Diper heads are more enlightened than da Chinks
Jake
billion people and can't feed them all. In the past recent decades
tens of millions starved under Mao. In order to survive, they decided
that dogs were eating food hu mons could be having, so they out lawed
dogs in china, an act that shall live in infamy.
Every one had to give up their little pooches to have their throats
slit or go to prison. Millions of dogs were horribly killed.
At this same time the Rag heads in Iran are getting civilized as da
Chinks are slipping into barbarism. Who could have figgured dis turn
of events.
in 79 when the rag heads kicked out our Iranian manager da shah we had
on our payroll, dey did a ban on alcohol, you could no longer own a dog
and you had to dress in this black sack with a diper on yo head. If
you were a person of wealth and power you could grease some palms and
keep your pooch if you kept fido hidden. If you were a grunt in da
grass, fido was toast.
Da head dumb shit of islam, da ayatollah khomeinifukishiti said dogs
were impure, right sand N, you are impure. He said only the army could
have them to guard their non existant nuclear factories they said they
did not have where they are making a bombs to nuke da jews with.
If dey caught you out walking fido, they arrested yo ass, put you in
jail, they came by and took your car and then you paid a huge fine to
get out of jail. After 25 years of dog abuse, they took off da dog
taboo today. They even had a major dog show in Tehran park. The
government just realized that animals have rights to also exist.
Now what is wrong with da Chinks.
Every one write a letter to Bejing and express your out rage.
Jake da wonder doggie.
Jake
Cat and dog fur imports to be banned after fight by RSPCA
By David Bamber, Home Affairs Correspondent
(Filed: 23/12/2001)
PONGO, Perdita and their fellow dalmatians can relax at last. The trade
in cat and dog fur in Britain is to be banned. Ministers will announce
next month that the importation of domestic animal pelts to this
country from China will be outlawed.
Fantasy Champuions League
The move follows a two-year campaign by the Royal Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which used the films 101 Dalmatians
and 102 Dalmatians to dramatise the issue. In the films, Glenn Close,
the actress, played the evil Cruella de Vil, who longs for a coat of
dalmatian puppy skin.
The ban came as it emerged that a fur coat collar, obtained from a
leading store in the West End of London - which cannot be named for
legal reasons - contained dog fur.
The tests were carried out by the Humane Society of the United States
(HSUS), the American equivalent of the RSPCA. Lisa Bob, the director of
research at the HSUS, said: "Using mitochondrial DNA testing, one fur
collar has proved positively to belong to the family Canidae - which
includes domestic dogs.
"The collar was bought in the West End from a large furrier and was
simply labelled as fur - not specifying which species it came from."
This first positive result will give extra weight to RSPCA claims that
up to two million cats and dogs are slaughtered every year in China to
provide fur sold in stores in Britain and other European Union
countries. It is often mis-labelled as rabbit pelt or just given the
generic title fur.
Dog fur, often from alsatians, is labelled as "gae-wolf", "sobaki",
"gubi" or "Asian jackal", while cat fur may be described as "wild cat",
"goyangi" or "mountain cat".
In America, dog and cat fur was banned from sale in 1998 after a public
outcry. Baroness Symons of Vernon Dean, the Foreign Office minister,
last week confirmed that Britain would implement a similar ban.
She said: "The Government agrees that the import, export and trade in
domestic cat and dog fur is abhorrent. We are exploring what
enforceable steps we might take to ban any such imports."
A Foreign Office official said: "This is a Government commitment to ban
the importation and selling of dog and cat fur. The law will have to be
changed to bring about a ban, which could be on the statute book by
September, 2002.
"Measures that could be taken to enforce it could include DNA checks on
fur on sale by trading standards inspectors."
Two years ago, an RSPCA investigation uncovered a huge trade in
importing the fur into Britain. The import and sale of cat and dog furs
is currently legal here and in other EU states, but traders are aware
of public unease about the skins. The campaigners claim that traders
use false labels to avoid alerting customers to what they are buying.
In March 1999, it was revealed that Alaska Brokerage International, a
leading fur importer based next to the British Fur Trade Association in
London, was prepared to import dog and cat fur into Britain.
An undercover journalist from the BBC2 programme, Newsnight, filmed a
salesman offering 10,000 dressed "goupee furs" - dog fur - and 150,000
cat furs.
Animal rights campaigners are conducting further DNA tests on fur items
bought from leading British stores in March last year, suspecting that
they contain the fur of cats or dogs.
Although final results are not yet available, researchers believe that
they will prove that dog and cat fur is on sale in Britain.
As part of the HSUS investigation, researchers filmed dogs and cats
being stabbed, beaten and throttled to death before being skinned in
China. The researchers also reported seeing some animals still
breathing as their pelts were removed.
An RSPCA spokesman said: "There is no doubt that cat and dog fur is
used in clothing on sale in the high street and we welcome all moves to
stop this trade." Labour has close financial links with some animal
rights groups, including one allied to the RSPCA.
The party has received donations of £1,150,000 from the Political
Animal Lobby, (PAL), including one of £47,582 just before the
election. PAL was formed by Brian Davies, who also founded the
International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
Although independent, the organisations are perceived as having the
same aims. The IFAW, along with the RSPCA and the League Against Cruel
Sports, belong to the Campaign for the Protection of Hunted Animals,
whose representative, John Rolls, the RSPCA's chief spokesman, met Tony
Blair 48 hours before he announced that the Government would ban
hunting with hounds.
Jake
... In 1947, dogs were officially outlawed in China, but some
Shar-Pei's were exported
to the United States from Hong Kong in 1970 and to Europe
Jake
According to numerous reports from news organizations and animal rights
groups, St. Bernard dogs are being used to interbreed with Chinese dog
lines to produce meat dogs. A BBC report from February 6, 2001, says
dog meat is a delicacy in China and that a Swiss group called on the
Swiss government to protest the use of the St. Bernards, which are a
Swiss national symbol. The animal rights group ASIANS FOR HUMANS,
ANIMALS, AND NATURE, says the dogs are valued for breeding because
their offspring grow quickly, require less food, can be ready for
market in four months, and their friendly disposition makes things
safer for breeders. There are reports that the dogs are handled in
such a way as to increase their adrenaline levels when killed, mostly
because of the belief that it will help the sexual performance of men.
Jake
FOOD DOGS
We see no difference between pig eating and dog eating. The degree of
objection lies in the methods of rearing, transport and slaughter
rather than in the choice of species.
The popularity of dog eating is currently increasing at a huge rate -
it is evolving rapidly from its traditions as a cottage industry. Now
it is no longer a case of a few peasant farmers breeding a bitch once a
year and taking the grown puppies to the market for a little extra
pocket money. Huge dog farms are being set up using modern scientific
factory farming methods.
So what can we do to stop this?
We do NOT approve of calls for boycotts - they are not only ineffective
but they actually cause resentment and ill will amongst people who have
the potential to be on our side of the argument. Animals Asia
Foundation has been concerned with this issue for a long time - their
strategy so far has been to raise respect for dogs by promoting Dr Dog
and Detective Dog programmes in Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan and
Korea. They have also carried out investigations on dog slaughter in
China, Korea and Vietnam. But they feel as we do that more must be
done. It is difficult to know what the best route forward is but
coordination of everyone's efforts is certainly important - anyone with
any ideas, information, or wishing to help, please write to AAPN.
There are currently strong campaigns proceeding against the use of St
Bernard dogs for food and against dog eating in Korea where the methods
of killing are egregious. These campaigns are a good way to start to
tackle the more general problem of dog eating. [And dog eating is a
good way to start to tackle the more general problem of the eating of
non-human animals].
Unfortunately, much of the anti-dog meat campaigning is tainted by
racism - as, indeed, is the resistance to the anti-dog meat
campaigning.
Please feel free to copy and use any of the material on this site - but
please let us know: in...@aapn.org
Friends or Food?
Please follow these links for general information on dog eating and the
St Bernards problem in particular:
St Bernards - the ideal food dog
SOS St Bernards Dogs
Dog meat business - this link is sometimes not available, a copy is
here.
PACAS
Chinese breeder touts dog meat as new delicacy
Dogs for Food Campaign
Hungarian St Bernard site
Animal People News - a search of their site for "dog eating" produces
many interesting articles.
Possible health hazards associated with eating dogs - also applies to
the eating of other animals.
