CHINA’S TRIADS

Secret societies have a long and even honorable history in China, where they were forced to operate in secret to counter the cruelties of imperial rule. China’s Triads were born out of the struggle against detested Manchu regime, but somehow these crusaders for justice embraced the dark forces and turned to crime. Today the triads are among the most feared criminal societies in the world, with activities ranging from the heroin trade to the smuggling of illegal immigrants.

The origins of China’s secret societies lie as far back as 200 BC. Over the centuries, secret societies flourished in opposition to the Confucian upper class, which prohibited any form of opposition to imperial rule. In those days, the societies attempted to stand up for the rights of the dissatisfied and oppressed lower classes. In the 17^th century when the ruling Ming dynasty was overthrown by the Manchu, whose origins lay in Central Asia, many secret societies directed their efforts towards the expulsion of the ‘Barbarian’ Manchu.

Out of this liberation struggle emerged the Society of the Three in One, also called the triadic league or Triad. The emblem of the league was an isosceles triangle – whose three sides symbolized the basic forces in Chinese cosmology: heaven, earth and man.

During the 19^th century, the huge and increasingly fragmented Chinese empire gave rise to two systems of secret societies: White Lotus in the North, and the Triad in the South.

Their resistance was not directed solely towards the Manchu rulers, but also against the encroachment of European colonial powers. The 19^th century saw the establishment of more and more foreign administered enclaves, with China forced again and again to accept treaties that favored foreign powers.

Not only did the ‘Long Noses’ destroyed the existing economic structures, they were the first ones to introduce Opium trade, because of which millions of natives became helpless drug addicts.

When the Manchu emperor abdicated in 1911, the Triads lost their most important political goal:  the re-establishment of Ming rule. Over the next three decades, as rival warlords divided up the country, the societies degenerated more and more into criminal gangs. Initially they made money through piracy, extortion, gambling and kidnapping, but soon they entered into opium trade.

The British colony of Hong Kong became the center of many such gangs.  After the Communists assumed power in China in 1949, the colony became the main base for the powerful Triads Sun Yee On, Wo Sing So, and 14 K.

By the early 1990s, these groups totaled over 75,000 members.

Rise of the Dragon

Because of the impenetrable structure of the Triads, it is difficult to gather information about their activities. The Triads are known to have operated in the UK and Netherlands since the 1970s, where they specialize in Loan- Sharking, Prostitution and Extortion.

According to senior officials of the Metropolitan Police, nearly every Chinese restaurant in London has to pay a percentage of its takings to the Eastern Mafia. The Triads are also active in drug trafficking, exporting heroin from the Golden triangle – a region covering the remote interior of Burma, Loas and Northern Thailand. In the US, the Drug Enforcement Administration maintains that 14K Triad is the biggest supplier of heroin in New York.

There is another cruel business that earns millions for the Hong Kong syndicates: the trade of Human Beings. Thousands of illegal immigrants are smuggled into Europe and North America each year. In most cases they are desperate people in search of a better life, and generally have to pat the triads a fee of around US $ 35,000.

Few of the applicants have money, so you’ll find the men working for gangsters in restaurants and gambling dens paying their debts off.

The women must earn the money through Prostitution.

More on Triads:

 Traid (Underground Society)

 Traid Facts

 Movies on Triads

Ancient Nubians, Drugs & Beer- 1,500 yr old connection

Article from Daily Mail

The ancient Nubians consumed large quantities of antibiotics that were produced in their beer almost 1,500 years ago, new research suggests.
Chemical analysis of bones shows that the people were taking large doses of tetracycline which was produced as a by-product in the beer that they made from grain.
And scientists believe that the production of the antibiotic was intentional.


Analysis of the bones of ancient Nubians shows that they were regularly consuming tetracycline, most likely in their beer. It was spotted in this photo as a green product on the bones under UV light
The ancient Nubian kingdom was located in present-day Sudan, south of ancient Egypt.
The discovery, by anthropologist George Armelagos and medicinal chemist Mark Nelson of Paratek Pharmaceuticals, is published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

'We tend to associate drugs that cure diseases with modern medicine,' Armelagos said.

'But it's becoming increasingly clear that this prehistoric population was using empirical evidence to develop therapeutic agents. I have no doubt that they knew what they were doing.'

The ancient Nubians were a race with no written language
Tetracycline latches on to calcium and is deposited in bones so it can be detected in fossils.


In 1980, Armelagoa discovered what appeared to be traces of tetracycline in human bones from Nubia dated between A.D. 350 and 550, populations that left no written record. Armelagos and his fellow researchers later tied the source of the antibiotic to the Nubian beer.


The grain used to make the fermented gruel contained the soil bacteria streptomyces, which produces tetracycline.


Mr Nelson said: ‘The bones of these ancient people were saturated with tetracycline, showing that they had been taking it for a long time.‘I'm convinced that they had the science of fermentation under control and were purposely producing the drug.'
Even the tibia and skull belonging to a 4-year-old were full of tetracycline, suggesting that they were giving high doses to the child to try and cure him of illness, Nelson says.
The first of the modern day tetracyclines was discovered in 1948. It was given the name auereomycin, after the Latin word 'aerous,' which means containing gold.'Streptomyces produce a golden colony of bacteria, and if it was floating on a batch of beer, it must have look pretty impressive to ancient people who revered gold,' Nelson said.


