# Sad news from Burma!!



## gotsomerice (Apr 8, 2008)

Here is an article I've found from on-line paper.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=11034

They cited that Paph. wardii and Paph. villosum are now extinct in Burma!


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## NYEric (Apr 8, 2008)

Time for a concerted conservation effort. Let's see what effort the Chinese gov't takes!


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## Roth (Apr 8, 2008)

I was there couple of weeks go, and that's again a real fake information... wardii and villosum are still plentiful.

They always make such claims to attract sponsorship, and the God Money. Today it is not true, but they give that information first.

Some time later, they will get a band of silly people that will send money for a 'conservation project'", that's a damn good income to pay for the karaokes and the bar girls the manager of this "project" will need...

Later, the plants will become really extinct, maybe in 5 or 10 or more years, and at that time, no one will believe it... but they don't care, that's it !


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## Rick (Apr 8, 2008)

Good thing these two are easy breeders.


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## rdlsreno (Apr 8, 2008)

That is bad!!! Hope that we can artificially breed more that encouraging people to buy wild collected plants.


Ramon


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## Roth (Apr 8, 2008)

They are popular in China as pot plant, and it is true that many are collected in bud every year. But they are far from being extinct.... YET !

Artificially propagated to save the populations ? Well, if you can make a blooming size, in spike, wardii or villosum for 0.2$ for the Chinese pot-plant market, you will evally succeed...


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## NYEric (Apr 8, 2008)

Sounds like a job for Dutch Nursery man!


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## Rick (Apr 8, 2008)

Sanderianum said:


> They are popular in China as pot plant, and it is true that many are collected in bud every year. But they are far from being extinct.... YET !
> 
> Artificially propagated to save the populations ? Well, if you can make a blooming size, in spike, wardii or villosum for 0.2$ for the Chinese pot-plant market, you will evally succeed...



It's probably more like the Noah's Ark syndrome. It's easier to supply the US market with US produced plants, and the captive population will stabilize at some minimal level. After the wild populations crash and there is no more pot plant market, if there is any forest left then plants can go back to the wild if someone in China gets that ambitious.


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## Roth (Apr 8, 2008)

Rick said:


> It's probably more like the Noah's Ark syndrome. It's easier to supply the US market with US produced plants, and the captive population will stabilize at some minimal level. After the wild populations crash and there is no more pot plant market, if there is any forest left then plants can go back to the wild if someone in China gets that ambitious.



For me when it's gone, it's gone, there is no way to introduce plants from culture to the wild. Look at those early 'bessae'. Most of them were hybrids of besseae Peru x besseae Ecuador, or dalessandroi x besseae 4n... It would be better to reintroduce Phrag Dick Clements in the wild then, or at least not worse.

For the wardii, there are several types and forms, like the new type without spots on the petals, the Chinese ones, the Lao ones, the Burmese ones, and there is one big colony in India as well. And the wild collected paphs pot-plant market will never collapse. When they finished Paph coccineum ( huge amount went to the pot-plant trade actually, not the hobby market), they simply ask now for tranlienianum in bud. Any paph in bud is suitable, no matter the species. Actually, they pay a little more for parvis, a little less fo henryanum/cocci and the like, but always in bud. They do not care about what species it is at all...

Last, all the reintroduction experiences I know of ( including the roths in Malaysia) were complete failure. The plants were left peaceful until they reached blooming size, then suddenly all of them have been collected, again in spike, or when the mature growth is NBS...


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## Hien (Apr 8, 2008)

NYEric said:


> Time for a concerted conservation effort. Let's see what effort the Chinese gov't takes!



Eric. forget about any flower's extinction.
Let see first if the Tibetans will ever get their country back before they are totally wiped out, or will they be hybridized until there is no one left to speak tibetan, but slowly become an oppressed & forced second class chinese citizens.


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## Hien (Apr 8, 2008)

Sanderianum said:


> For me when it's gone, it's gone, there is no way to introduce plants from culture to the wild. Look at those early 'bessae'. Most of them were hybrids of besseae Peru x besseae Ecuador, or dalessandroi x besseae 4n... It would be better to reintroduce Phrag Dick Clements in the wild then, or at least not worse.
> 
> For the wardii, there are several types and forms, like the new type without spots on the petals, the Chinese ones, the Lao ones, the Burmese ones, and there is one big colony in India as well. And the wild collected paphs pot-plant market will never collapse. When they finished Paph coccineum ( huge amount went to the pot-plant trade actually, not the hobby market), they simply ask now for tranlienianum in bud. Any paph in bud is suitable, no matter the species. Actually, they pay a little more for parvis, a little less fo henryanum/cocci and the like, but always in bud. They do not care about what species it is at all...
> 
> Last, all the reintroduction experiences I know of ( including the roths in Malaysia) were complete failure. The plants were left peaceful until they reached blooming size, then suddenly all of them have been collected, again in spike, or when the mature growth is NBS...