Sirius Global Animal Organisation (Sirius GAO), campaigning to end the
export of domestic dogs to China for torture and slaughter for their
meat and fur.
CHINA
Hitherto, dog production for eating has in China been a cottage
industry. Peasants would raise a few dogs and take them to the market
when they were grown. But now entrepreneurs are applying factory
farming principles to the process. Faster growing and more docile
breeds are being introduced (eg St Bernards) and the whole business is
being scaled up with modern distribution and marketing techniques.
[eg 1) Breeding base of Meat-producing Breeding St. Bernard of Lin Xing
Raising and Propagating Company of Shanxi, Datong Coal Mining
Administration, Yingxin Street, Xinpingwang, Datong, Shanxi 037003 /
China. Fax + 86 352 70 10 537.
2) Shenyang Food Dog Research Institute, Shenyang City, Liaoning,
China, Director : Su Chi-Yong.]
In Yibin, Sichuan Province in November 2001 we visited a dog meat
restaurant which had 2 dogs in a cage waiting to be killed and eaten.
In another cage were three puppies. The restaurant owner informed us
that there are 5 dog meat restaurants in Yibin supplied by two farms
about 20Km outside Yibin. We asked to visit these but were repeatedly
told that the roads were too dangerous. He said they used about 20 - 30
dogs each month. Dog meat is very expensive compared with pork which is
as cheap as ordinary vegetables. Dog eating is not popular in this
area amongst the older generation - dogs were traditionally kept as
guards and pets but not food. However the younger generation is coming
under the influence of other provinces - Guangdong, Hubei, Liaoning,
Heilongjiang, Jilin) - and dog eating is now considered to be
fashionable as a special occasion feast. It seems that dog eating gets
less popular as you move North in this region. Xichang to the South of
Yibin has a much more flourishing dog meat industry. Further North in
Zigong we visited one of only two restaurants in the city that sell dog
meat. They buy a dog from the market about once a week, kill it
themselves and put it in their freezer. About 10 dogs a week are eaten
in Zigong. The meat of watch dogs is not considered good. Meat dogs
sell for Y100 to 250. (US$1 is approximately Y8).
Click here for Photos of Food Dogs in Yibin
Photos of Food and other Dogs in Zigong
Photos of Food Dogs in Xichang
Photos of Food Dogs in Guilin
Photos and Text re Food Dogs in Peixian
Sichuan November 2001
Pressed Dog 2 Pressed Dog 1
http://www.chelonia.org/Articles/China/asianmarketintropage.htm
KOREA
Kyongdong Market, Seoul
The photographs were taken on 3rd January 1998. This market is one of
many such in Seoul, the capital South Korea. It is near the
Chongnyangni subway station and covers about 230,000 square metres. It
is reputed to supply about 70% of the herbal medicine industry in
Korea. The first thing that struck me was the abundance and variety of
the vegetables and fruit that were for sale - and this in mid-winter.
Surely man could be content with this profligacy of nature without
having to abuse sentient beings for either nourishment or pleasure!
Unfortunately, a few steps into the market and I came across the first
of many stalls with the dreaded 7H - the Korean character for dog.
For scale and variety of animal fare, this market hardly compares with
the notorious Qingping market in Guangzhou (China). But nevertheless
there is plenty to choose from - cat soup, four seasons dog stew,
rabbit, goat and all kinds of poultry. I did not witness any active
cruelty being inflicted on the animals but I could see their terror and
cringing when a human went near. The stall holders had obviously had
bad experiences with foreigners and it was made clear to me that I was
not welcome - especially with my camera. It would therefore be
impossible for me to take pictures of the slaughter methods - the story
is that the dogs are hanged from the bars of their cages and when
nearly dead are taken down to have their fur blowtorched off. I did
observe poultry being blowtorched.
There seems to be some difference of opinion on the current legality of
dog eating in Korea. It was banned at the time of the Seoul Olympics in
1988. The Government seems to be moving towards making a distinction
between "food dogs" and "pet dogs". Whatever the legal position, the
industry is obviously thriving without any serious attempt at control.
Personally I see no logic in banning dog eating and not pig eating.
The need is for enforceable legislation to cover holding and slaughter
methods for all animals. And for the encouragement of vegetarianism.
This will be an uphill battle in Korea - my hosts had read about
vegetarians but had never met one before!
It was pointed out to me that the association of a prostitution area
with the dog meat area is usual throughout the country. Apparently men
congregate and drink snake soup and alcohol and eat dog to increase
their stamina and then choose a woman from the goldfish-bowl shops.
Adjacent to the Kyongdong market lies the "588" (oh-pal-pal) brothel
district. When the pimps saw me walking between the rows of plate glass
shop fronts with scantily clad girls tapping on the glass, they shouted
at me to leave the area. One of the girls then called to the pimps and
I presume told them that I had been taking photographs and they came
shouting after me. As I had no desire to lose either my camera or my
life, I ran to the end of the road and round the corner into the main
street where I was fortunate to find a taxi discharging some new
punters - I hopped in and made my escape!
Some people have advocated legalising dog eating so that the farming
and slaughtering could be regulated. A little thought shows this to be
a very wrong idea.
Jill Robinson of Animals Asia Foundation wrote:
" If approval was given to farm these dogs "humanely" the cruelty would
simply
go underground - and would create a precedent for accepting dog
consumption
in countries across Asia - including those where no anti-cruelty
legislation
exists. Unlike other domestic animals raised for food, dogs are
carnivores.
In intensive rearing situations they fight - sometimes to the death -
over
water, food or even the right to lie down in cramped conditions. Dr.
Les
Sims of the Hong Kong Government Agriculture Fisheries and Conservation
Department states that no country in the world has developed a humane
way of
raising and slaughtering dogs and that, in their opinion, it cannot be
done.
More and more people in Asia believe that dogs have earned their place
in
society as companions and helpers - they want consumption of this
species to
end. Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Taiwan have banned the practice -
that
is the precedent to follow.
What you can do:
Support the Korean Animal Protection Society (KAPS) - it has an
international arm, International Aid for Korean Animals (IAKA).
So please contact Ms Kyenan Kum:
P.O Box 20600
Oakland, CA
94620-0600
USA
Tel: + 1 510 271 6795
Fax: + 1 510 451 0643
e-mail: ka...@koreananimals.org
website: KOREA ANIMAL PROTECTION SOCIETY
For the full picture read these sites on the Korean problem:
(but please be careful not to get sucked into the racism that is on
some of them!)
A Case Against the Legalization and Promotion of Dog Eating
Dog meat is not traditional Korean food
ACRES - Animal Concerns Research & Education Society
Friends of dogs: the rights of dogs
Anti Dogmeat Movement Headquarters
It's Their Destiny
Korean Animal Protection Law
Save the Dog
Korean Alliance to Prevent Cruelty of Animals
Animal People News
Dog Aid Australia
Korean Dogs e-mail List - anyone seriously interested in this subject
should join this list and read their archives - a wealth of
information.
Tegendierendleed
http://www.seoulsearching.com/DogMeat.html
Abusers' Paradise - take your pick of the flesh on offer:
Hooker3.jpg (47006 bytes)
Pigs2.jpg (49782 bytes)
Dogcorp7.jpg (242023 bytes)
Catrab.jpg (17667 bytes)
THE MILLIONTH EXECUTION
Gentle spirit, let me lay
cheek on furry breast
And let my tear wet tender paw
before your skin they wrest
Let me heal your suffering
the moment that you go
to be hung, to be scourged
South Korean song of woe.
Gentle spirit, rock with me
through our silent night
let us sneak together off
to escape the bully's bite
Your pain is mine, I lay my cheek
upon your battered breast
bone of dog, whisk' of cat
in you I've passed Love's test.
7/98 By DM (tap...@mindspring.com)
Dedicated to all dogs and cats in Asian countries who are being
brutally tortured and killed by the millions for human consumption.
Their cries have reached us.
PHILIPPINES
PAL Network for Animals
http://compassionatetraveler.org/
Special Projects
THAILAND
End of fasting puts man's best friend back on menu
by JAMES EAST in Bangkok for South China Morning Post Tuesday, November
16, 1999
Every dog has its day, and in Thailand it no doubt occurs during the
Buddhist Lent. But the climax to the auspicious 90-day retreat period
for the kingdom's monks is the beginning of the northeast's canine
killing season. For three months the dog slaughterhouses bow to
religious sensibilities and refrain from killing. But now Lent is over
there has been a surge in demand for dog dinners. Hundreds of animals
are being sold in northern markets to those meat-eaters desperate to
taste sour and spicy dog-bone soup or peppery dog meat salad.
