Bullfighting in Yunnan

choi

(1) Bob Davis, Chinese Bullfighting: Too Cruel, Too?  China Real Time Report, Aug 28, 2012 (video).
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealti ... fighting-too-cruel/
("Yunnan province – where the [bullfinghting] tradition was born")

My comment:
(a) These are water buffaloes (the plural form can be buffaloes or buffalos), the only cattle Taiwan has--and now about four thousand heads are preserved under 台灣水牛保種計畫 by 行政院農業委員會 畜產試驗所花蓮種畜繁殖場.

They (in Taiwan) are tame--and certainly not as strongly built as the ones in this report (which are well fed).
(b) water buffalo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_buffalo
(native to the eastern half of Asia from India to Taiwan)


(2) Bob Davis, In Chinese Bullfighting Circles, He's a Bit Like Mike Tyson; Optimus Prime is a transforming figure who humbles rival, when he feels like it. Wall Street Journal, Aug 23, 2012 (front page).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 93062173053248.html

Note:
(a)
(i) Optimus Prime
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Prime
(a character from the Transformers franchise)
(ii) 擎天柱
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%93%8E%E5%A4%A9%E6%9F%B1
("擎天柱, ，有如下可能：
1.原本意义的擎天柱，中國古代神話中，天是由五根粗大無比的柱子支撐的。撐天的柱子便被稱為擎天柱；也常用來比喻高大的人、棟梁之材等。
2.著名动画片《变形金刚》的人物擎天柱")

(b) The report syas, "The Yi people, an ethnic minority of eight million spread over southwestern China, have been fighting bulls for more than a century as a way to celebrate a harvest ceremony called Torch Festival, which fell this year on Aug 11, and, in more recent years, Lunar New Year."
(i) Yi people  彝族
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_people
(ii) Torch Festival  火把节
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torch_Festival
(celebrated on the 24th or 25th day of the sixth month of the Yi calendar, corresponding to August in the Gregorian calendar; commemorates the legendary wrestler Atilaba, who drove away a plague of locusts using torches made from pine trees)
(c) The report mentions "the tiny farming village of Damogu has built a new bullfighting arena."

That is 云南省曲靖市陆良县 大莫古镇.