The ancient Egyptians and Jordanians also used beer to treat gum disease and other ailments.
The team now intends to try and work out exactly when the knowledge of the antibiotic properties of the beer was lost to history.


Alexander Fleming is credited with discovering the first antibiotic, penicillin, in 1928

Ruins of Bhangarh

Bhangarh is a place on way from Jaipur to Alwar city in Rajasthan state of India. Today Bhangarh is known for its ruins where nobody dares to stay after sunset. Looking through history we find that this town was established by Madho Singh, younger brother of King Akbar’s General Raja Man Singh, in 1631. But the city seems to have been abandoned in a hurry some centuries later.

The local folks say that due to a curse the whole town was vacated overnight. According to the story of the curse, if the town was ever rediscovered the township would not be found, but only temples would show up.

True to the story only temples dot the landscape and even far up on the mountains only shrines can be seen. It is said that nobody returns from there who stays after dark.

By the Government of India rules there has to be an office of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) beside every historical structure in India. But even government authorities did not dare to open an office there. They opened their office about one kilometer away from the ruins of Bhangarh. Even this office is close to a temple because of this myth. ASI has put a signboard at Bhangarh saying, "Staying after sunset is strictly prohibited in this area."

People who visit this place out of tourist interest say that there is a strange feeling in the atmosphere of Bhangarh, which causes sort of anxiety and restlessness.
The story of this restlessness goes as the following. The charm of princess of Bhangarh Ratnawati was said to be matchless in entire Rajasthan. Being merely eighteen years old, the princess started getting wedding offers from other states. In the same region there also lived a tantrik, a magician using black magic, named Singhia who was desperately in love with the princess and who also knew that king would never even allow him to see the princess.

Once he saw princess's maid in the market buying scented oil for princess. Seeing this he got a wicked idea of getting the princess. He used his black magic and put a spell on the oil which would hypnotise the princess by her mere touching the oil and she would immedialely walk towards the tantrik to satisfy him sexually. But as soon as the princess got the oil she threw it on the block of a stone as she had seen the tantrik eying the oil. As soon as the oil touched the stone, the stone started rolling towards the wicked tantrik Singhia and crushed him. While dying Singhia cursed the palace that there will be such an incident that everybody in the palace would die and their souls will stay there for centuries without rebirth. The very next year there was a battle between Bhangarh-Ajabgarh and no one survived in the battle nor in the palace, not even the princess Ratnawati.

 

Havelis are elaborate residences, almost miniature palaces, built around large courtyards. The walls are painted in bright colors with detailed frescoes. If the old city of Jaipur is anything to go by, Bhangarh must have been an extremely prosperous city. Today nothing remains but the temples.

 It is said by the local villagers that whenever a house has been built there its roof has collapsed. It seems to be true because inside Bhangarh all the houses are without a roof and even at the closest village where people reside, they still have roofs made of straw but not bricks.

THE BEAST OF BODMIN MOOR

Whether it is a native cat, previously thought extinct,or an escaped exotic pet, the Beast of Bodmin is a creature that refuses to disappear. Indeed, sightings of the panther-like creature continue and, unlike other mysterious beasts, modern technology is actually helping to prove its existence.

Location of the sightings : Bodmin Moor-Cornwall (SW England-UK)

This creature has been reported as looking like a black panther or dark colored mountain lion. The creature has large white-yellow eyes. It's size has been reported as ranging from 3-5 feet long for the body, with a tail of roughly 18-24 inches.

There have been about 60 big cat sightings recorded in the area since 1983 but in 1995 a government report concluded there was no evidence that big cats existed on the moor.

However, since 1995 some quite startling, tangible evidence has been produced. A 20-second video released in August 1998 clearly shows a large black animal roaming the moor. Experts believe the footage is the best evidence yet to support the idea that big cats are living in the area.
Many also suggest the beasts may be a native species of cat which was thought to have become extinct over a hundred years ago.

Real biological evidence has also been found in recent years. A large skull with huge fangs was found near the River Fowey on Bodmin Moor. The bones were sent to mammal specialists at the British Natural History

Museum who, when they examined it, quickly realised that the skull did not belong to a creature normally found in the English countryside. Because of the size and position of the teeth, they also deduced that it was the head of a large cat.

In November 1999 a spate of farm animal mutilations on Bodmin Moor caused a high tech option to be introduced in finding the beast. When a calf and two sheep were attacked and torn apart by an unknown creature, a motion-activated infrared video camera was installed on the moor.

Similarly, in January 2001, reserve volunteers from a nearby Royal Air Force base used state-of- the-art night-vision military equipment to hunt for the creature. Rather than practice exercises against an imaginary foe, RAF commanders thought that it would be more interesting for the troops to look for the fabled Beast of Bodmin. {Whatever happened can be viewed here.}

Farmers in southwest England do not agree that these creatures are so benign, and many skeptics believe the Beast of Bodmin is, if anything, an escaped foreign cat. A number go missing from zoos and wildlife parks each year, and Britain’s 1976 Dangerous Wild Animals Act made ownership of exotic big cats illegal.

Some people believe that if such a pet were to escape from a private collection, its owner would be hesitant to report it missing. Whatever the truth about its origin, there is growing, indisputable evidence that a large, black, feral cat is stalking the land of Bodmin Moor.

Related Links : Beast of Bodmin