Dog-catchers in pick-up trucks have been touring northern cities - and
as far south as Bangkok to scour the capital's streets for strays - in
a bid to satisfy demand. The pursuers of "man's best friend" have even
been handing villagers new plastic buckets in exchange for mangy strays
that loiter near food vendors and rubbish bins across Thailand. At one
northern market the meat is selling for about HK$12 a kilogram and
bones for $9. Taiwanese and Chinese tourists are also demanding dog.
Gourmets say the meat is particularly succulent and tastes like deer.
They order it fried or boiled. Many Thais say dog is the ideal winter
delicacy because the meat, believed to be "hot", keeps the eater warm.
But the thought of eating dog horrifies most Thais and the promotion of
canine cuisine is not something the Tourism Authority of Thailand is
keen to support. Dog dealers bite back, saying they are helping to
solve the problem of Thailand's thousands of strays. And golfers in
China might agree. Tonnes of dog pelts are annually exported to China,
where their soft leather is considered the ideal material for golfing
gloves.
VIETNAM
Dog Slaughter for food varies from the deliberately cruel (as in Korea
- in order to enhance the taste and therapeutic qualities) to the
carelessly cruel (as in most of China1 and China2) to the quick deaths
as illustrated below (in Vietnam).
Click on the thumbnails for the big pictures:
pizza delivery Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam
Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam - boys will be
boys.............
Above Vietnamese photos taken in June 1999 by Animals Asia
Foundation/Chris Davies.
Jake
1. DOGMEAT RESTAURANTS DISCOVERED IN CALIFORNIA!
by Rudy Allen
Some Korean restaurants in Orange County and Los Angeles are
advertising DOG STEW openly, although it is illegal to serve dogmeat in
the state of California. Yet law enforcement agencies are not
enforcing the existing law.
Part of the problem is that "Boshintang" (dog stew) is advertised only
in the Korean language. A Korean employee involved in a Channel 9
expose originally translated this for me; the translation has been
verified by two other Korean animal sympathizers. Nevertheless,
authorities either dismiss it, or refuse to look into the matter,
passing it on to yet another agency that refuses to do anything about
it. Orange County Health official Mr. Saba supposedly inspected one
restaurant and reported finding nothing to indicate that dog was being
served. When questioned as to exactly what he was looking for, he
replied, "a carcass." It had to be pointed out to this government
employed health official that McDonalds (for instance) does not have
cow carcasses in their kitchens! He retorted that he "checked the meat
receipts."
Once again, ludicrous! Since serving, or providing dogmeat for the
intention of consumption, is illegal in California, who is going to
give a receipt?
Finally, Saba maintained that his Korean investigator substantiated
that the sign in front of the restaurant does NOT say "dogstew." When
it was suggested that he might ask two different Koreans (at different
times) to translate, he said he'd have to get back to me. He never did.
THE LAW
Penal Code 598b clearly states "Every person is guilty of a misdemeanor
who possesses, imports into, or exports from, this state, sells, buys,
gives away, or accepts any carcass or part of any carcass of any animal
traditionally or commonly kept as a pet or companion animal with the
intent of using or having another person use any part of that carcass
for food." The law goes on to state that
it is not to be construed to apply to livestock or poultry.
Nevertheless, L.A. S.P.C.A. officer David Havard confesses: "We've had
animals picked up by individuals in the past years that use these
animals for food consumption."
Obviously if an officer for the Society for the Prevention of CRUELTY
to Animals KNOWINGLY condones the adopting of animals to these
individuals, any chance of help from this group is hopeless! Worse yet,
how many people who give up a pet to the shelters have any idea that
their animal may wind up as stew? "The biggest problem we have in
enforcing the law," Havard continues, "is determining the definition of
companion animal." If the SPCA doesn't know that dogs and cats are
companion animals, who would? The police contend that they do not
have the time to investigate animal abuse prevention cases, and pass
the hat to Animal Regulation. The fact that Orange County
Animal Regulation's answering machine offers Vietnamese callers a
separate line to dial is disturbing as well, since it indicates that
they service a sizeable Vietnamese clientele. Dogmeat Stew (Thit Cho)
happens to be a very popular delicacy in Vietnam! Coincidentally, in
1996, head of L.A. Animal Regulation, Gary Olson, admitted that an
astonishing 3000 seized animals were unaccountable (neither adopted nor
euthanized) at the end of that year!
NOBODY HAS EVER BEEN CONVICTED OF PET EATING UNDER CURRENT LAW!
Since there is a law making the sale of dogmeat illegal in California,
we must assume that the restaurants that do sell it are selling meat
that has not been inspected. Because dogs must be obtained illegally to
be used for food consumption, there is always the chance that the
animal may be on medications that could be hazardous to the person
eating the meat. The USDA Food and Safety Inspection Service is
responsible for ensuring that the nation's supply of meat is safe,
wholesome, and correctly labeled. When asked for it's response on
this issue, and specifically to address the legality aspects and their
involvement, USDA representative Wayne Humphries forwarded my request
to Jackie Knight, at Media Communication in Washington, DC. Her reply?
"The Food Safety and Inspection Service does not process dog meat for
human consumption. Dog meat is not amenable to the Federal Meat Act.
Exotic foods are under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug
Administration."
When contacted via e-mail, FDA's webmaster replied," FDA, the Food
and Drug Administration, is who you referred to in your request. They
inspect foods other than meat and poultry. I did not forward your
request to them because USDA inspects meat and poultry. I have
forwarded your request to the USDA Food and Safety Inspection Service
Technical Center, who told me to contact District Attorney Gil
Garcetti. I wrote to Garcetti's office on October 20th, 1998, and am
still waiting for a reply...
ANIMAL RIGHTS "EXPERTS" USELESS
I met with Barbara Fabricant, L.A. humane officer and president of
the Humane Task Force, who arranged a meeting for me with Senator
Rosenthal's office. Both seemed very interested in this issue, and
requested that I purchase a sample of the dish, and they would have it
analyzed. After I did so, and gave it to Fabricant's representative,
Fabricant then decided that even if the sample proved to be dogstew,
there was no actual proof that the dish was purchased from the
restaurant in question. Rosenthal's office promptly lost interest.
A plea for help was addressed to the office of L.A. City Attorney
James Hahn, who has stated that his intent is to "vigorously enforce
animal cruelty laws."
His office replied with a form letter! The next step was to seek legal
help. Michael Rotsten, celebrated Attorney-at-Law for the Animal Rights
Law Office, was contacted. Rotsten offered these words of wisdom: "When
you go to a restaurant that serves "buffalo wings", that does not mean
the meat contains buffalo."
AT THIS POINT IN THE HANDBILL, I SHOW BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS OF
THE RESTAURANT PROFILED IN THE CH 9 EXPOSE, WITH THESE CAPTIONS:
BEFORE:
Los Angeles restaurant sign advertising "hook yim so" (goat stew) and
"boshintang" (dog stew). The 3 symbols on the right say boshintang in
red, while the other symbols are in black, and in a different type
style.
AFTER:
Restaurant owners claimed that the sign said "dog stew served with goat
meat" (the only difference between the two dishes is the meat, so there
is no reason to advertise boshintang at all). After showing this
restaurant's sign on the Channel 9 feature, the restaurant immediately
changed the sign to the one above. If the sign did not indicate that
they were serving boshintang, why did they take the sign down?
" A food must not be sold under the name of another food." (Sec.
403(b))-Requirements of Laws and Regulations Enforced (?) by the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration.
WHERE DO THESE RESTAURANTS GET DOGS FROM?
Restaurant owners who wish to provide these dishes must rely on
criminals to obtain animals. "Bunchers", as they are called. are people
who obtain animals illegally, and sell them to restaurants, vivisection
labs, satanic cults*, and pit bull fighting rings. Wherever they can
make a quick profit. Most often, bunchers obtain animals from "FREE TO
GOOD HOME" ads in the local newspaper.
By masquerading as an animal lover, sometimes going as far as to bring
a child along, he can easily obtain several animals in one day. By
selling the animals for much more than he paid (nothing!), it's not
hard to imagine how lucrative this cottage industry is. Animal Activist
groups estimate at least
30 known bunchers are operating in Orange County alone!
