Tag: chinese

Breast Cancer Dragon Boat

  • The Dream Team of breast cancer survivors paddles away. (Photo courtesy of the Dream Team)

It’s hard to imagine you would be glad to have breast cancer.
But some women are now saying getting the disease has changed
their lives for the better. These crazy-sounding women are finding new life in a sport called
dragon boat racing. Julie Grant brings us their story:

Transcript

It’s hard to imagine you would be glad to have breast cancer.
But some women are now saying getting the disease has changed
their lives for the better. These crazy-sounding women are finding new life in a sport called
dragon boat racing. Julie Grant brings us their story:


(Sound of women talking and laughing)


The sun is just beginning to set on another weekday as twenty middle-aged women start
gathering near a boathouse. They’re all wearing bright pink racing jerseys.
And they’ve all survived breast cancer.



A few work together to pull the canvas cover off their baby, a long, thin wooden boat.
This is what’s known as a Chinese dragon boat. The front end is a dragon’s head, with a fierce
red face and green scales running down the dragon’s neck. Dragon boat racing started 2500
years ago in China. Some say it was believed to ward off evil and disease.


At this Midwestern boathouse, these breast cancer survivors give thanks for their chance to
paddle a dragon boat. They get in, sit in pairs, and push off. There’s still some fun and laughter,
but most of the women grimace as they attempt to synchronize their race-strokes.


(Sound of prayer)



They get in, sit in pairs and push off. There’s still some fun and laughter, but most of the women grimace as they attempt synchronize their race strokes.


In a race, paddlers stroke about 75 times per minute. That’s a big change for breast cancer
survivors. They used to be told not to use their upper bodies. No carrying groceries, babies, or
vacuuming. It was thought they could get lymphedema, a swelling of the arms. But testing on
women in dragon boating has shown paddling is actually beneficial.


Paddler Lynn Fritz has had two bouts with breast cancer over the past ten years.
Fritz says she’s talked about her feelings with a support group to help her deal with the cancer.
But she loves dragon boating, she says, because it’s helping her get on with her life:


“This was something that I thought, this is fun. Instead of just, gotta introduce myself and say when I
had cancer, don’t worry you’ll get through it. We don’t talk about it out here, out on the lake it’s
just peaceful. I needed it, bad.”



The “Dream Team,” as they’re known, has started competing in dragon boat races. It’s one of
the fastest growing water sports worldwide. Some of the other teams are also exclusive to breast
cancer survivors. The Bosom Buddies and Abreast in a Boat are two Canadian teams. But most
dragon boaters are just regular paddling competitors. The women have to be strong to keep up.
The Dream Team, in only their first year on the water, won one of their races.


(Sound of boat)


Jessica Madder remembers watching dragon boaters from the dock of her vacation home in Nova
Scotia. She always admired the women. She remembers the summer of 2005, toasting them
with pink champagne as they paddled by:


“Little did I know that the following summer, I was going to arrive home and have the birthday greetings that I had developed breast cancer that year and I had been through all the treatments. In fact, I wasn’t even two
months out of treatment when I first got in a dragon boat. So that was my first introduction.”


Madder paddled all that summer in Nova Scotia. Then she came back to her home in Ohio, and
went to see her doctor:


“His nurse greeted me for my appointment and she said, ‘How are you?’ Because of course
she had seen me as a recovering patient in the spring. How are you? And I said, fantastic! I’m so healthy, I’m a
summer athlete. And I just bounced.”


When the doctor saw how well she was doing, he wanted that treatment for the rest of his
patients, so he bought the Dream Team boat and life jackets. Madder didn’t know if she could
recruit 22 women to form a full paddling team. She quickly had 72 interested. She gets teary
when she talks about them:


“I still remember Linda saying to me, ‘I’m a survivor for 11 years and this is the first time the
loneliness of cancer has left my heart.’ I mean, how am I not gonna cry? And then they say thank you. I stand there, and I am so
truthful, and say, look, I did this for myself. I just wanted to paddle a dragon boat.”


Madder jokes with her husband, she wishes she’d been diagnosed ten years earlier. She’s
hoping she’s got enough time left to start a dragon boat team on every waterway in her state.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Will Chestnut Trees Make a Comeback?

  • Due to a blight, American chestnuts are now rare in the Midwest. (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)

In the first half of the last century, there were millions of American chestnut trees ranging from the Eastern seaboard to the Upper Midwest. Now, there are virtually none… because a fungus killed them. A campaign is being launched to bring back a blight-resistant version of the chestnut… and it’s being planted here in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen
reports:

Transcript

In the first half of the last century, there were millions of
American chestnut trees ranging from the Eastern seaboard to the Upper
Midwest. Now, there are virtually none because a fungus killed them.
A campaign is being launched to bring back a blight-resistant version of
the chestnut, and it’s being planted here in the Midwest. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:


Sprouts from diseased chestnut trees don’t get the killer fungus until
they’re 4 inches tall, so researchers like Brian McCarthy of Ohio
University have had plenty of raw material to breed a new version of the
chestnut tree.


