Senior Portfolio: Creative Nonfiction Piece
By: Emma Guise
A riot of color fills every crevice of the traditional Chinese medicine shop. Rose-red roots dried in clusters, crisp green ginkgo Biloba leaves, sandy ginger and ginseng, sundried wolfberries the color of cinnamon gum, and earth-darkened mushrooms. The tang of burning herbs, both medicinal and religious, hangs in the air, encircling waiting patients, seeping into the skin of the sick and weary. For thousands of years, these same herbs have emboldened emperors, strengthened soldiers, and healed illnesses of every kind. Accompanying the roots, berries, leaves, and stems are fine-pointed acupuncture needles, heated stones, and whiskers, bones, tails, teeth, and horns of various animals. Life of every kind, animal and plant, and human has found its way here – to heal or to receive healing.
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His ears are curled in like dried leaves and tufts of light grey fur stick out the tops, giving the impression of a rabbit or a deer. In the midday heat, flies settle around his eyes and nostrils, making him shake his massive head, his horns cutting through the stifling air. A South African White rhino, he stands near 7,100 pounds, his body weight balanced on stubby legs planted firmly into the dry grass. An equally stubby tail, not too far off from Eeyore’s, swishes away more pesky flies. He shifts from one foot to the other, crunching grass and twigs on his way to the waterhole. The rhino dips his square jaw into the muddy pool, takes a sip, then bends his knees and rolls onto his shoulder. A mud bath is the best way to cool off. He is lucky to live in South Africa. Only two White Rhinos remain in the north, both female, protected 24/7 by armed guards. Invigorated by the refreshing dip, he bounds out of the pool, surprisingly agile despite his massive size. Dust billows into the air as the rhino romps through the shrubbery, shaking his head and swishing his tail. His run is short-lived, curtailed by the heat rising in waves off the savanna. The rhino stands, shaded by an acacia tree, still but for the twitch of his curved ears.
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On Monday, 29 October 2018, the government of China lifted the 25-year-old ban on the use of rhino horn and tiger parts in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The ban was put in place in 1993, forbidding the production, sale, and use of various body parts of rhino and tiger species.1 Both animals are used in ancient medicinal practices to bring strength, heal illnesses, and restore vitality to the sick, injured, and weak.
Rhino horn is used to reduce fever in addition to other diseases. In the past, it was carved out and used as a cup from which emperors drank life-giving tonics.2 Poachers decreased the rhino population living in the wild to near extinction to supply such uses. Several subspecies of rhino have gone extinct in the wild, including the Javan rhino and the Sumatran rhino; all rhinos are continually threatened today by habitat loss and poaching.
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Nearly silent in the humid, insect-filled air and dappled lighting of the jungle, a young female tiger makes her way around the perimeter of her territory. She has about 500 square miles all to herself, only recently established after leaving her mother to survive on her own. Her eyes are the color of new plant life and watchful of her surroundings. Rounded ears, black with a white spot on the back, swivel towards the flutter of bird wings. Her wide, padded paws carry her over fallen leaves, leaving deep prints in the soft ground. The tiger’s tongue peeks out from between her jaws as she tastes the air. Long, white whiskers tremble when she yawns, extending her jaws to show sharp, yellowed canines. She brushes against tree trunks and sprays rocks, marking this part of the jungle as her own. Her long, striped tail sways back and forth, guiding her movements. A shot rings out through the trees. Birds take off in flight, sounding the alarm. Small creatures scurry for cover, rustling broad, waxy leaves. The tiger lies motionless; green eyes focused on nothing at all.
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The 1993 ban also refers to tiger parts, as does the 2018 lift of the ban. Traditional Chinese Medicine uses every part of the tiger, from claws to whiskers to bodily fluids. Tigers number near 4,000 individuals in the wild.3 The greatest threat to their survival is habitat loss because each animal needs an extensive range of territory to hunt, mate, and raise cubs. Poaching is a close second. TCM uses tiger products to cure a wide variety of illnesses like joint sprains, hemiplegia, and rheumatism.4 As with rhino-based medicines, tiger products are not scientifically proven to cure illnesses; despite this fact, the demand for TCM continues to increase worldwide.5
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Now that the government has lifted the ban in China, individual qualified hospitals will be allowed to use rhino and tiger parts to treat patients. The Chinese government already recognizes that the lift will create confusion about which products are legal and which are not as the illegal market blends with the legal one, creating a need for new laws to better define what qualifies as “legal” and who can use such products.6 The lift on the ban will also widen the black market for illegal rhino and tiger parts; poachers and smugglers will be more tempted to bring such products into China, knowing that there is a margin of legality.