BOSHINTANG - "A TIME HONORED KOREAN TRADITION"
According to the Sing Tao Daily Korean newspaper, "all body parts of a
dog have excellent nutritional value. It's fur, bones, teeth,
foot/toes, brain, heart, liver, bladder, kidney, blood, and saliva.
They can all be made into a healthy tonic."
The article goes on to state, "The dog penis contains an abundance of
protein and fat but also the male hormone which can help cure problems
of impotence and related sex problems." Scientists, however, dispute
these claims. Several Orange County and Los Angeles oriental medicine
supply houses indicate (on internet webpages) that they stock Gushin
(powdered dog penis).
Popular Korean belief is that due to the adrenaline rush it creates,
the more painful the death, the tastier the meat. Dogs are usually
killed by slow hanging, beating (often in combination), electric shock
through the tongue, and particularly for cats, drowning in large drums
or pounding to death in
Hessian sacks. The fur is burned off with a blowtorch, and not
necessarily after the animal is dead.
Puppies and kittens have a more "delicate flavor", and are often boiled
for broth or "Goyangi-tan" (liquid cat) as it may be called. Many
Koreans believe that this is their culture and they should be allowed
to indulge. My question is this: We live in America...what about OUR
culture?
Update NOV 2002 by Rudy Allen:
Boshintang is indeed alive and well in California. I just returned from
a
surveillance mission this weekend, where I took video footage of a
Korean dog
farm/"family picnic" in the desert. The local officials know all about
it and
even did a raid, but since they didn't actually SEE the killing going
on,
would do nothing. What they DID see was signs on the highway
advertising the
picnic (3 in all) as well as the kennels housing around 200 dogs, an
orchard that they supposedly run for profit but neighbors say that no
fruit
is ever picked, and the dogs never leave the premises alive, so
therefore no
one is SELLING them. Officials found a menu of dogmeat prices. Last
weekend
the local paper ran ads saying to effect, "wanted: any unwanted
animals. Will
give loving home." Neighbors saw whites drop their animals off on that
weekend, and later the Koreans put them all in a truck and drove away.
I
called the number and it had been disconnected. There is another
dogfarm/religious "retreat" 30 mi. from this one, again, out in the
desert.
There are at least 3 restaurants in L.A.'s Koreatown that still
advertise the
dogs, and at least one in Orange County that does the same. I am
enclosing
some pics I took myself that show the advertising. Of course you will
not be
able to read the sign, which is how they get away with it. If you DO
happen
to know a Korean who will translate, and he says it's anything other
than
Boshintang, I GUARANTEE you that if you ask ANOTHER Korean who doesn't
know
the first one, he will give you an entirely different translation!
By the way, I've taken photos of EVERY restaurant that advertises. I
also
came across one that is a storefront, next to a Boshintang restaurant,
that
specializes in KOREAN CUSTOM HEALTH SOUP - all that is in the place is
an
office area, and then behind the (usually) closed door, a room full of
pressure cookers. I gather by "custom," they mean that you BRING YOUR
OWN
"catch of the day" for them to make soup from.
* We have been told that it is most unlikely that Satanists would be
involved in this kind of thing.
2. RAINING CATS AND DOGS ON VANCOUVER MENUS
While many Asian countries are taking steps to ban the eating of cats
and dogs, it's open season in the Lower Mainland. In Vancouver, it's
perfectly legal to slaughter a cat or a dog for dinner. "Any animal, in
fact can be eaten by anyone," John Vanderhoven, the Director of the
Vancouver SPCA informed The Asian Pacific Post recently, "so long as it
is done humanely. Animal laws only deal with the humane treatment of
animals." That policy, however, has angered many in the city, including
Mayor Phillip Owen's office. "As far as the mayor is concerned," stated
an infuriated Janet Fraser, executive assistant to Mayor Philip Owen,
"eating cats and dogs is absolutely unacceptable. It will never be
allowed in Vancouver." "I can't understand the SPCA," bristled Fraser.
"Saving pets is what they are all about." "That seething discontent,
however, is unlikely to prevent anyone from doing what is acceptable
under the law. For hundreds of years cats and dogs have been eaten by
Asians. In traditional Chinese medicine, dogs are highly prized for
their healing value. According to Dr. Martin Kwok, of the Richmond
Alternative Medical Clinic, people from China's Canton province
consider yellow colored dogs to be excellent for digestion and aiding
kidney function. They are supposedly also good for boosting energy
levels, and consequently are often consumed over winter. For Maria
Matheson, who owns a Dalmatian pup, the health aspect of cat or dog
meat is difficult to digest. She was sickened by the thought of anyone
eating a cat or dog. "It's like cannibalism yo me. It'd be like eating
your brother or sister." Unlike cannibalism, however, eating a cat or
dog is not a criminal offence. As far as the Vancouver Police is
concerned, its not an incident that is deserving of their attention.
"The criminal code deals with people not animals," stated Janice
Williams, assistant to Constable Anne Drennan of the Vancouver Police
Department. "If it's nor protected under the criminal code, then it's
not in our jurisdiction. Regulation of food consumption does, however,
fall into the jurisdiction of the Richmond Vancouver health board. Like
the police, and the SPCA, the health board also does not see a problem
with eating cats and dogs. "We have no restrictions on the killing of
cats and dogs for personal consumption," explains Kelvin Hugo, the
Chief Health Inspector of Richmond, "no more than we do for people
going to hunt a deer, a moose, or a bunny rabbit in the backyard." "The
only stickler is in the meat inspection area," he continued. "In
Canada, all meat has to be processed through registered plants. Because
cats and dogs are nor considered as food animals, they cannot be
processed and therefore sold in shops." The list of food animals
currently butchered in Canada is growing. In the recent past, ostrich
meat. has been added to the list, and currently a new bid for kangaroo
meat is being considered. Whether household pets find their way into
grocery stores depends on the persuasiveness of lobby efforts. Some
people found that thought enticing. Randy Doncaster, the Manager of the
Cat and Fiddle Neighborhood Pub in Coquitlam, stated that he would try
the meat if given the opportunity. "I personally wouldn't have anything
against eating a cat or dog if it was properly cooked. It's just meat
like everything else, like grouse, or rabbit. I wouldn't have a problem
if it was cooked up in shish-kabob style."
RESPONSES TO above Canadian article:
1. Anyone ever looked closely into the face of a cow? I guarantee you
will see
the same kind of innocence and trust that one sees in a dog's face. I
hate
to sound like a broken record, but if so-called animal-lovers would all
unite in opposition to using animals as human property, period, there
would
be no need to fight a million individual battles. Battles which amount
to
continued use of nonhumans, some pampered --some butchered. When will
so-called "animal lovers" stop fighting animal abuse at the BACK end,
which
involves suffering and death. Perhaps I'm preaching to the choir here,
but I
challenge anyone to tell me how constantly regulating the way humans
may use
and kill animals does anything to provide substantial and lasting
relief.
Imagine if all the millions who profess to love animals suddenly
rejected
the use of nonhumans as property, as a resource for everything from
cuddly
companions, to food, to research, on and on..... Well, I can think of
two
reasons why this hasn't happened: one, good people haven't made the
connection yet, or two, they are happy with their perceived entitlement
to
use/own other beings. The former is my hope --my reason for continuing
to
fight, and the latter is my fear --my dread that no matter what we say,
those conditioned by religion and other speciesist mindsets will
continue to
love some non-human-animals and butcher others.
Chris Kelly
2. Having spent a good percentage of my life living and working in
different
parts of China, I have seen some of the most atrocious attitudes and
actions
toward animals in the world (for ex., animals are frequently butchered
piece
by piece while still alive in outdoor markets). Strangely enough,
stemming
from the same experiences, I can say I have seen some of the most
resolute
and compassionate in the world (Buddhism and vegetarianism are
widespread in
all parts of China). I have spent time in several places in China where
eating cats and dogs is absolutely commonplace (Hunan, Taiwan, for
ex.).
I mention these things mostly by way of saying that I am adamant in my
conviction that efforts to protect cats and dogs from human dinner
tables on
the basis of their somehow being "more important" than other animals is
misguided and destructive. The implication is too clearly "Well, we
think
eating pigs and cows and chickens is tolerable, but dogs and cats? No
way,
that's just too much." That implication hopelessly confuses things. It
sets
up some very obvious double standards.
