India - Warning graphic pictures follow

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by kiwi_2005

Now I read one of the india people's custom is to use their left hand to wipe their butts minus the toilet paper its a custom to wipe your butt with your left hand and pick food with your right hand. They have a bucket of water next to the toilet to wash the pooh of their hands.

Most of asia and the middle east have the same custom of using the right hand for "clean" actions and the left for "unclean". In many cultures you touch a child only with your right hand (pat them on the head) but you pet a dog with your left.

They worship Cows Well cows are considered sacred.

A live cow can provide more benefit to a community than a dead cow. Cows can produce milk, cows can help fertilize the crops which feed more people than cow flesh can, Cow dung is also used in many different ways. Also, cows were the preferred pet for some of the Hindu gods. Let's not mock someone else religious beliefs. Many people here believe that a simple case of grave robbery is the foundation of Christianity. Should they be mocked? No.

Do you eat dogs and cats? Why not? They are mammals. But in our culture dogs and cats are pets and not food. In other cultures that is a silly concept. Just because we eat cows, does that mean that everyone has to eat cows? I don't think so.

They bathe in the Ganges river, they drink from that river and they cremate their dead and scatter the ashes in that river. Its common to see dead animals and human corpses floating nearby while they're swimming/drinking/bathing in that river.

Again, that is part of their religion. The Ganges river, to many Hindu's is a sacred being in itself. By bathing in the Ganges, it is the belief of many Hindus that they can be cleansed.

What the hell is wrong with these people!

The question is what is wrong with you? You are evaluating a foreign culture through your own culture. This is what is called a "Cultural Lens" . A cultural lens can be an impediment to understanding other cultures. The observation that since "we" don't do that "here", infers that "they" should not do it "there" is sophistry.

It is their culture, and if the citizens wish it to change they can, but it will take time.

[kiwi_2005]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Most of asia and the middle east have the same custom of using the right hand for "clean" actions and the left for "unclean". In many cultures you touch a child only with your right hand (pat them on the head) but you pet a dog with your left.


A live cow can provide more benefit to a community than a dead cow. Cows can produce milk, cows can help fertilize the crops which feed more people than cow flesh can, Cow dung is also used in many different ways. Also, cows were the preferred pet for some of the Hindu gods. Let's not mock someone else religious beliefs. Many people here believe that a simple case of grave robbery is the foundation of Christianity. Should they be mocked? No.

Do you eat dogs and cats? Why not? They are mammals. But in our culture dogs and cats are pets and not food. In other cultures that is a silly concept. Just because we eat cows, does that mean that everyone has to eat cows? I don't think so.

[B]

Again, that is part of their religion. The Ganges river, to many Hindu's is a sacred being in itself. By bathing in the Ganges, it is the belief of many Hindus that they can be cleansed.



The question is what is wrong with you? You are evaluating a foreign culture through your own culture. This is what is called a "Cultural Lens" . A cultural lens can be an impediment to understanding other cultures. The observation that since "we" don't do that "here", infers that "they" should not do it "there" is sophistry.

It is their culture, and if the citizens wish it to change they can, but it will take time.

I'm talking about the India as a whole - its filthy. I don't care if they are Hindu's or Jews or Eskimos!, India is a dirty place. They could clean up their act, human faeces where people walk in some places. That ain't a culture that's filth.

Their government had no trouble finding the money to host the Commonwealth games but their seems to be no money or they just dont care about the filth everywhere else. They moved shanty towns bulldozered it to make way for the games. I mean the first thing they could spend money on is a proper sewage system instead of pooh everywhere.

And yes if Christians were once grave robbers mock them for all I care. Christians burned at the stake anyone that even had a hint of being a witch hundreds if not thousands were wrongly murdered cause of the fear of witches. Should they be mocked for those killings? Why not. I don't even care.

[kiwi_2005]

Few months back one of the best TV presenters our country has ever had resigned from his job over a word he said on television about a high profile Indian living here. His surname was Diksh*t, Paul Henry made a funny remark saying it sounded like Dip-sh*t. (Diksh*t is pronounced Dik Skirt) But it is spelt as Diksh*t. The Indian community were up in arms protesting with PC kiwis backing them on how racist the comment was. There was nothing racist about it he was making fun of a name he didn't call him a nignog dipsh*t or a blacky dipsh*t just dipsh*t. The Indian community found it disgusting that he should relate the name with sh*t. I find it funny that the Indian people in NZ complaining about the word sh*t when back in their homeland sh*t is everywhere!

