A friend of mine just came back from a trip in the Far East. His stories of the local culture and customs are unbelievable.
For a start, he said they starve themselves–don’t eat for an entire day. And if that isn’t enough, they repeat this weird “ceremony” three or five times a year. No one knows why they do it and if you ask them, they will say that its for the memory of some ancient (!?) holy person. But, they never met this holy person and they only heard about him from some fantasy book someone wrote 2000 years ago.
If starving yourself isn’t enough, during another festival they burn bread and on a different festival they sleep outside for 10 days. One of the craziest things they do, again in some wierd-o ceremony, is spin a chicken above their head.
They literally stand in the middle of the street and this guy with a long beard is spinning a rooster–an actual rooster–around his head. ” It’s for “good luck,” they say, “for a happy New Year.”
Of all the things he said, one thing specific was so crazy that I am not willing to believe it. He said–and I promise I do not lie about this–he said that when they are just 10 days old, they cut all the male babies’ genitals. Cut them! With a knife. And after they cut the baby genitals, they celebrate with food and drink. And some of them also give a sip of wine to the baby, too!
I asked him how does it affect the baby? They probably grow up with severe traumas after this harsh act when they are so helpless. He said that they look and behave normal. This is why I don’t believe this custom actually exists. There is no way that I would grow up normal if someone cut MY penis. Maybe that’s why they have all of these weird ceremonies–whenever someone is born they cut away his reason; his manhood, so the only way to deal with it is to create these psychotic customs like starving yourself or burning food.
The Far East is surely a wild place. A heaven for savages and customs that will never be welcome around civilized people. I’m just happy I come from the West–were no one will ever think about doing something like that.
*This was inspired from my latest close connection with a lot of close friend from China, who showed me how friendly the “weird” other can be*