In a much more benign way, trying to distinguish between hemp and
marijuana
is equally confusing and destructive to all concerned (bad for both
sides,
if you will). Like it or not, it's the same plant.
And like it or not, an animal is an animal is an animal. We who would
fight
for the ethically-sound treatment of all human and non-human animals
(and
the ecosystems that support their lives) need, I believe, to be very
clear
that we feel that eating dogs and cats is in no way worse than eating
cows,
pigs, chickens, or an any other sentient, intelligent, low-entropy
sorters.
Here's where we get into being thought of disparagingly as "animal
lovers"
"house-pet defenders" or whatever instead of staunch, ethically-backed,
principles-based defenders of all sacred beings and things that fit so
perfectly into the infinitely-complex web of life.
So, okay, fight against dogs and cats being eaten in Vancouver and
other
places. But don't do it as a separate campaign from the broader fight
against carnivorism, animal-experimentation, etc. I mean, don't let one
fight detract from your energies for the other. They must be
considered, and
be seen by the "unconverted", as one in the same fight.
Adam Gottschalk
3. How does it sound this way ?
RAINING CHICKENS AND COWS ON VANCOUVER MENUS
While many Asian countries are taking steps to ban the eating of
chickens and cows, it's open season in the Lower Mainland. In
Vancouver, it's perfectly legal to slaughter a chicken or a cow for
dinner. "Any animal, in fact can be eaten by anyone," John Vanderhoven,
the Director of the Vancouver SPCA informed The Asian Pacific Post
recently, "so long as it is done humanely. Animal laws only deal with
the humane treatment of animals." That policy, however, has angered
many in the city, including Mayor Phillip Owen's office.
"As far as the mayor is concerned," stated an infuriated Janet Fraser,
executive assistant to Mayor Philip Owen, "eating chickens and cows is
absolutely unacceptable. It will never be allowed in Vancouver." "I
can't understand the SPCA," bristled Fraser. "Saving pets is what they
are all about." "That seething discontent, however, is unlikely to
prevent anyone from doing what is acceptable under the law. For
hundreds of years chickens and cows have been eaten by Asians. In
traditional Chinese medicine, cows are highly prized for their healing
value.
According to Dr. Martin Kwok, of the Richmond Alternative Medical
Clinic, people from China's Canton province consider yellow colored
cows to be excellent for digestion and aiding kidney function. They are
supposedly also good for boosting energy levels, and consequently are
often consumed over winter.
For Maria Matheson, who owns a Dalmatian pup, the health aspect of
chicken or cow meat is difficult to digest. She was sickened by the
thought of anyone eating a chicken or cow. "It's like cannibalism to
me. It'd be like eating your brother or sister."
Unlike cannibalism, however, eating a chicken or cow is not a criminal
offence. As far as the Vancouver Police is concerned, its not an
incident that is deserving of their attention. "The criminal code deals
with people not animals," stated Janice Williams, assistant to
Constable Anne Drennan of the Vancouver Police Department.
"If it's not protected under the criminal code, then it's not in our
jurisdiction. Regulation of food consumption does, however, fall into
the jurisdiction of the Richmond Vancouver health board. Like the
police, and the SPCA, the health board also does not see a problem with
eating chickens and cows. "We have no restrictions on the killing of
chickens and cows for personal consumption," explains Kelvin Hugo, the
Chief Health Inspector of Richmond, "no more than we do for people
going to hunt a deer, a moose, or a bunny rabbit in the backyard." "The
only stickler is in the meat inspection area," he continued. "In
Canada, all meat has to be processed through registered plants. Because
chickens and cows are nor considered as food animals, they cannot be
processed and therefore sold in shops." The list of food animals
currently butchered in Canada is growing. In the recent past, ostrich
meat. has been added to the list, and currently a new bid for kangaroo
meat is being considered. Whether household pets find their way into
grocery stores depends on the persuasiveness of lobby efforts.
Some people found that thought enticing. Randy Doncaster, the Manager
of the Cat and Fiddle Neighborhood Pub in Coquitlam, stated that he
would try the meat if given the opportunity. "I personally wouldn't
have anything against eating a chicken or cow if it was properly
cooked. It's just meat like everything else, like grouse, or rabbit. I
wouldn't have a problem if it was cooked up in shish-kabob style."
Carsten Scholvien
Jake
refused to eat there hearing they were constantly being busted by the
health Dept. They raided them and found cat traps by the back
dumpsters and 37 debowled cats in the dumpsters, now you know where moo
goo guy pen comes from. Bon apetite
Wonder dog.
Jake
Claim: Chinese restaurants use cat meat in their entrees.
Status: False.
Examples:
[Smith, 1983]
One evening several friends went out to a local Chinese restaurant
for a celebratory meal. Half way through the meal one of the party
suddenly started to cough and choke. Thoroughly alarmed they rushed her
to hospital and she had to undergo minor surgery to remove a small bone
stuck in her throat.
The surgeon who removed the bone was somewhat perplexed as he did
not recognise the type of bone found. He therefore sent it off for
analysis and the report came back saying that it was a rat bone.
The public health department immediately visited the restaurant to
inspect the kitchens and in the fridge they found numerous tins of cat
food, half an Alsatian dog and several rats all waiting to be served
up.
[Collected on the Internet, 1999]
Okay, at this chinese restaurant where I live, it's called moon
palace, they suddenly closed down. Everybody wondered why they closed
down, but then we finally heard the truth. When the health inspectors
went to inspect the so-called "clean" facility, they found cages and
cages of cats. So they were like "okay" and then they went to the
freezer. FROZEN CATS EVERYWHERE!!!! Happy eating!
Variations:
*
In North America, this rumor usually takes the form of cats'
turning up in Chinese food, but in other parts of the world, dogs and
rats also end up being served to unsuspecting patrons.
*
Though Chinese restaurants bear the brunt of this rumor, East
Indian and Italian eating establishments are also fingered.
*
How this ghastly misdeed is discovered varies from telling to
telling. Sometimes animal carcasses are found in nearby dumpsters.
Sometimes a Health Department inspection turns up the butchered little
kitties in the restaurant's freezer. And sometimes it's the astute
diner who spots, er, Spot. (Brunvand reports a version in which a
veterinarian or archaeologist dining at an ethic establishment filches
a suspect bone from his plate, brings it home, and analyzes it. In
another Brunvandian version, a bone lodged in a diner's throat is
extracted by a doctor who pronounces it to of rodential origin.)
Origins: How
old is old? The rumor about Fluffy's or Fido's being slipped into
Chinese food by unscrupulous restaurateurs has been traced by British
researchers to the earliest years of the British Empire in England and
to the 1850s in the United States.
[Jacobson, 1948]
How ripe small towns actually are for rumors was amply demonstrated
a few years ago. In a town of thirteen thousand inhabitants, which was
gradually blossoming into cityhood, there was a restaurant operated by
three Chinese. It was the most successful eating place around,
patronized by businessmen and citizens morning, noon, and night.
Everyone agreed that the food and service were good. But without the
slightest warning business suddenly took a drastic drop. The
once-prosperous proprietors became miserably unhappy, for they could
not understand what had happened to all their patrons. Then they found
out that someone, maybe a competitor, maybe just a person who nursed a
real or imagined grudge against Chinese, had initiated a rumor that the
police had found three skinned cats, labeled rabbits, in the
restaurant's refrigerator.
Ancient slur or not, wherever this rumor goes it affects how the locals
feel about the Chinese in their midst, and it Meowoften impacts a
restaurant's fragile bottom line. As an example (this rumor has turned
up in so many cities, it would be impossible to list them all), in 1995
the closing of two Chinese restaurants in Columbus, Ohio, awakened the
sleeping rumor yet again. Calls were fielded, both by the local paper
and the board of health, about whispers that these closings were the
result of dead cats' being discovered in each eatery's meat locker.
Never mind that just the previous day the local paper had run a story
about the closure (for business reasons) of all 51 restaurants in this
particular chain -- the cat meat rumor would not be denied.
In 1996, county health department officials in Knoxville, Tennessee,
stepped forward to issue a strong denial about frozen cats' being found
at a particular local Chinese restaurant. It seemed everyone had heard
the rumor, yet no such complaint was on file. Indeed, this particular
restaurant had always met Health Department regulations, a claim
supported by inspection records.
