The killing of tree sparrows backfired and resulted in the deaths of 55 million Chinese
“B
irds are public animals of capitalism,” declared the communist government of China under Mao Zedong (1893 -1976). In 1958, claiming sparrows eat the proletariat’s hard work, the Chinese government ordered the complete extermination of the sparrows.Sparrow nests were destroyed, eggs were broken, and chicks killed. The sparrows went nearly extinct.
The Four Pests campaign
As part of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward initiative from 1958 to 1962, the Chinese eliminated rats, flies, mosquitos, and sparrows.
These four animals were accused of:
- mosquitos were responsible for malaria
- rodents caused plague
- flies were a nuisance in general
- Eurasian tree sparrows ate grain and fruit
Over the period of three years, approximately one billion sparrows, 1.5 billion rats, 100 million kilograms of flies, and 11 million kilograms of mosquitos were killed throughout China.
The Chinese total war on sparrows
The Chinese officials believed each sparrow ate 4.5 kilograms (9.9 pounds) of grain per year.
Mao Zedong claimed sparrows were the enemies of communism and hindered the economic development of China.
In 1958, the Chinese government declared a war on sparrows.
For multiple days in a row, millions of Chinese took part in the hunt for sparrows.
Besides shooting sparrows, destroying their nests and eggs, and raising an army of scarecrows, the Chinese used a very ingenious method to kill the birds — noise.
By hitting on pots and pans, screaming slogans such as “Long live the great Mao”, and waving rags attached to long poles, they prevented sparrows from resting in their nests, which caused them to drop dead from exhaustion.
Sparrows can’t stay in the air for over fifteen minutes without resting.
“I remembered a day when the entire population did nothing but use gongs and pots and all sorts of other objects suitable for making a noise on the streets and in running about the yards to startle the sparrows. There had been so much noise all day that the birds had nowhere to settle and finally fell dead from the sky.”
— Kuan Yu-Chien, a Chinese writer
Schools, working brigades, and government agencies that killed the most pests received recognition and rewards.
Some sparrows found refuge in embassies
Interestingly, sparrows found refuge near the embassies. For example, the Polish embassy in Beijing refused to kill the sparrows.
Consequently, the Chinese surrounded the building with drums and played on them for straight two days.
Sparrows took to the air and flew around until they dropped dead from exhaustion.
The Poles had to use shovels to clean all the dead sparrows.
The extermination of sparrows caused a terrible environmental disaster
The large-scale hunt nearly eradicated sparrows, which caused a huge imbalance in nature.
Yes, sparrows do eat grain, but they also feed on locusts and other insects, such as the common asparagus beetle (Crioceris asparagi).
The extinction of sparrows led to the increased populations of insects and locusts, which in turn destroyed the crops.
The combination of the extermination of sparrows, droughts, floods, and ineffective government policies resulted in the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-61, the deadliest famine in human history.
According to some sources, 55 million Chinese died because of famine.
By April 1960, the Chinese government stopped its war on sparrows and redirected efforts to the extermination of bedbugs.
In an ironic twist of fate, the Chinese government had to buy 250,000 sparrows from the Soviet Union to speed up the repopulation of these useful birds.
Conclusion
Not only the Chinese, but all of humanity tries to control and shape the environment. We forget we are now owners of the planet Earth; we are merely renting it. We are at Earth’s mercy.
” Make the high mountain bow its head, make the river yield the way.”
— Mao Zedong, the founder of communist China
Yes, we can lower mountains and re-route rivers, but we suffer also the consequences. Especially if we lack an understanding of the consequences of our actions.
The killing of one billion sparrows massively backfired and resulted in the deaths of 55 million Chinese people.
Sixty-five years ago, five men did just that.
Not only are vegetables good for you, they can be a source of delight: the fragrance and sweetness of tomatoes on a summer day, the delicious pop that gives snap peas their name, the contented murmuring a winter stew on the stove.
The words we use for vegetables are loaded with the history of how people have eaten throughout the centuries. Here are some of the etymologies of your favorite (or least favorite) greens.
Radish
The word ‘radish’ is a special word for word-lovers, because it simply means ‘root’! The root is the same one we see in ‘radical’.
Carrot
From ancient Greek καρωτόν (karoton), through Latin and French.
The Old English word for a carrot was more, which is cognate with the modern Welsh moron (no, those Welsh greengrocers aren’t insulting your intelligence!)
The Old English word is distantly related to the Russian word for carrot, морковь (morkov’).
Potato
This New World vegetable comes from the Taíno language, which was spoken in the majority of the Caribbean before the Spanish Conquest. The Taíno word was batata, which was adopted as the Spanish patata and eventually became the English potato.
The German word is Kartoffel is a corruption of the Italian tartufolo, which came for the word for truffle. This in turn came from the Latin terrae tuber, tuber of the earth.
Tomato
Borrowed from Spanish, from the Nahuatl-language word tomatl. Nahuatl was the language spoken in the Aztec empire, centered on modern-day Mexico.
