TIMEasia.com: Asian Journey 2001

Bad Medicine
The horns of Africa
By HANNAH BEECH

The best loot is hidden in the back, past the seahorse skeletons and powdered pangolin. From inside a rusted safe, shopkeeper Zhu fishes out a bundle of cloth and unwraps a precious amber-streaked crescent. "Rhino horn," he whispers. "Straight from Africa."

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For centuries, China has mined the faraway continent for its treasures. Zheng He himself loaded his ships with ambergris, elephant tusk and rhino horn. Despite Kenya's shoot-to-kill order for wildlife poachers, much of the ivory and rhino horn leaves Africa by air from its capital, Nairobi, or by sea from the nation's largest port, Mombasa. As much as 40% of the contraband ultimately ends up in China, where it is used for medicinal purposes and as a natural Viagra. "Little man eat rhino," says Zhu, in his best English, "little man become very big man."

In the poshest shops in Beijing, a pair of black rhino horns sells for $60,000. No wonder there are only 2,500 of the shy creatures left in the wild. More than 80% of all ivory, which commands an impressive $300 per kg in China, comes from illegally poached animals, according to environmental group Save the Elephants. Although token efforts have been made—so far this year, officials at Shanghai's Pudong Airport have confiscated 1,533 tusks or ivory products—many customs authorities quietly take a cut of the profits and let the contraband through. "There is no sense that these animals should be saved," says a Beijing-born conservationist. "Africa is just seen as one big marketplace."

Shopkeeper Zhu's father began his exotic-animal trade 40 years ago and passed it on to his son. But at the present rate of carnage, there will be little left when Zhu's 11-year-old son takes over the business. For one thing, there may be no black rhinos remaining in the wild to give up their precious horns.

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China
Photographer Fritz Hoffmann finds a country on the move

Indonesia
John Stanmeyer explores the jostling peoples, religions and cultures that define the country

India
The grandeur of Cochin and Calicut has long disappeared

Middle East
The cities that were once the center of the world now hover at its remotest margins -- but a few traces of their glory days linger on

Africa
In the 15th century, Zheng He's fleet went to Africa seeking exotic treasures. The Chinese still do

Europe

South Pacific

CHINA: In the Wake of the Admiral
Six centuries after Admiral Zheng He set sail, Adi Ignatius finds a China still struggling with its place in the world

SOUTHEAST ASIA: Disunited Nations
Once a patchwork of sultanates and kingdoms, this teeming region now struggles to tame its multiple—and often conflicting—identities

INDIA: Misplaced Majesty
The history of the thriving Malabar coast's entrepots that so impressed Chinese adventurers has been all but scuttled by the tides of time

THE MIDDLE EAST: Arabian Twilight
The cities that were once the center of the world now hover at its remotest margins—but a few traces of their glory days linger on