But it gets better for Paul Henry. A TV channel in the USA has hired him to work as a presenter on their network. Apparently they were following the argument here and when he resigned they offered him a job. for his professionalism of course.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Platapus

The question is what is wrong with you? You are evaluating a foreign culture through your own culture. This is what is called a "Cultural Lens" . A cultural lens can be an impediment to understanding other cultures. The observation that since "we" don't do that "here", infers that "they" should not do it "there" is sophistry.

It is their culture, and if the citizens wish it to change they can, but it will take time.

If your culture revolves around rejecting standards of basic human hygiene and sanitation that goes back to the caveman days, then there is something wrong with your culture. It's not a cultural lens to say that wallowing in your own filth, corpses and feces is a bad thing - it's a biological imperative based on thousands of years of evolution.

[Schroeder]

Oh boy, now i know why the Brits really left.

[Factor]

Looks like downtown Detroit........

[Reece]

A lot of this is their own fault, all they have to do is bury the dead and their feces, the ground would be clear and the river clean!!
Put me off eating for a while!!

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

standards of basic human hygiene and sanitation

And who makes up these "standards"? You? Me?

And why would anyone think that there has to be a "standard".

The earth is a big place.

The point I am trying to make is that everyone thinks that "their" culture is the right one and that it makes sense. And that's all and well. But it should not mean that someone else's culture is necessarily "bad". It is just different.

In order to understand the culture of another nation, it is important to understand what influenced their culture and not judge it by our culture or history.

That's all I was trying to point out.

[Skybird]

Platapus - why don'T you just stop relativising the obvious truth? Not everything's interpretation is context-sensitive. Sometimes the dirty, the shabby and the primitive is just the dirty, the shabby and the primitive. And sometimes cholera is just cholera and wallowing in feces and cadavers is just wallowing in feces and cadavers. There is nothing relative in that, nothing mysterious and nothing that more advanced cultures like ours must recognise as respectable and valuable.

No matter long-held traditions, precious customs and holy scriptures of theirs. Sometimes all this is just this, no matter how you look at it - primitive.

Mind you, this is the same culture that still burns widows and incredibly discriminates the lowest of their four social castes, sentencing millions of people to a life not different to that you see on those pics. Are that also standards that one shoulds not consider to be inferior to other, more humane standards? Or is "humane" also open for interpretation when considering the murdering of widows and the discrimination of Indian pariahs?

Our culture and it'S general standards are superior to what you see on those pics - live with that fact. And if you can't, then live there for a while and share their digging in the filth. That will teach you faster than any long discussion, I feel.

[Castout]

It could be the ground zero of a massive new outbreak. That's all I'm going to say.

Overpopulation has been one of India's major concern and it affects China too.

Edit: can't believe you guys could put up with the pictures. I was already struggling towards the last few ones. Reminded me again why Mother Teresa was so admired.

[Lord_magerius]

[Castout]

Frank is no troll, He just might feel disturbed by the pictures that he wrote unpleasant remarks about India.

The real troll is the Chinese who put up the pictures selecting to portray only what they consider the worst of India and playing India's Hinduism belief against them and that's the reason why so many pictures of the ganga river.

We all know that the Chinese and Indians are already in some kind of rivalry that will quite possibly get worse in the long term future. The pictures were thus political in nature especially when it's the Chinese who posted them. But Frank is no troll. He was just so taken by the pictures.

[kiwi_2005]

Originally Posted by Lord_magerius

Troll my ass, I ain't trolling. What the pictures show is just shocking. Show me a land where there is pooh everywhere and human corpses floating in the river where they swim/drink and wash. Its just not right.

So lets go back to talking about world debt & America its more un-troll like.

[Cohaagen]

What is truly disgusting about the situation in India is not just the obvious horror of those corpse photographs, but that this is the also the country which has grandiose visions of itself as a nuclear-armed, space-faring, regional (and later global) military superpower and economic powerhouse.

This is a perfect example of what the disease of nationalism can do to a people.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Platapus

And who makes up these "standards"? You? Me?

200,000 years of evolution by natural selection

And why would anyone think that there has to be a "standard".

If a species is to be genetically successful, it will evolve traits that keep it free of disease - disregarding its own waste is such a trait. That's a universal human biological trait that's helped us succeed as a species- much like the desire to mate with those outside your own gene pool, running from danger, etc. It makes no sense on an evolutionary level to go contrary to that.

The point I am trying to make is that everyone thinks that "their" culture is the right one and that it makes sense. And that's all and well. But it should not mean that someone else's culture is necessarily "bad". It is just different.

In order to understand the culture of another nation, it is important to understand what influenced their culture and not judge it by our culture or history.

That's all I was trying to point out.

Agreed. But we're not talking music, art or religion here. We're talking basic biology.