In 1991, after a Burlington, Ontario [Canada] Chinese eatery lost 30%
of its trade to this rumor, its owners attempted to combat the talk by
inviting the local professional football team, the Hamilton Ti-Cats, to
eat there on the house. Due to the loss of business, restaurant staff
had seen their work week cut by 10 hours. The trouble had started two
months earlier, with its first sign being a phone call from a woman
asking if the restaurant was closed. A friend had told her health
officials had padlocked the 434-seat restaurant because it "had been
serving cat." That call was the first of many to the restaurant, the
health department, and the media. Callers often said others told them
the rumor was on radio or in the papers, but no such reports had been
broadcast or published. Again, this restaurant had a good reputation
with the health department, but that didn't stop the progress of the
rumor and the damage it did to the livelihoods of the small business
owners and their employees.
This legend is a classic example of xenophobia (fear and hatred of
foreigners or that which is foreign). Asian culture is markedly
different from Western culture, with language but the first barrier to
be hurdled. Customs, religious observances, traditions -- all are
wildly different from their North American counterparts. As with all
xenophobic reactions, that which isn't the same is vilified. The Asian
culinary practice of making a tiny bit of meat stretch to feed a family
by cutting it up fine and making it part of a larger dish of vegetables
or noodles is transformed by fear into a vehicle for "them" to slip
something objectionable into our unwitting stomachs. Likewise, that the
Chinese don't as a rule keep cats and dogs as pets becomes seen as a
willingness to plop someone else's animal companion into the stew pot.
Anything for a buck, says this legend, and if in the process one puts
over on the white devils, so much the better.
Though the Chinese have been known to dine on cats or dogs in their
homeland, it's not a widespread practice and by many reports remains
limited to certain far-flung backwards regions. The Chinese certainly
don't do this in Europe or North America where these animals are known
to enjoy the exalted status of family pets. It is true, however, that
dog is more or less routinely consumed in Korea where it's seen as a
game meat. Yet even in Korea, Western sensibilities are catered to on
this issue. When the Olympics were held in Seoul, every wire service
ran stories about dog being one of the dishes that could be ordered in
a restaurant there. In response, the South Korean government
temporarily shut down more than 400 eateries where dog soup was a
staple. It knew visiting cultures would never understand.
In North America, Koreans don't eat dog. (See our Hound by the Pound
page for the story of an elaborate hoax about a Korean-American company
approaching animal shelters with an offer to buy excess dogs.)
Also in North America, the Vietnamese are tarred with a variation of
the Chinese restaurant rumor -- according to this slander, when a
Vietnamese family moves into the neighborhood, all the stray cats
disappear. That the Vietnamese don't eat cat doesn't impact this rumor
one whit.
Barbara "catty gossip" Mikkelson
Additional information: The link below plays a fabulous (RealAudio)
musical version of this legend set to the tune of Harry Chapin's "Cat's
in the Cradle":
Cat's in the Ladle Cat's in the Ladle
Sightings: Swayed by the police discount a new East Indian restaurant
is offering, various members of the force partake of kitty curry before
discovering what they're dining on in an episode of television's Hill
Street Blues ("Bangladesh Slowly," original air date 1 November 1984).
Last updated: 29 April 1999
Jake
Man bites dog
A dog is man's best friend. Sometimes, however, he is also man's best
meal.
Chinese vendors prepare to weigh a cage of dogs to be sold as food at
an exotic game market in Guangzhou Janaury 15, 2004. roverrexfido.jpg
I have already discussed other culinary adventures in China, but dog
deserves a section of its own.
If you walk through a Chinese wet market, especially one in Guandong,
Dongbei, or Sichuan you are almost sure to see dog carcasses hanging
from hooks. In some regions of China dog meat is as popular as it is in
Korea.
My personal introduction to dog meat was from my manager at the first
company I worked for in China. Minghua, the founder, was a Dongbei Ren
(North Easterner) who had gone to Kellogg to get his MBA and then
returned to China to start our company. On cold evenings after we
worked late and then left to get dinner his favorite meal was dog hot
pot. I certainly wasn't going to wimp out and order a separate meal so
Minghua ordered dog and I chowed down with him.
Dog hot pot is a pretty simple dish. You get a pot of boiling spiced
oil on a gas burner. Sometimes the sliced dog meat is put in the oil
first and sometimes you get the raw dog meat on a plate and drop it in
yourself.
My personal conclusion on dog meat is that it is no big deal - I see no
reason to eat dog instead of cow or lamb and it is usually more
expensive. However, after the first few times I ate it the gag reflex
pretty much disappeared. That's good because in my current company we
have a bunch of guys from Sichuan and they all absolutely love dog hot
pot.
But my best experience with dog came when one of my old buddies, a Hong
Kong American Chinese, came to visit. Back in the US we used to compete
in Chinese restaurants to see who had the guts to eat things like
jellyfish. Now that I'm in China, of course, I can beat him hands down.
Anyway, I set us up on a date with two cute college students, which
impressed him no end. So, of course, we asked them what they wanted to
eat.
The girls immediately said "dog hot pot" - it's expensive by local
standards so it was a special treat for them.
My buddy said "Fine with me. But Mike will never agree."
Little did he know... we went to a restaurant that I knew served dog
and ordered a hot pot. By the time it arrived my old friend was looking
about as green as I've ever seen a Chinese look. But I will say this
for him. When he saw that we three were all eating it he choked down a
reasonable amount before giving up. That was sweet!
So, anyway, does anyone out there need a dog sitter? After all, I love
dogs.
Jake
Copyright 1999-2004, Sarah Hartwell
Everyone must eat in order to live. Most of us think that what we eat,
and the way they eat it, is the normal or correct pattern. Therefore
anyone who eats different things is considered odd. Until relatively
recently, human societies were localised and had their own localised
eating habits. In the 20th and 21st centuries, globalization has led to
culinary conflicts as one culture's delicacy is another culture's
taboo. To some the cat is a legitimate food source. Others find the
concept of cat-eating abhorrent. Is it right for cat-loving countries
to impose their cultural values on cat-eating societies?
WHAT THE WEST IS SHOWN
Some years ago, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation show "Witness"
explored the exploitation of animals and the great love of pets,
especially in western countries. The show documented the worst and the
best that people mete out to animals. Many Canadians and Americans were
most horrified at the segments showing how cats and dogs, companion
animals in the west, were raised for slaughter and food in certain
South East Asian countries.
Previously a British TV programme had shown the preparation of cat at
restaurants in part of China. The diner selected a cat and observed its
preparation. The conscious cat was thrown into boiling water then
dumped in a pail of cold water. This made skinning easier. Some
"boiled" cats were alive and moving feebly when dumped in cold water.
Some were still moving during skinning and would ultimately have bled
to death, perhaps during evisceration. The Chinese place great emphasis
on freshness of food hence the live skinning of food animals. I spoke
to a Chinese colleague who said that the word for "animal" in his
native tongue translates as "moving thing" - animals are considered no
more sentient than vegetables.
An image from campaign leaflets shows kittens being sold in a Cantonese
market.
Cat forms a part of Cantonese cuisine, but the fact that these are
longhaired kittens suggests they are on sale as pets. Where cats are
kept as pets, longhairs are preferred. Where they are sold for meat, a
plump adult cat offers better eating than a small kitten.
Even earlier IFAW, WSPA and others had distributed leaflets depicting
the barbaric slaughter of cats and dogs for the Korea and Philippine
pet-flesh trade. Images showed dozens of cats and kittens stuffed into
a single wire mesh cage, a cat tethered beneath a boiling cauldron into
which it was to be thrown alive, the soaking body of the previous
victim dumped on the ground and rows of boiled cats ready for the next
stages of preparation. A veterinarian observing the boiling of cats
claims that they remain conscious and struggle for some seconds and
that he could hear them trying to claw their way out of the metal
cauldron of boiling water for up to 10 seconds.
A woman's magazine in Britain printed images of Korean housewives
"shopping" - a terrified cat being dragged from its mesh cage by string
around its neck while the woman struck its head repeatedly with a
household hammer. Another photo showed the purchaser carrying a plastic
grocery bag containing one or more dead or dying cats. Accompanying
text suggested that the cats were bought and sold just like cabbages
with no regard for the fact that they were living, breathing, conscious
animals capable of feeling terror and pain.
