Originally Posted by sinoflyer

Bats are a recurring motif in Chinese arts and crafts because its word in Chinese, bianfu, is homophonic with "becoming fortunate." As an ethnic Chinese, I never knew (although I am not surprised) that some people actually consider bats as food, ostensibly to derive qi and other intangible powers from them. The entire practice of eating exotic foodstuffs (e.g., anteaters, swallow's nests, and coco de mer from Seychelles, etc.) goes back over 2,000 years to Chinese herbal medicine, based on a cockamamie system of ying-yang and the "five phases" that still forms the underpinnings of Chinese philosophy today. Many Chinese in the early 20th century, including Sun Yat-sen, advocated but failed to outlaw herbal medicine. Mao Zedong characterized herbal medicine as "shamanism and superstition" and during the Cultural Revolution unleashed the Red Guards to persecute its practitioners. But this aspect of Chinese culture is so deeply ingrained in the public psyche that no soft persuasion nor government heavy-handedness, let alone a full-blown pandemic, will change that behavior.