“Fifteen-sixteenths pure American chestnut and one-sixteenth Chinese
chestnut. And that one-sixteenth of the genome confers blight resistance.”


Ohio is now planting hundreds of the new seedlings on top of abandoned strip
mines. McCarthy believes they may help reclaim the land.


“It’s not that chestnuts like this kind of soil. It’s that probably that chestnuts can
tolerate this type of soil better than other broadleaf tree species can.”


McCarthy hopes that a century from now, the blight-resistant chestnut
trees will once again be prominent in forests, providing high-quality
lumber and food for wildlife.


For the GLRC, I’m Bill Cohen in Columbus.

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Asian Food Stores Adding to Carp Problem?

  • An Illinois Natural History Survey intern shows off her catch (a bighead carp). Officials are concerned that human behavior may help the invasive fish get around the barrier on the Chicago River. (Photo by Mark Pegg, INHS)

Over time, invasive species have upset the natural balance of the Great Lakes. Now, officials are working frantically to stop a new threat, the Asian carp. The carp lives in tributaries connected to the Great Lakes. But there may be another route into the water system – through Asian food stores. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, live carp can be purchased in many cities throughout the region:

Transcript

Over time, invasive species have upset the natural balance of the Great Lakes. Now, officials are
working frantically to stop a new threat, the Asian carp. The carp lives in tributaries connected to
the Great Lakes. But there may be another route into the water system – through Asian food
stores. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, live carp can be purchased
in many cities throughout the region:


“This one in Chinese, layoo. This one in Chinese…”


York Alooah stands in front of a crowded fish tank at the 168 Market in Ottawa, Canada’s capital.
He points to the fat, foot and a half-long bighead carp swimming behind the glass.


The fish are brought to his store by truck from Toronto. They originate at farms in the southern
U.S.


Speaking through an interpreter, Alooah says it’s unlikely that a carp could escape during
delivery.


“They use a big truck and have the fish tank inside.”


Alooah says the fish can’t jump out because the tanks are covered. Still, the live sale of these fish
has many people worried. That’s why states like Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio have
banned the possession of live Asian carp.


Several states are also asking the federal government to add these carp to a list of invasive species
considered harmful. That listing would make it illegal to possess them alive.


In Canada, there aren’t laws like that on the looks. But officials say they’re considering action.


Nick Mandrack is a research scientist with the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He
says Canadian researchers are keeping an eye on an Asian carp population that’s moving north up
the Mississippi River. They worry that the fish will migrate through a manmade canal into the
Great Lakes.


“If they were to become established, either through dispersal up from the Mississippi or
unauthorized release as a result of the live food trade, they could have enormous impacts on the
Great Lakes ecosystem, which would likely result in a dramatic decline in the biomass of game
fishes.”


That’s because two species of Asian carp eat the same food as small forage fishes. And those
forage fishes are what the larger gamefish rely on. The Asian carp are too big for the gamefish to
eat.


Researchers are also worried about two other species. The black carp could wipe out endangered
mussels that live in the lakes. And the grass carp destroys aquatic plants where native fishes live.


Mandrack has seen both the bighead and the grass carp sold live in Asian food stores. He and
others say that poses one of the greatest threats to the Great Lakes fish population.


(sound of fish scaling)


Back at the 168 market in Ottawa, York Alooah uses a long knife to butcher and scale a fish he’s
pulled out of a tank. He laughs when an interpreter asks if people ever leave his store with live
carp.


“When people buy, it’s not alive. He clean and kill and clean everything.” Is it never alive?”
“Never.”


In fact, the city of Chicago is hoping to guarantee that doesn’t happen. Officials want stores that
sell live carp to operate under permits. And the fish would have to be killed before it left the
store.


But not all fish is bought for consumption. There’s also concern about a Buddhist practice in
which captive animals are released into the wild.


Tookdun Chudrin is a nun with the MidAmerica Buddhist Association. She says the carp sold in
food stores are not likely candidates for release.


“I think that people would not buy such a large fish for liberation because they tend to get very
small animals and very often will put them in a pond at a temple.


And Chudrin says, Buddhists would want to know if the religious practice was harming other
animals.


“I think definitely if there were a sign saying that said putting these fish in the lakes could be
detrimental to other species, I think people for sure would heed that if this was going to endanger
others and the people knew it, I don’t think they’d do that.”


So far, only two Asian carp have been found – in the Canadian waters of the Great Lakes.
Another was released in a fountain in Toronto, just a few blocks from Lake Ontario.


Whether from pranks, or acts of kindness, some fear it’s only a matter of time before more carp
get into the water. They say the Great Lakes could become a giant carp pond, and many of the
species we’ve come to know would disappear.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.