I just had a lovely morning here in Dai Nippon...

[akujunkan]

...which I will write more about later. Perhaps it's precisely because of this that I'm so irked at having come home to find this article in the NYT.

The gist of it? Seventeen Japanese citizens--elderly citizens, no less--are currently under investigation by the Chinese government on suspicion of having travelled to China for illegal organ transplants. That's odious enough on its own.

But what makes it even worse, and what the NYT article inexplicably fails to mention is why Japanese people go to China for illegal organ transplants. Namely, because Japanese people refuse to be organ donors. Seriously, this is such a well known fact that it's been used as the main plot device in modern American fiction.

And it will never cease to gall and disgust me. If you find the prospect of being an organ donor so repellent, then suck it up and leave the donated to organs to people in societies that don't hold such views.

That will be all.

Comments

[ontogenesis.livejournal.com]

That is pretty sick. I'd heard that there was a problem with Japanese organ donation... which I don't quite understand. Aren't all Japanese required to be cremated? (Although even with an open casket funeral, they can arrange it so you can't tell any organs were removed). Also, I don't think it's a part of Buddhist or Shinto religion that the body should be intact like Orthodox Judaism.

I'm an organ donor. Why the heck do I care what happens to my body when I die, as long as it's respectful? I certainly would rather a human get my organs than a worm.

Hah, the organs go to those with the $$$, just like everything else .

[akujunkan.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure cremation is legally required, yes, or that burial is prohibitively expensive.

I've heard a few people claim that Japanese aversion to donation is based in Buddhist beliefs, but no one who's offered details concerning on part of Buddhist belief those views are based. And anyway, "moral obligation to keep the body intact" and "cremation" seem pretty mutually exclusive to me.

Maybe it's part of a broader pan-Asian practice? I know Joseon-era Korea had cultural injunctions against forcing royalty to commit suicide in any way that harmed the body. (Oh, look! Here I am being just as vague as the people I criticised above...)

True about the money, but what really gets me here is the combination of "I have the money to buy it" + the contempt implicit in receiving an organ (perhaps from a political prisoner) when you'd never dream of donating one yourself.

[ontogenesis.livejournal.com]

And frankly, most Japanese aren't practicing Buddhists anyway, so I would consider it to be a weak cop-out.

Hmm.... I dunno much about Asia in general, just Japan.

:nods: I almost would like to say that if you won't sign a donor card yourself, you aren't eligible to receive. It's extremely selfish.