Quote Originally Posted by jcole View Post
The theory is this is that not only do they eat the pangolin, etc, but they believe that some parts of it [[and civet cat and other animals) are cures for various ills, such as bad skin or menstrual cramps. It's very hard to break peoples belief in these ancestral cures which makes closing down these markets even harder.
The crazier thing is that the modern "traditional" Chinese medicine was invented by the Chinese government in the 1950s. They were trying to modernize their health care system but didn't have the production capacity to make modern medicines, so Mao encouraged "traditional" cures be used as a stop-gap. He didn't believe in it himself, and got Western style health care, of course.

https://slate.com/technology/2013/10...eve-in-it.html