Traditional Chinese Medicine, while popular in Asian countries, is also becoming well known in the western world. China profits from TCM tourism and the sale of TCM products; the current president, Xi Jinping, is a big supporter of these traditional practices and promotes its use within as well as without of the country. 7 Several dozen animal farms cannot support the millions (nearing the billions) of people who use rhino and tiger parts. Removing animals from their natural habitat to continue breeding programs and outright poaching are logical second steps for such a growing economic opportunity – a practice which is neither ethical nor sustainable.
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Practices, like TCM, that use products made from endangered animals are not sustainable and put everyone remotely involved, animal and human, at risk. For example, the people who protect rhino populations and those who live in villages near conservation sites are put at risk by poachers determined to collect rhino horns and body parts. Lethal weapons are often present on both sides of the conflict – either to kill rhinos or to kill the people poaching them. Both sides are armed and desperate, which leads to a life-threatening scenario for all involved, including innocent bystanders. In their efforts to protect the rhinos, some conservationists have accidentally harmed or killed civilians, thinking that they were poachers.8 As rhino populations shrink, and the demand for rhino horn products grows with the expansion of TCM, the risk and reward surrounding such products also increases.
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Long, white whiskers peek out of a drawer. Dried and polished bones are organized neatly on the countertop. The smell of freshly ground ginger lingers in the air. A tiger pelt covers half of the back wall of the medicine shop; the animal's mouth is propped open in a permanent, silent roar — green glass marbles stand-in for the eyes. Traditional paintings, beautifully rendered, also hang on the walls, and porcelain tiger statues line the cashier’s countertop. Teeth, tail, whiskers, blood, even urine are all used in Traditional Chinese Medicinal practices; the market for tiger products is high, as it has been since the introduction of Taoism.
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Traditional Chinese Medicine has been practiced in Asian countries for several thousand years; it plays a decisive role in Asian cultures and religions and serves to demonstrate an Oriental way of encountering the world. Conservationists and environmentalists have been actively aware of potential species extinction caused by human action since the 1970s, a far shorter period, but no less influential. How are we to continue supporting practices that solely rely on extremely limited resources, with little to no valid use? What do we do when rhinos and tigers are extinct, yet people demand medicines made of their body parts?
Emma is a Spanish Education and Writing double major at IWU. She is from Indianapolis, but spends her time on campus drinking coffee, reading, writing, and "oohing" and "awing" over pictures of her cat.
Bibliography
Bies, LeeAnn; Myers, Phil. “Horns and Antlers.” Animal Diversity Web, 2014. https://animaldiversity.org/collections/mammal_anatomy/horns_and_antlers/.
Cyranoski, David. “Why Chinese Medicine is Heading for Clinics Around the World.” Nature International Journal of Science, 26 September 2018. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06782-7.
English.gov.cn. “China to Control Trade in Rhino and Tiger Products.” The State Council/The People’s Republic of China, 29 October 2018. http://english.gov.cn/policis/latest_releases/2018/10/29/content_281476367121088.htm
Quackenbush, Casey. “China’s Reversal of a Rhino Horn and Tiger Bones Ban Alarms Conservationists.” TIME, 30 October 2018. http://time.com/5438693/china-tiger-rhino-ban-medicine/.
Save the Rhino. “Shoot to Kill?” Save the Rhino, 8 March 2012. https://www.savetherhino.org/thorny-issues/shoot-to-kill/.
Still, Jay. “Use of Animal Products in Traditional Chinese Medicine: environmental impact and health hazards.” Vol. 11, no. 2., June 2003, pp. 118-122. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965229903000554?via%3Dihub.
World Wide Fund. “Tigers.” 2018. https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/tiger.
World Wide Fund. “White Rhino.” 2018. https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/white-rhino.