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by jonhendry18 2870 days ago
Yes, that's the Chinese government propaganda line that always gets trotted out.

In fact, the writer actually states:

"Last December, Ye Xiaowen, head of China's administration for religious affairs, published a piece in the state-run China Daily newspaper that, although propaganda, rings true. " And argues some of the same points from the propaganda piece.

The author of the piece you link to formerly worked for the China Daily in Beijing, run by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China.

Finally, you do realize that skulls are easily obtained via death by natural causes, right? Especially before the adoption of antibiotics and vaccination?

Tibetans practice sky burial, where bodies are left out in a charnel ground and picked clean by wildlife. (Probably because digging graves is difficult and cremation would be a waste of scarce fuel.) I suspect they have a different attitude about the dead and their parts than you.
1 comments
68c12c16 2870 days ago 

  > the author of the piece you link to formerly worked for 
  > the China Daily in Beijing, run by the Publicity 
  > Department of the Communist Party of China.
Yes, I read about that too in the comment section of the Guardian article...I just feel that if there are some facts in that article, those facts are still facts even if the article was written by Satan himself, right? But of course, the organization of the facts is important and sometimes crucial too, but then it would require each individual reader to parse and incorporate those knowledge...But again wouldn't this be applicable to any book or any article, even if those written by the most famous or most authoritative figures -- if that's what people value in them?

  > Finally, you do realize that skulls are easily 
  > obtained via death by natural causes, right? 
  > Especially before the adoption of antibiotics 
  > and vaccination?
  > 
  >  Tibetans practice sky burial, where bodies are 
  > left out in a charnel ground and picked clean by 
  > wildlife. (Probably because digging graves is 
  > difficult and cremation would be a waste of scarce   
  > fuel.) I suspect they have a different attitude 
  > about the dead and their parts than you.
Yes, I am aware of that and I respect their decision, if this is out of their own volition and informed mind...I am not an expert on such traditions...but as I read in the article that I previously cited as [2], it states that, on page 2,

  There are trumpets made of human thigh-bones, 
  the bones of criminals of those who have died a 
  violent death being preferred for this purpose.
And as another instance, on page 17,

  the bones of Father Brieux killed in 1881 [happened 
  in Tibet] were 1881 were taken from his grave, and 
  his skull was made into a drinking-cup.
There are a few other instances in that article if you want to know more...I will skip them here for the sake of brevity...

My point is the matter could be more complicated than either you or I currently think...I am not an adherent of the Chinese government propaganda...but as averse to those propaganda as I am, this does not mean that there is no information or valuable points in their propaganda...I also hate to have to dig out knowledge from propaganda, but if that helps me to get closer to any fact or truth, then I feel I have to do that, instead of simply throwing all their words away without any discretion...

BTW, the article [2] I cited was published in 1923 by Berthold Laufer , supposedly before CCP's Propaganda Division became full-fledged enough to be capable to have any influence on that...

link
dvfjsdhgfv 2870 days ago
Yes, they were using bones of dead people to construct ritual objects. You do realize that actually killing someone for that purpose would be considered an insanely stupid act causing a rebirth in hell? And how on Earth this custom can explain the Chinese invasion and the atrocities committed until this day?

You know what life is in Tibet for Tibetans? The horrors are so great that once a while they prefer to publicly kill themselves, suffering a terrible death rather than going on like this. That's the sad reality of living under the Chinese rule. There were many things wrong in ancient Tibet, such as feudal fights, the abuse of power by the central government and so on, but nothing of this justifies the invasion and the current treatment of Tibetans by the Chinese.

link