Guest Blogger: Why Babies?!
I grew up in China accustomed to fake and poor quality goods. They were just everywhere. I never expected my shoes, for example, to last more than one year, and most of the time did not assume the Nike sweater I was wearing was genuine. I learned not to trust certain products, such as health supplements, produced in China, and I probably would not purchase baby formula from Chinese brands had I had my baby in China.
If I somehow managed to live with poor quality clothes, shoes and appliances, since it is simply the reality of the market, I was always scared of fake drugs and contaminated food. But never before was I so ashamed of China’s notorious fakes and counterfeits. This time, it was the melamine-tainted Sanlu baby formula that killed four babies and sickened over 10,000.
While watching photos of little babies lying in hospital with IVs stuck to their little heads, my heart hurt. I can’t help but ask: What is wrong with our people? What made them so obsessed with making a little more money that they even harmed our little babies?!
There is an old saying in Chinese: Even animals as cruel as tigers won’t hurt their own child. It is also common among wild animals to situate their young in the very center of the entire group to protect them from predators. Needless to say, babies are the most precious human beings. They are the future of every nation, every group of people. So how can someone ever try to make a profit at the cost of babies health, even life?
It is said that the melamine that harmed so many babies was likely added by people at the milk collection centers, where milk from dairy farms was sold to formula factories. It is appalling to realize that those people who actually put in the chemical may well know that the very milk they were poisoning would be used to make baby formula.
Aside from tightening regulations, removing high-profile officials, and arresting a bunch of bad guys, we as a nation should really ask ourselves: What went wrong? What makes us so ruthless in making money that we even hurt ill people, and now, babies? Just how deep we have fallen down the moral cliff? Can we ever climb back up?
There are some deeper and more severe problems in Chinese society way beyond sloppy market regulations, incompetent officials and corruption. When a nation starts to see its babies harmed on a large scale by its own adults, something is seriously wrong.
POSTED COMMENTS: 5 Responses
If the Chinese could kill their own students as in 1989 and and sicken and kill their own babies, it is unimaginable what they would do to Tibetans.
You ask Chinese people some questions written in English and expect it to be answered somehow ?
Ask yourself this, what have you done to make it better ? Anything ?
You look more like a visitor than an involver, as all of you kind behaves all the time. You’re not a Chinese, and the whole thing is none of your business.
Western sympathiser, you stay away, you stay in Africa.
If you have an authoritarian government everything comes from the top. There are no balances from the press, or from the public, who are afraid to talk. So people just think they can get away with anything, and if they have enough Party friend then they can.
It’s easy to be against authority if there is no food in your belly. No one is too hungry in China now, so no one fights the system. The population just becomes ever more morally degraded.
The blogger’s name is Josie Liu. See the surname: LIU. Despite what you say, Quan, she is Chinese, a Chinese girl who grew up in China. Not everyone in China thinks the same way; get used to diversity.
@ Quan
I dont understand you. Chinese milk products have been exported around the world, and you say that we should stay of of Chinese affairs. This concerns the WHOLE WORLD. There is no way that you can look into my eyes and say the same thing. I pity you and your short sightedness.
And whats Africa got to do with this. This tainted products have also reached Africa. And its not only the milk, but also other food products, like vegetables. Read the following African news site:
http://www.lusakatimes.com/?p=4555
It is the Chinese who are after Africa’s resources at this stage in time.
I will never trust any Chinese brand. Better pay more for quality NON-Chinese goods. Chinese goods will never attract a premium. They will always be at the bottom of the chain (where quantity, and not quality matters).
Why protect your guilty CCP.