Very sad, at least if the plants could get into a hobbyist's hand, at least he/she will try to keep it alive & learn how to keep it alive.
On the other hand, for the pot plant market, once the bloom is gone, the plants will likely go to the households' garbage cans.


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## Roth (Apr 8, 2008)

Hien said:


> Eric. forget about any flower's extinction.
> Let see first if the Tibetans will ever get their country back before they are totally wiped out, or will they be hybridized until there is no one left to speak tibetan, but slowly become an oppressed & forced second class chinese citizens.



That's a dream so far... It is a very strange problem that I encountered in China, and to a lesser extent in Viet Nam. The minorities, or anyone whose skin is a thight darker, or have a slightly different speech ( some vietnameses as an example are totally unable to prononce correctly 'kn' in knife, or the 'r' in fork...) than the 'norm' which is white-white, no asian-type eyelids or as little as possible, and face as european as possible. Wealthy people can spend thousands of dollars to look like an European, very thin nose, caucasian eyelids, narrower face, white skin, etc !!! Sometimes I think some of them forget they are not Claudia Schiffer or Arnold Schwarzenegger...

It is most likely that tibetan, like many minorities around, will forever be treated like 'Untermensch'. A Vietnamese or Chinese whose ancester is maybe laotian or minority will not have the same chances of going to university, finding a job, etc... On all the paperwork in the area, they have to state their religion, second their ethnicity ( Kinh, Hmong, etc... for Vietnameses, same style for Chineses). And some jobs will be given only to non-mixed, "pure" people from a said ethnicity.

About the Chinese government, they made some cleaning recently, so the things are doing better for orchids nowadays, but before, nearly all the smuggling exports were carried out by the daughter in law of the CITES main officer...




Hien said:


> Very sad, at least if the plants could get into a hobbyist's hand, at least he/she will try to keep it alive & learn how to keep it alive.
> On the other hand, for the pot plant market, once the bloom is gone, the plants will likely go to the households' garbage cans.



They do not have the hobby approach in Viet Nam or China... Only very few people collect orchids, andthe collection hto have a 'sense'. As an example, the oriental cymbidium collectors. They do collect oriental cymbs because of symbolism, or quite mystic traits ( I still don't understand, but fro mthe bulb, if the leaves turn left to right after 10 cm, and the tip is bending at an 47.534334° angle from the horizontal, then the plant is 20.000$, but if the leaves turn left to right at 13cm, then it is a 3$ plant... and a 50.000$ plant can make a new growth that will lower the price to 3$...). There are, in Viet Nam, 3 serious collection of paphs owned by Vietnameses. In China there are quite a few, but only of rarities. Peloric wardii, albino wardii (from the wild), variegated wardii, malipoense with 17cm flower, there are quite a few ( or a lot of) hobbyists that collect that kind of plants. But do not forget one thing. Those plants go to their collection, and will NEVER be seen again by anyone in the world. The very best malipoense album in the world, I have seen it in bloom in Kunming, it has been sold for 210.000RMB to a hobbyist a couplf days before, a 10 growths plant, but it is gone for everyone, anywhere. No propagation expected, no divisions released. 

There are several collections like that in Hong Kong and Taiwan too. Dream plants, but they will never, ever, appear in public. Forget about pollen or seeds, because the owner is proud of their rarity, and does not want anyone to have a better plant ( so no progeny, no divisions !). 

Usually when the owner dies, he wants the plants to disappear as well, or they go to one of his close friends who has the same hobby. The best hangianum in the world is now in a collection like that ( there is a picture of it here :







The bulk of people who buy paphs from the pot-plant trade will just discard after bloom... and wild paphs are MUCH cheaper than any pot-plant phal to produce, of course !


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## SlipperFan (Apr 9, 2008)

Sanderianum said:


> Forget about pollen or seeds, because the owner is proud of their rarity, and does not want anyone to have a better plant ( so no progeny, no divisions !).
> 
> Usually when the owner dies, he wants the plants to disappear as well, or they go to one of his close friends who has the same hobby. The best hangianum in the world is now in a collection like that ( there is a picture of it here :
> 
> The bulk of people who buy paphs from the pot-plant trade will just discard after bloom... and wild paphs are MUCH cheaper than any pot-plant phal to produce, of course !


Wow.


