[merylsilverburg]

Originally posted by Fortune

I agree with most part of what meryl said in her post. Asian markets are ging to be affected by this whole question. Many people cancelled orders coming from Asian shops, many others are not going to buy stuff "Made in China" for the same reason.
This makes you wonder how comes that this time is China to suffer from all this, mainly... Asian products are sold all over the world and their prices are usually extremely low compared to the ones of Western products (we're speaking of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and similar, Japan is apparently not involved), and now, with SARS (aguess what? a modified virus), their economy will be somewhat damaged, at least for the present moment.. hmmm... hmmm... coincidences.

Yes, now that you point it out Fortune, it does make sense a little. A modified virus...but why? Is it so that the people in the US will become frightened of importing stuff which causes American to produce more US made items to help the economy? If this is the case, then it's a dirty and low way of doing so. This will make me extremely angry...

Originally posted by ToxicUK

1 - Asians are really good people if you get to know them. If some Killer bug turns up there its not going to be deliberate - it just happened there so if people are gonna be racist at least dont make it the most obvious thing in the world - but I think its totally despicable. My workmates were making jokes about Asians yesterday and I walked out of the room in disgust.

That's so nice, I'm happy to hear you did that. Not only are people making jokes about Asians, but at the restaurant where I work (it's a Chinese restaurant) not many Americans or Europeans are coming in anymore. People are trying to avoid Asian restaurants now, whether it's Thai food, Japanese food, Korean, or anything else. It's really bad for business and everyone's suffering from it.

2 - If everything is xhecked for the bug like through some scaner as they go through certain places then there would be no problem and I dont even have a problem in ordering from anywhere like that because the chances of actually catching SARS from a package is very low.

Yes, I believe that too. This SARS is just more worse than a common cold...and colds are spread people to people, not packages or items or anything. But if people don't feel comfortable ordering or getting stuff from Asian countries, then that's fine, it's understandable. The sad thing is that people who don't believe that you can catch SARS from packages aren't able to order anymore goodies/CDs/DVDs from Asian countries for a while, like Fortune. And on Ebay, people are refusing to bid on stuff with the "Location" being in an Asian country. And I'm pretty sure that Asians living in the US won't be able to do the same, only because they're Asians. I want to sell an item on Ebay, but I'm afraid that people will back out once they learn that I'm an Asian seller.

3 - There is some big idea that SARS came from outer space on a comet or something? Does anyone know if thats true or is there anything anyone can tell me about the origin of it because its kind of like my big question of the week.

Whoa, I never heard that before....outer space? Well, I don't know if anyone really knows the origin of SARS, but my dad read in Chinese newspapers that it did originate in Asia/Hong Kong. But then again, some say that it didn't and it only spread to Cantonese people who spread it around the US when they came over. And US papers say it originated in Asia. It's very complicated and no one knows for sure.