friend the rest of the world had eyes on China, and the Olympics is just the test while mentioning the recent health and immoral issues foreigners had with China's products, he claimed he always knew China had cheap and bad quality products that can be dangerous, but felt ashamed of how the rest of the world viewed the country.

My Chinese friends are great and they have helped me so much and it hurts to know that they and sometimes I, too, am viewed differently with being "Made in China". We are jumbled to be participants of the rest of the country's desperate attempts for lax rules and get rich quick schemes. The communism has gotten them working hard, but apparently hard work doesn't pay off in the end like its supposed to, so this becomes the alternative. Sometimes people throw away moral behavior for the sake of survival. Come on, $200-$300 a month per worker? Honestly, that's actually a bit better than being a waitress or security guard in China, but for $20 a piece or so for an exhibit ticket, Dr. von Hagens is definitely making a huge profit off of dead bodies. China probably sold it to him for less than $100 a body.

Now killing political prisoners AND profitting off of them after death. What more can a government want?