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## Hien (Apr 9, 2008)

Sanderianum said:


> That's a dream so far... It is a very strange problem that I encountered in China, and to a lesser extent in Viet Nam. The minorities, or anyone whose skin is a thight darker, or have a slightly different speech ( some vietnameses as an example are totally unable to prononce correctly 'kn' in knife, or the 'r' in fork...) than the 'norm' which is white-white, no asian-type eyelids or as little as possible, and face as european as possible. Wealthy people can spend thousands of dollars to look like an European, very thin nose, caucasian eyelids, narrower face, white skin, etc !!! Sometimes I think some of them forget they are not Claudia Schiffer or Arnold Schwarzenegger...
> 
> It is most likely that tibetan, like many minorities around, will forever be treated like 'Untermensch'. A Vietnamese or Chinese whose ancester is maybe laotian or minority will not have the same chances of going to university, finding a job, etc... On all the paperwork in the area, they have to state their religion, second their ethnicity ( Kinh, Hmong, etc... for Vietnameses, same style for Chineses). And some jobs will be given only to non-mixed, "pure" people from a said ethnicity.
> 
> ...



Perfect in every way. I think when I getting very old and can only take care of a few plants, hangianium definitely will be one of them.


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## smartie2000 (Apr 9, 2008)

I thought villosum was not so rare....so it seemed fishy to me after reading it

and yes...a friend divided me a variegated cymbidium and told me to keep it to myself or it will become worthless/unrare...just like described in asia. I understand completely



Hien said:


> Eric. forget about any flower's extinction.
> Let see first if the Tibetans will ever get their country back before they are totally wiped out, or will they be hybridized until there is no one left to speak tibetan, but slowly become an oppressed & forced second class chinese citizens.



My mom thinks this Tibetan stuff is BS, and it might just be. Somehow it is not portrayed correctly to westerners and she tunes out any media coverage.
The Tibetans have to realize how much the chinese have done for their region. They are showing no appreciation how many people were used to build them roads (and they were miliary men too) though the mountain ranges so that food, etc. can be transported. They can separate (or whatever they wanted), but they will never support themselves. They will starve, food does not just magically appear...I'm not sure if they have the best farming conditions either


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## Roth (Apr 10, 2008)

smartie2000 said:


> My mom thinks this Tibetan stuff is BS, and it might just be. Somehow it is not portrayed correctly to westerners and she tunes out any media coverage.
> The Tibetans have to realize how much the chinese have done for their region. They are showing no appreciation how many people were used to build them roads (and they were miliary men too) though the mountain ranges so that food, etc. can be transported. They can separate (or whatever they wanted), but they will never support themselves. They will starve, food does not just magically appear...I'm not sure if they have the best farming conditions either



Tibetan problem is much more complicated than we think actually. I had an overview with a mongolian woman who happens to work in Ha Noi. She spent a couple of years in Tibet, as a delegate.

- Buddhism as we know is not single but plural. It is something quite "special" compared to the regular monotheists religions. Like for the catholics or the jewish, you have buddhists trends that are completely peaceful, and some others that are definitely not. Some trends could be considered ( even by buddhists themselves actually) as sects who rule a population and keep them in the middle age ( stands true for all the religions, there is at least 1 trend like that in every single religion...). 

I will give 2 examples Made in Viet Nam ( again! But I learned a great deal from here) and I saw it as well in Thailand. I know some priests that are quite wonderful personalities and very kind ( one of them has one of the 3 best paph collection in Viet Nam, so he is even more wonderful ). 

But, on the other side, I went to a small town close to Lao Cai. It happens that this town has a priest that is very famous all over Viet Nam. I met that man ( he forced me to meet him, or the villengers would not welcome me at all), and I discovered a quite vast sect, where he earns a lot of money by choosing the proper place to build a house, or decide that this woman must abort or be banned by the family, because his "calculations" show that the child will kill later his father, or destroy the family or... People, even high rank Vietnamese officials follow his advise very tightly. Of course, depending on who pays him, it is possible to "change" the things. That's... DAMN CRAZY !!!

He rules quite a few hundreds people in countryside, and in downtown Ha Noi. And there are more like him. I had a friend who wanted to visit the pagodas around Ha Noi. So we did. Some priest have BMW cars, luxury apartments, and a "personnal secretary" that are damn pretty ( and non-priest...). The subjects have to give a lot and a lot, and even more to be 'saved' from the poor calculations. They make calculations, and determine that this day is bad for a wedding, that other day is bad for business... It is possible to pay to the Pagoda, so by their prayers the wedding is not delayed ad vitam, or otherwise. And the people who follow that are very well educated.