The overall message was clear - killing cats and dogs for food is
wrong. Cats and dogs are family members. Cats and dogs are companion
animals. South East Asian countries who eat cats and dogs are barbaric,
primitive, uncultured etc. In 2001, WSPA's magazine carried and article
on the dog-meat trade in China telling readers that those countries
must be educated that eating cat and dog is unacceptable and that those
animals are companion animals not foodstuffs. While the pictures are
distressing to Westerners, the message is skewed. It appears to be an
attempt to impose Western cultural values on foreign cultures. What is
undoubtedly wrong is the level of cruelty. Instead of re-educating
certain countries about what can and cannot form part of their diet, it
would be better to make the farming/slaughter process a humane one.
WHAT THE WEST IGNORES
Western viewers commented on how the Asians depicted in the programme
treated animals the same way as they treat vegetables - trussed,
crated, roughly handled etc. Many Western countries raise farm animals
such as chickens, pigs and veal calves in sunless factory farm
conditions, transporting them in crowded trucks with insufficient water
to a distant slaughterhouse. "Efficient" Western factory farming gives
us battery chickens, broiler-house turkeys, lactating sows immobilised
in crush cages, calves in veal crates, cattle with insufficient room
for exercise on concrete beef lots etc.
In Europe, animals might be transported across several countries in
baking heat without being fed, watered or rested. Slaughter methods
range from humane on family run organic farms in England through to
unacceptable such as killing sheep by stabbing it through the eye with
a long screwdriver (reported in Italy) and skinning live sheep and
goats (reported by an ex-patriot Briton in rural Spain) or the simple
failure to pre-stun an animal before it is bled.
Our treatment of cattle appals Hindus. How would Western cultures feel
if Indian Hindus began huge public campaigns to re-educate us that it
was unacceptable to eat cows as we offend whose who consider cows
sacred? Americans in particular would feel it an infringement of their
divine right to eat burgers and hotdogs! Yet this is exactly what
Western countries are doing by re-educating other cultures that it is
wrong to eat cats and dogs. While Western countries might (if
economically viable) be willing to improve farming standards in order
to cause less offence, they would not be willing to forgo their burgers
or their steaks. Likewise, the pet-flesh trade needs to be made humane,
but attempts to completely eradicate the eating of cat and dog could be
interpreted "Western Imperialism".
The British have long been appalled that anyone could eat equine.
Eating horses and ponies is taboo in British culture and causes
friction with its nearest European neighbour, France. The fact that
surplus wild ponies are rounded up and shipped (in often appalling
conditions) to continental Europe for consumption remains a convenient
blind spot. Many British cat owners cannot believe that some American
cat foods contain horsemeat. The concept is anathema to most Britons
yet during the Second World War when meat was rationed, many families
unknowingly ate horsemeat believing it to be beef.
Historically cats have been eaten in the West. Tales of cat-eating are
nothing new found in Charles Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers" (1836/7)
where Sam Weller tells Mr. Pickwick that he's heard about pies made
from kittens being sold on the London streets as ordinary meat pies. In
1885 an English newspaper reported the story of a woman convicted of
trapping and butchering cats and selling them to people as rabbit meat.
This recipe for "Roast Cat as It Should Be Prepared" is from Ruperto de
Nola, Libro de Cozina, 1529:
Take a cat that should be plump: and cut its throat, and once it is
dead cut off its head, and throw it away for this is not to be eaten;
for it is said that he who eats the brains will lose his own sense and
judgement. Then skin it very cleanly, and open it and clean it well;
and then wrap it in a clean linen cloth and bury it in the earth where
it should remain for a day and a night; then take it out and put it on
a spit; and roast it over the fire, and when beginning to roast, baste
it with good garlic and oil, and when you are finished basting it, beat
it well with a green branch; and this should be done until it is well
roasted, basting and beating; and when it is roasted carve it as if it
were rabbit or kid and put it on a large plate; and take the garlic
with oil mixed with good broth so that it is coarse, and pour it over
the cat and you can eat it for it is a good dish.
Cat has also been eaten in Britain. During wartime rationing, cats
found their way into "rabbit" stews/pies and hence earned themselves
the nickname "roof-rabbit". With so many city strays and pets abandoned
by bombed out families, cats were a substitute for rabbit. A former
colleague whose father was in the butchery trade during that time told
me that butchers sometimes kept cats as ratters; the cat later ended up
being sold as "rabbit". The rationale was simple - a surplus of
homeless cats living off of vermin, plus the fact that the supply of
wild rabbit from the countryside had been suspended. The following
rhyme summed up the keeping of cats in peace-time and the eating of
them in times of hardship.
Oh kittens, in our hours of ease
Uncertain toys and full of fleas,
When pain and anguish hang o'er men,
We turn you into sausage then.
Today, pet cats in the UK are apparently stolen to satisfy the
continental fur trade; the skinned carcasses have sometimes offered to
butchers as "wild rabbit". A former colleague who controlled rabbits on
local farms supplied wild rabbit to a local butcher. In 1993, the
butcher asked him to leave the head and feet on the carcass because he
had been offered skinned cat by other shooters and wanted to be sure of
the true identity of the meat.
In one region of Europe, the traditional Christmas meal is not a turkey
or a beef joint, but a cat specially fattened for the occasion. It is
served stuffed and roasted. A cat rescue shelter in a French town
became aware that a local man who adopted kittens from them was rearing
those kittens for food, killing and eating them at six months of age.
He considered them a delicacy.
While Western activists attempt to eradicate pet-eating, they fail to
realise that the animals eaten are not "pets" but livestock. Having
pets is a luxury. It is also conveniently forgotten that Western
farming and slaughter methods are frequently inhumane in order to
achieve high turnover. Some of the animals routinely eaten in Western
cultures are considered taboo or sacred elsewhere, making Europeans and
Americans appear barbaric by somebody else's standards.
"It is inappropriate for someone to denounce another country's food
just because it differs from his or hers," said Korean consular staffer
Sok-Bae Lee in a December 1996 interview with Ciaran Ganley of the
Toronto Sun. "Eating is a result of longstanding cultural practices,
not an issue of morality. In Korea, there are dogs who are bred to be
pets and there are certain kinds of dogs who are bred to be used as
food."
Westerners equate eating cats and dogs to cannibalism (particularly to
cannibalism of children) because we are raised to think of them as
family members and are attached to them as such, yet millions of
unwanted cats and dogs in Western countries are either euthanized in
shelters or abandoned on the streets. Is this somehow a better fate
than being eaten?
RACIAL SLURS AND STEREOTYPES
Most readers will be familiar with tales of cat or dog carcasses found
when Public Health officials raid an ethnic restaurant. Or tales that
"ever since that ethnic family move into the street cats have been
going missing". There is an entire genre of urban mythology built
around ethnic restaurants and cat eating. This demonstrates a Western
distrust of unfamiliar foods as well as racial stereotyping and is
explored in The Role of the Cat In Urban Mythology. Some Asian
individuals have encountered hostility and suspicion from new
colleagues and new neighbours or may be asked an outright "They eat
cats in your country don't they?"
These are racial stereotypes and racial slurs. It is wrong to lump
together many countries, cultures and races as "Asians" (e.g. Indian
subcontinent, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, Malaysia) or "Orientals"
(Chinese, Japanese). Too many Westerners still think of Asia as one
homogeneous area and not a range of countries with different cultures.
An analogy would be a Japanese person assuming that, since Spain is
known for its cruel bull fights, all Europeans indulge in
bull-fighting. A number of Asian and Eastern religions advocate
vegetarianism. Thailand and Japan are both long-term "cat loving"
countries although the standards of cat care are different from Western
ideals. Cats were valued there at a time when they were being tortured
and killed in Europe because of their association with witchcraft.
Viewers from a Western pet-owning culture sometimes ask whether
primitive/developing societies were more realistic in their attitude
towards animals or whether they were savage, heartless monsters. The
concept of a "primitive" society carries a lot of cultural baggage: the
notion that the "primitive" is more in touch with nature, that
"primitive" societies show little regard for women or children, that
"primitive" life is "nasty, brutish, and short." What exactly is a
primitive society anyway? Is it a hunter/gather society, a Masai-style
cattle-herding culture or simply a culture which lacks television and
McDonalds? South East Asian countries cannot be called primitive by any
of these "definitions". The term "primitive" is often used as a term of
abuse to suggest any culture which has not adopted Western values.
Those parts of China where cats are supposedly eaten are not primitive.
