[Sca-cooks] More on potatoes and chilies

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Phlip:
>One of the more interesting things I'm discovering is that the current
>Chinese medicinal treatmeant advertised by the airheads as being thousands
>of years old are often quite (relatively) modern, taking strong influences
>from European and Arabic medical practices. The Chinese have been literate
>for quite a while, and you can actually trace quite a few "ancient Chinese
>techniques" to specific western practices.

The number of occasions when my lady wife has made an overt joke, in 
the time I've known her, can probably be counted on the fingers of 
one hand, but shortly after having this exact discussion a couple of 
years ago, we found ourselves in a room with a television 
broadcasting the Olympic figure-skating competitions. After a day or 
so of me repeatedly quoting a line from some cheesy movie with minor 
changes to suit the occasion, she unexpectedly returned my serve 
with, in her best fake Mandarin accent, "_My_ ancestors invented the 
Zamboni machine while _your_ ancestors were still painting themselves 
blue and living in caves!"

I dunno... it kind of underscored the silliness of blanket 
assumptions of superiority of one culture over another. One of the 
things I found refreshing about the otherwise-forgettable movie "The 
Last Samurai" was the fact that it didn't follow the well-worn path 
established by things like Clavell's "Shogun", and did not present to 
the main character the premise of, "You are a stupid Western 
barbarian, and only by understanding and embracing _our_ ways can you 
not only survive but hope to be an honorable person."

The concept of European and Arabic medical practice influencing the 
Chinese isn't too surprising, though. We know there are similarities 
in the two main branches of humoral theory, and we have a pretty good 
idea of how far back this goes in Europe, and how it seems to 
originate in the Middle East. We also know the Chinese have been 
using a similar system for centuries, but not for how long, or where 
it came from. It's easy to assume the people of points West got it 
from the Chinese, but that's more out of some vague sense that the 
Chinese invented everything, than out of any huge body of compelling 
evidence that it's true.

But then, they _did_ have the Zamboni while my ancestors were still 
living in caves, painting themselves blue...

Adamantius, going back to sleep...