In Thailand, it is not that "rare" to see priest go to karaoke or have bar girls girlfriends... That's another story, but in Thailand, if you become a monk, all criminal charges were abandoned. So far it makes some crazy monks... and quite a few high rank mafia people accepted. They cannot be officially married or have childs, but they can enjoy the "life" to a great extent...

According to that mongolian woman I met, and according to a short trip I made over there, there are 2 problems with Tibet:

- Like the chinese government says, some areas were under complete control by the priest, who would rule the population very strictly and tightly, like a dictator. The China maybe "liberated" those populations from that control ( and some of the bad guys maybe build up a nice story to show how nice they are in exil...). China build roads and infrastructures, and stored a lot of soldiers in Tibet, that's true. There are 2 reasons. Historically China was afraid of a war with India at the border. Soldiers are like athletes, they need to be used to the oxygen content and elevation, otherwise, at 1500m height, they run 50 m and are completely exhausted. That's why as well Tibet is a big strategical plot for China. Otherwise, Tibet has nearly no interesting resources. The other reason being an extension of China, and the spread of communism, of course. I think it was true that the tibetans had a poor lifestyle when Tibet was independant. Some accounts by Alexandra David Neel and others explorer show a monarchical society with everything going to the elite. China, clearly, industrialized a lot Tibet...

- Now, China does not care about tibetans, they are minorities, and as such have a strong will to be independant. However it is true as well that an independant Tibet would be in the middle age. No one would care about that country, and they would be very, very poor. China tries to mix the tibetans ( though they would remain forever, and their progeny, as "Untermensch", because they would have tibetans traits, and people over there can be highly racists, as I told before...) to keep control. The gigantic brothels for chinese soldiers are an example, for sure.


A colonized Tibet is as worse as an independant Tibet, because Chineses made brothels for soldiers, huge ones, there has been a lot of stories about AIDS spread during blood sale by the tibetans to some Chinese companies, and tibetans as individuals get nothing from China... Basically, tibetans have little hope for a bright futur, no matter what happens. Colonized and absorbed by China, or independant, and vey poor, back to the middle age...

We can partially compare with the nazis. In Europe, there was one country that did a lot to industrialize and bring a huge upgrade to a medium quality lifestyle. That's the Germany of Adolf Hitler. During the nazi power, they build roads, increased the research ( being a kind of dictatorship, money was not a problem to make research, unlike today, where every research must have credit, or sponsorship), made wonderful airplanes, a lot of industries ( IG Farben, manufacturer of Zyklon, sponsored by the nazi govenement fully became after splitting the leading chemical manufacturers after war, AGFA, Hoechst, BASF... Many insecticides incidentally came from that period, including complete classes of chemicals),the U-Boat ( submarine) and are responsible for the spatial program of USA and USSR, a huge part of it. A lot of research is coming from the nazi dictatorship, including medical findings. Like for China who build the roads and infrastructures, we can say that nazi brough a lot to Europe... but they brought hell on earth as well, massive amount of killed people, the concentration camps, holocaust...

So it is impossible to say that simply because people build roads and industrialize a country they are nice guys. However with the China/Tibet story, it is apparently very complicated, and maybe we have only one side of the history that is the "official truth". What happens in Tibet right now is not right at all, for sure, they are persecuted, but the alternative seems to be bad anyway for the people living there... colonized and destroyed or poor and destroyed.


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## Hien (Apr 10, 2008)

Sanderianum said:


> ...
> - Buddhism as we know is not single but plural. It is something quite "special" compared to the regular monotheists religions. Like for the catholics or the jewish, you have buddhists trends that are completely peaceful, and some others that are definitely not. Some trends could be considered ( even by buddhists themselves actually) as sects who rule a population and keep them in the middle age ( stands true for all the religions, there is at least 1 trend like that in every single religion...).
> 
> I will give 2 examples Made in Viet Nam ( again! But I learned a great deal from here) and I saw it as well in Thailand. I know some priests that are quite wonderful personalities and very kind ( one of them has one of the 3 best paph collection in Viet Nam, so he is even more wonderful ).
> ...



