Monday, December 22, 2014

China's .........Liquid Power

China's .........Liquid Power

  • "Our objective and task is to propagate our country’s ancient culture of imbibing urine." -- China Urine Therapy Association
  • People’s Daily Takes 'Firm Stance' Against Urine Consumption
By CHRIS BUCKLEY
If imbibing urine is not your cup of tea, People’s Daily — the solemn voice of the Chinese Communist Party — is with you on that one.
On Friday, the newspaper took time off from its usual encomiums to party leaders to warn people against drinking their own pee.
“There is no clinical or medical basis for using urine over a long period of time as a product for preventing and curing illness, or as a health supplement,” an investigative report in the paper said, citing squadrons of medical experts.
These days, the party’s main newspaper rarely takes on a problem without finding a plotter behind the scenes. 
And so it was here. 
The report said the dubious practice had been encouraged by the China Urine Therapy Association, which it found plenty to be displeased about.
The report alleged that the Hong Kong-registered association lacked the right credentials to qualify as a nonprofit group. 
The sleuthing reporter tracked down the website of the China Urine Therapy Association and found grounds for suspicion there as well.
“After visiting the physical address for the website, it was found to be in an old residential neighborhood of Nankai District in Tianjin,” a port city near Beijing, the report said. 
“There was an old man inside, and he had nothing to do with urine therapy.”
The contact phone numbers for the association on its website were defunct.
Yet to judge by the association’s website and recent Chinese news reports, there is no lack of old men convinced that regularly drinking one’s own urine is a big plus health-wise. 
Urine therapy, or urotherapy, has a long history and numbers of adherents in many countries, although medical experts say it has no detectable benefits. 
Try telling that to the Chinese association.
The website says its “objective and task is to propagate our country’s ancient culture of imbibing urine, integrating with modern science and technology to put into practice ‘I drink my urine to heal my body’ and ‘I drink my body to cure my disease,’ ” it says. 
“This is opening a door to health that money cannot buy.”
The urine association belongs to an undergrowth of less-than-orthodox medical movements and beliefs that persist in China, often citing roots in ancient tradition.
People’s Daily may have been prompted to move against urine drinkers by a recent burst of publicity for their cause. 
In news reports that spread on the Internet in China, Chinese men have boasted of the benefits of the habit and demonstrated its pleasures in pictures that may cause some readers to wince.
One man told a newspaper in the southwestern city of Chongqing that the therapy took some getting used to, but gulping down the liquid was not as unpleasant as many assumed. 
At least, it’s a lot better tasting than many bitter Chinese medicines,” he said.
But he recommended using a glass, not plastic cup, to preserve “the authentic taste” of the liquid. 
For reasons that the report did not explain, he insisted on using a false name.

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