Baby herbal soup update

I’ve been watching my stats for sometime now and one of the most viewed posts and one of the most frequent google searches that brings folk to EM is “Baby Herbal Soup”.

My most recent update – 21 October 2009 – is here Baby herbal soup: the Internet for sick fc*ks, this time the email hoax has been published on a (semi)reputable news site, The Seoul Times.

My original post on this cruel and quite disgusting email hoax is currently sitting fourth on my top posts list. I’m actually quite stunned that the hoax is still in circulation and that someone (or someones) has gone to a lot of trouble to perpetuate it through a variety of websites.

[EM's original Baby Herbal Soup post]

So, to set the record straight and in the interests of stopping gullible websurfers from falling for the simple three card trick, here’s the definitive post on why “baby herbal soup” is a hoax.

To save you the trouble, EM has re-investigated this story and prepared the following from a list of organic ingredients. No babies were harmed in the writing of this post.

This email hoax has a very offensive content  describing a gruesome practice in Canton, China. People there supposedly use baby fetuses as the main ingredient of an herbal soup. Locally referred to as a sparerib soup, it is believed to improve health and sexual performance.

In a pseudo-reportorial manner, the email originator tells of a factory manager’s account of how his frequent consumption of the soup resulted in an enhanced sexual stamina. It also notes the prices of the dead fetuses, ranging from a few hundred to 4,000 U.S. dollars, with those babies who died naturally costing more than the aborted fetuses.

A horrid slide show featuring how the baby is prepared, cooked and eaten accompanies the message. Aside from the arguable pictures it presents, there have been no other proofs to validate the veracity of this email message.

Trend advises all email users to delete this email and not to propagate it anymore. [Trend Micro]

Trend Micro is a reputable internet security company.

I also came across a new site, not the original Handy Lanka wierdness, that purports to show actual pictures of the soup being prepared. I strongly advise you not to look at it, but the link is provided. CharonBoat is absolutely sick. Do not go there.  Feel free to disregard my advice, but IMHO this is a feeder site for porn and God-knows-what.

However, my trawl there did elicit one piece of information that seems to confirm the hoax and give some explanation of its origins.

According to a comment, the images that accompany the hoax were part of a series by Chinese artist Zhu Yu that were meant to highlight issues around religion and cannibalism. According to the Wikipedia entry on Zhu the hoax emails began circulating in 2001. The entry also suggests that the images are of a doll’s head attached to the “body” of a duck. Zhu always claimed it was a real fetus stolen from a Chinese medical school.

In case you’re still not convinced About.com has also posted on this hoax and says that it is a form of “blood libel” in which various ethnic groups – in this case Cantonese – are slandered with a cannibalism tag. Who knows why some jerks get off on this shit, but in an age of racist ignorance (ie: the world today), such viral nastiness does find a certain fucked-up audience. This sample of comment from CharonBoat certainly seems to confirm such an analysis.

OMG THIS IS SICK

I KNEW THEY ATE DOGS BUT BABIES

YUCK FOU! 2009-02-03 00:05:03

I tell you something.

I wish I was God and have the power to destroy China, India, Quebec and South Asia, the world would be much better.. 2009-02-01 00:27:20

that looks pretty real to me and i wouldn’t put nothing past those chinese ppl. anything walking on four legs and now two legs if fair game. disgusting bastards! 2009-01-08 23:18:54

Yes, these are real comments from the website, complete with typos. This stuff is sitting there even though, right above most of these appalling comments, there is someone who’s pointing out the Zhu Yu link etc.

Some people are really stupid, it seems. When a documentary about Zhu Yu and other “transgressive” Chinese artists was screened in the UK in 2003, people complained in terribly upset tones.

A Channel 4 spokesman said that while it takes all comments and complaints seriously, it stands by its decision to broadcast the programme.

The artist, Zhu Yu, was quoted as saying: “No religion forbids cannibalism.

Zhu Yu

“Nor can I find any law which prevents us from eating people. I took advantage of the space between morality and the law and based my work on it.”
Mr Yu, who is a Christian, claims religion plays a major role in his work.
But before seeing the show, [Conservative MP] Anne Widdecombe said: “This programme sounds hideous.” [BBC]

OK, that’s enough. You get the point. This is a hoax. However, for the dribblejaws I provide the following advice:

1. It is NOT TRUE that Chinese people (nor anyone else) eats babies and makes soup from them.
2. Eating baby herbal soup does not make your dick grow, or make you more  attractive to women! [most dribblejaws are men]
3. The images purporting to be of Mexican prostitutes murdered and dismembered by a serial killer ARE ALSO FAKES

This last piece of gratuitous advice is for those few dribblejaws sick enough to look at any of the other material on CharonBoat with an open mind.