Well, vietnameses both inside the country & outside the country are very well awared of such thing.
We know who are the real buddhist monks & who are the fake monks (KGB style trained secret service officers from the government ).
The communist government of Vietnam wants to have a tight grip on all religions, so they created a second Buddhist organization that run by the state.
These monks are sponsored by the state, payed by the state, provided housing & transportation privilege by the party in order to infiltrate, monitor & control the real buddhists.
That is why right now there are two buddhist organizations in VN, one is state owned. That is why one should not be surprised when seeing these outrageous immoral behaviours.
Wish you can read vietnamese, but just look at the picture, you see a sexy calendar on the wall behind the party of the fake monks. For example. monk Thich Thanh Tu used to be a north Vietnamese soldier, oh & there is quite a few government sponsored monks wearing guns too! (I would guess that BMW's monks must be top Gun honchos)
Below is the photo of the writer Duong thu Huong ( a well known dissident ) who witnesses a beaten of an authentique old nun by a younger secret service nun at a temple. 
http://www.thienlybuutoa.org/Misc/KhiCongAnDoiLotTuHanh.htm

And the government did the same thing to the Catholic church too (so in a way you can not say it plays favoritism )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguyen_Van_Ly
http://vietamreview.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/3/28/3607569.html


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## Hien (Apr 10, 2008)

Sanderianum said:


> Tibetan problem is much more complicated than we think actually. I had an overview with a mongolian woman who happens to work in Ha Noi. She spent a couple of years in Tibet, as a delegate.
> 
> - Buddhism as we know is not single but plural. It is something quite "special" compared to the regular monotheists religions. Like for the catholics or the jewish, you have buddhists trends that are completely peaceful, and some others that are definitely not. Some trends could be considered ( even by buddhists themselves actually) as sects who rule a population and keep them in the middle age ( stands true for all the religions, there is at least 1 trend like that in every single religion...).
> 
> ...




I must be the most paranoid & cynical person on earth, because I seem to see unbecoming motives behind every good deed.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/20/magazines/fortune/lustgarten_china.fortune/index.htm
Can not blame China though, it really is the fault of the big American & Australian mining corporations


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## Roth (Apr 10, 2008)

Hien said:


> We know who are the real buddhist monks & who are the fake monks (KGB style trained secret service officers from the government ).
> These monks are sponsored by the state, payed by the state, provided housing & transportation privilege by the party in order to infiltrate, monitor & control the real buddhists.
> That is why right now there are two buddhist organizations in VN, one is state owned. That is why one should not be surprised when seeing these outrageous immoral behaviours.
> Wish you can read vietnamese, but just look at the picture, you see a sexy calendar on the wall behind the party of the fake monks. For example. monk Thich Thanh Tu used to be a north Vietnamese soldier, oh & there is quite a few government sponsored monks wearing guns too! (I would guess that BMW's monks must be top Gun honchos)



Mmmh... I cannot post too much looking at where my computer is anyway  but "some people" would say that it's completely true. I read, slowly, slowly, but I read...



Hien said:


> I must be the most paranoid & cynical person on earth, because I seem to see unbecoming motives behind every good deed.
> http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/20/magazines/fortune/lustgarten_china.fortune/index.htm
> Can not blame China though, it really is the fault of the big American & Australian mining corporations



For sure, but that remains unexplained strategically. If China wants to have access to the mines for cheap costs, they do like they are doing in Viet Nam right now. Let Viet Nam to be in a lower economic position ( and Tibet would be crashed completely in comparison), and pay peanuts to have access to the resources... Same for the American and Australian companies too. The benefit of not making a colony out of a country is that, providing all the country people are low educated ( unlike Viet Nam then, but like Tibet), the "kind neighbor" can help them, but is not responsible for the economic, sanitary, social disasters. 

The benefits are essentially the same, but without the risks of being charged as a colonist. For sure, the Tibetan ( but they are not alone by far, ALL minorities in China and some others countries from the area, including Thailand with Issan people and dark skinned people, Korea, and even... Japan !), are low-class citizens, just worthwhile to use as workers for the "main ethnia" governing the country. 

That's a huge mistake to guess that westeners are the only racist people. I have been to Africa, and to many countries in Asia, and the westeners have a racism that is usually black/asian/white/eventually jewish/muslims. In most others countries I visited the racism has the same categories + the ethnic diversity ( darker skin, eyelids, nose, place of birth, size, etc...).


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## smartie2000 (Apr 10, 2008)

I was about to mention about the colourism too. Light skin is perferred by the chinese and the tibetans do appear dark skinned. However I am not certain about the extent skin colour is the reason for suppression since there are so many coloured indivduals within china. I Would not limit this colourism to China, it is everywhere and unavoidable, including within african americans. 
Its interesting because I am a light skinned individual while my brother is dark, so I know personally the colourism that can be around...my cousin who is even lighter than me was very popular in china I heard (he can't get tanned at all! we joke about it here in Canada, hmm...to think of it his nose is sort of pointed too! he must have been damn sexy in china)

and yes my mom did mention Tibetans were once servants and likely always will be unfortunately....it was their source of income/housing to serve.

I have found it strange that a radio station compared Tibet to Quebec, Canada. The situation is completely different and my mom shut off the car radio.


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