Avocado
The Nahuatl word ahuacatl gave us the common Spanish word aguacate and the slightly altered form avocado which was borrowed into English.
In many parts of South America, this vegetable is called a palta, from a Quechua word.
Corn
This word simply meant, and is indeed cognate with the English word ‘grain’. Maize (borrowed from Taíno) was originally known as Indian corn.
Onion
In colloquial Latin, a string of onions (formally known as cepa) was known as an unio, a union (individual vegetables united on a single string). This was borrowed into Old French and English.
The more formal Latin word cepa became the root of Italian cipolla, Spanish cebolla, and German Zwiebel. It also is the root of the English word chive.
The Russian word is лук (luk) which is related to the English word leek through Proto-Germanic.
Shallot and scallion derive from the Latin ascalonia cepa — onion of Ashkelon.
Garlic
Garlic is a native English word composed of two elements: gar meaning spear or clove, and leek (see above).
The Romance language terms aglio (Italian), ajo (Spanish), ail (French) derives from the Latin alium, which may be related to the word for wings, referring to the cloves.
The German Knoblauch comes from the verb klieben (to cleave) and Lauch (leek); therefore, a cloven leek.
Mushroom
From Old French moisseron, probably derived from the word mosse (moss).
Zucchini
An Italian diminutive of zucca, meaning ‘squash’ — a little squash. Ultimately from the Latin cucurbita, meaning ‘gourd’.
Outside of US usage this vegetable is typically known as a courgette, a French diminutive of courge (derived from Latin cucurbita, which also gave us gourd) meaning a marrow squash.
Pumpkin
English speakers added the diminutive suffix -kin to the French pompon (melon) to refer to this squash. Ultimately derives from the Greek word πέπων (pepon, also melon) which in turn comes from the word for ‘to ripen’.
Squash
Unrelated to what you might do to a bug, as it is borrowed from the Narragansett language spoken by the Algonquin tribe in what is now Rhode Island. Their word was askutasquash, meaning ‘something that can be eaten raw’.
Eggplant
This disgusting vegetable has been given a disgusting name so that you can consider yourself fairly warned.
In the UK, it is known as an aubergine, which reached French through the Arabic اَلْبَاذِنْجَان (al-badinjan). Ultimately from Sanskrit वातिगगम (vatigagama).
Lettuce
If you break open a lettuce stalk, you will find a milk-like liquid. This led to the Latin term lactuca, derived from the word for milk.
Cabbage
If you were speaking Old French, you would find the phrase ‘a head of cabbage’ reduntant, because caboche simply meant ‘head’ in the northern dialect, ultimately derived from the Latin caput.
In modern French, the word is chou, derived from the Latin caulis, meaning a stalk or the stem of a cabbage.
Cauliflower
From Latin caulis (see above) and English flower, together essentially meaning ‘cabbage-flower’.
Broccoli
In Latin, broccus meant buck-toothed, perhaps from a Gaulish word for badger. In Italian, brocco meant something that projected (like a buck tooth), and broccoli was a diminutive version of this word.
Asparagus
From Latin asparagus, from Greek ἀσφάραγος, which also meant ‘throat’.
It was known as sparrowgrass in English until the Victorian period through folk etymology.
In Old English, the word was eorþnafola, meaning earth-navel.
Artichoke
The Latin word for the artichoke was carduus, which also referred to the thistle (giving us the English word card as in ‘to card wool’, often done with thistles, and chard). The modern version of the plant, however, was introduced to Spain by the Moors as ‘الْخُرْشُوف’ (al-kursuf)’ where it spread across Europe. The word used in the northern Italian Lombard language was articiocco, which gave rise to the English word. They were introduced to England in the early 16th century.
Beet
From Latin beta, origin unknown.
The Russian word is свёкла (svyokla) which comes from the Greek word σεῦτλον meaning chard (see above).
Spinach
The Persian word اسپناخ (espanax) was borrowed into Arabic as إِسْفَانَاخ (isfanak), in turn borrowed by the French as espinoche, and finally found its way to us.
Celery
From ancient Greek σέλῑνον (selinon), simply meaning celery, borrowed through the French.
Native English words for this vegetable were march and smallage.
Cucumber
Ultimately from Latin cucumis (cucumber). This in turn comes from a much older root which has spread widely, but unfortunately cannot be traced to a specific source.
Pea
The Ancient Greeks knew the pea as πισον (pison), it became pisum in Latin and pise in Old English. Originally, pease was the singular form of the Modern English word, while peasen was the plural. However, the final ‘s’ sound led English speakers to believe that pease was the plural and drop the ‘s’ of the root to leave us with the new singular word ‘pea’. (A similar thing happened with the word ‘cherise’ meaning ‘cherry’).
Pepper
This may be the oldest traceable word on the list — ancient Greek had πέπερι (peperi). We don’t know where they inherited the pepper from directly, but Sanskrit has the very similar word पिप्पलि (pippali) to mean a pepper.
