
Dmorris sent along this article with the words “I didn’t believe it, either, but it’s China, where they drive sharp objects through their skulls.”
The Mayor was more than a little amused:
A MOTHER organised for a man to be killed and then made a soup from his head in the belief the broth could cure her daughter’s psychiatric problems.
Lin Zongxiu, from the southwestern province of Sichuan, heard in 2008 that soup made with a man’s head could help cure her daughter who had suffered from psychiatric problems for years, the UK Telegraph reported reported.
Lin and her husband decided to enlist the help of a man in December who knocked unconscious a drunk 76-year-old passer-by before beheading him, the paper claimed.
The couple then gave their 25-year-old daughter soup made from the man’s head, and duck.
A local court sentenced the murderer to death with a two-year reprieve on Monday, and Lin was convicted of helping to destroy evidence that included the culprit’s bloody clothes and shoes, the paper said.
This article made The Mayor chuckle because when I lived in China for a few years I often heard stories like this. I even had an experience similar to this one.
I was working in Chengdu about 15 years ago, when my neighbour, an old bird, asked me to kidnap a young Chinese man and bring him back to her apartment. Just like in the article, she had a daughter with mental illness and told me the only way to cure her was by making soup from the head of a Chinese man. “Dead man’s head soup” she called it. I guess that’s appropriate enough.
I told her there was no way I could ever do anything like that, I’m not a killer — except for my killer good looks. But she was so insistent, yammering on and on in that annoying way that only old Chinese women can. After about 10 minutes of this, I was at the point where I was ready to make old Chinese woman-head soup. So I told her that yes, I’ll go bring a young Chinese man back for her. She made me promise, which I did, and she watched me leave the building, and I even saw her looking out her window at me as I walked down the street.
To make it look good, I pretended I was on the hunt. I saw this short kid of about 19 sitting and eating his lunch, so I pretended he was going to be my victim. I hid behind a wall and started peking at him. After a few minutes the kid looked up and saw me peking, so I tried to duck. It was no use, the shrimp saw me, stood up and walked towards me. At that point I noticed he was actually quite tall, if he was shrimp, he was a jumbo shrimp. A guy like that probably knows kung po, or lo lein, or some other form of martial arts.
Things were getting too spicy, there was no way I was going to jump out of the fire and into the moo goo gai pan, so I started running. Jumbo Shrimp ran after me and quickly caught up. I decided to stand and fight. We circled each other for a few seconds and then I karate chop sticked him in the head, spun around and drove my fist into his pine nuts. I followed that with a series of blows to his noodle, and finally embarked on my finishing move which consisted of a elbow smash to his spareribs.
But he wasn’t done yet. When he fell, he jumped right back up, it seemed this guy still had a little spring in his roll. I thought the guy must be off his rocker, maybe he was a little dim sum in the head, and his face showed that he was a little sweet and sour at the same time. But he was a warrior, he must be from the Chinese Curd clan. One thing was for certain, he was no chicken.
I had to end this now. I don’t often take out the heavy artillery, but I had the feeling he was getting a little saucy with me.
Right when I was ready to unload, he looked up to me and said, “I am one unfortunate cookie“.
He seemed to have a good sense of humour, I liked that, it was like we were two peas in a pea pod.
I picked him up, dusted him off and explained my story. He said he totally understood, but the only reason he was chasing me was because I had dropped my wallet. I felt like an idiot, the fight was all caused due to my bad tempur(a).
I suppose the point of this story, is that you shouldn’t go through life hot and sour, you should never lose your head over things. You old Chinese women should heed those words.