My Chinese colleague explained to me that some cat-eating areas are
rural and poor; though considered backward by city-dwellers, they are
not primitive by any modern definition. In the urban areas where cat is
served, it was considered a gourmet meal. He found it odd that I
accorded my pet cats the status of family members and not livestock or
utility animals (ratters). If they were family members, how could I be
comfortable with "owning" them as property (which I could dispose of at
will) - would I feel comfortable about owning, buying and selling a
child or an aunt?
Having heard so much conflicting information about pet-eating in Korea,
I spoke to the Korean wife of a colleague. She was quite upset at the
suggestion that all Koreans eat pet cats. She told me that cats are
eaten, but mostly in rural areas since well-educated Koreans consider
pet keeping a status symbol and sign of Westernisation. She stressed
that the cats eaten are bred and bought for food, just like Westerners
breed cattle for food - they are not pets. This parallels the fact that
China has a specialised breed of dog raised specially for meat - the
Mongolian Chinese Meat Dog (often crossed with imported St Bernard dogs
to improve yield) - just as Westerners raise some rabbits for meat and
other types of rabbit as pets. The "Chow" breed was a meat dog - "chow"
means "food".
One racial slur which did the rounds of the internet was a fake letter
claiming to come from Malaysia (cats are not eaten in Malaysia):
"To make use of the unwanted animal we can make pleasurable cuisine for
the people. Please to arrange air shipment for cats which can be used
in our culinary educations program. Will pay for no less than cats in
50 pound lots. Only alive please. Malaysia have many delicacy for
eating the cat, only in the most humane way of course. I would like to
share our culinary heritage with you in the overseas. In my honorary
role with the martial arts, we gain great strength from the eating of
the young cats. Fondestly to you ..."
Another myth which has surfaced on usenet and circular emails was that
it was common for restaurants in neighbouring Singapore to serve cat
meat in a dish called "Mew Goo Guy Ding". The "Mew Goo Guy Ding" story
has been told of Chinese restaurants around the world and is debunked
on several urban legend sites.
Another circulating chain email states that a Catholic parish in
America had a Vietnamese priest [Father X] who was called out late at
night by an old man to give Last Rites to a pet cat who had been a
cherished member of the household. While Last Rites may not be
appropriate to an animal, the angry priest apparently took the cat home
and had it for dinner the following day. Although several people swear
to its veracity and ask for protests against the Catholic church for
"permitting this disgrace", it seems an unlikely tale and a racial slur
against an immigrant population in the USA.
While most accusations are aimed at those originating from Asian
countries, other foreigners and their unfamiliar cuisines are also
sometimes suspected of using cats and dogs. A similar racial slur is
found in folksong portraying a German ("Dutchman" means "German" i.e.
Deutsch) immigrant as untrustworthy and malicious (in American English,
"mean" means nasty rather than miserly).
There was a jolly Dutchman, his name was Johnny Rebeck
He was a dealer in sausages and sauerkraut and speck
One day he invented a new sort of machine
And all the neighbors' cats and dogs, they never more were seen.
Oh, Mister, Mister, Johnny Rebeck, how could you be so mean?
I told you you'd be sorry you invented that machine
Now all the neighbors' cats and dogs will never more be seen
They're all ground up to sausages in Johnny Rebeck's machine
There is also a rumour that there are few cats in the town of Solvay
(near Syracuse) in the USA because its large Tyrolian immigrant
population eat cats; a habit that, according to the rumour, goes back
to the First World War when Austrians suffered serious food shortages.
It is reputed that the cats are prepared in a variety of ways,
including a secret Tyrolean recipe (probably salted and smoked since
surplus cats are still sometimes salted, smoked and eaten in parts of
rural Switzerland). Children in the area were told not to eat a meal
containing rabbit at an Austrian, Tyrolese or Piedmontese home, because
the meat was really cat.
WHERE ARE CATS EATEN?
Cat and/or dog eating has been documented, filmed etc in Korea and in
China. Documentary evidence shows that in parts of China, cats do form
part of the diet and may even be farmed as dual flesh/fur livestock.
China has suffered periodic famines for centuries. This has led to them
eating a far wider range of meat and vegetables than most Western
cultures. Cantonese cuisine uses a particularly wide range of "exotic"
ingredients. It is often said that the Chinese will eat anything with
four legs except a table and anything with wings except an aeroplane.
In practice, the commonly eaten meats are pork, beef, chicken, rabbit
and duck.
In Canton, southern China, there exists a dish called "The Dragon and
the Tiger''. It is made with snake and cat meat stir-fried together and
is an exotic delicacy. "Snake Soup", "Dragon Fights with Tiger Soup"
(longhudou) or "Dragon-Tiger-Phoenix Soup" contains cobra, serpentine,
old cat, and young chicken. The snake stands for the dragon, cat stands
for tiger and chicken stands for phoenix. "'Tiger Fights Dragon'" is
described as consisting of a roast snake entwined around a roast cat.
There are persistent rumours that the rise in demand for cat (a
delicacy), and the apparent willingness of some Chinese to pay
extravagant prices for cat dishes, has led to pet cats in Beijing being
stolen to Cantonese-style restaurants. In January 2000, the New York
Times reported allegations that the popularity of Cantonese-style
restaurants in Beijing has led to cat-thefts to meet the rising demand.
Lu Di, a Beijing woman, professor of classical literature and long-time
animal welfare campaigner (a rarity in China) apparently stated that
between September and the date of the report, up to 500 Beijing
families had their pet cats stolen. This estimate was extrapolated from
complaints received by her Association for the Protection of Small
Animals.
Lu Di apparently described a case in which six cats in one
north-western section of Beijing were stolen in one day. The distraught
owners found the animals caged at nearby restaurants. The police
apparently refused to help them, because there are no specific laws
relating to pet-theft. The owners called the Association for the
Protection of Small Animals, but when they returned to the restaurants
the cages were empty and the owners were distraught. Certainly
knowledge of the manner in which cats and other small animals are
dispatched would create great distress in an owner whose cat had been
stolen for the restaurant trade.
Cats being traded in China in the 1840s. One buyer is examining the
offered cat for plumpness, leaving little doubt as to its fate.
Guangdong is the only province known for eating cats. An estimate by
the Yangcheng Evening News suggests that a cat stall in the game-meat
market can easily sell 300-400 kilograms of cat meat daily in winter.
There are about 80 stalls selling cats in the three [game meat]
markets. This adds up to 10,000 cats a day. The report claimed that
almost all the cats sold to restaurants were domestic cats, many of
which had been stolen or caught on the streets rather than purposely
bred. The cats are crowded into cages and are often injured.
Freshness of ingredients is paramount and many ingredients still come
from traditional markets. The animal is killed at point of sale
(strangulation is one method) or, a concept abhorrent to most
Westerners, bought live and trussed and killed by the buyer. Sometimes
it is skinned alive with casual cruelty for the sake of freshness.
Because it is hard to skin something moving without getting clawed or
bitten, the animal is stunned, trussed or paralysed by neck-breaking.
Killing methods in these markets may be rough and ready - bludgeoning,
boiling (stunned or conscious) or stabbing.
Koreans claim that cat and dog eating is an old tradition in their
country though animal welfare bodies dispute this saying that pet flesh
consumption came about in the 1980's and that pet flesh is a delicacy
for the rich rather than being a food of necessity for the poor.
Archaeological findings confirm dog-eating in Confuscian times but in
the long cultural tradition of Korea, the recorded instances of eating
cat or dog are almost non-existent. Korea has been occupied for
prolonged periods by both Chinese and Japanese conquerors. Japanese
influences eschew cat and dog eating and influence educated Koreans.
Cat and dog eating thrives among working class and rural people, where
the Chinese influence remains strong.
It has been reported by military personnel once stationed in Singapore
(post World War II) that they had eaten cat while there. Keema Roti is
a dish comprising minced lamb, mutton or beef. However, the Keema Roti
at that time was reputed to contain cat and other types of meat not
normally eaten. The cats lived in monsoon drains and were considered
easily available at that time. While modern Singaporeans might dispute
this (based on modern sensibilities), atypical food sources have been
used in many countries at various times in the past. Modern Singaporean
food regulations and Muslim culture restricts the type of meat used in
Keema Roti and cat is not an acceptable meat among Muslim Indian and
Muslim Malays. In my visit to Singapore I was advised that cat has
sometimes been eaten by ethnic Chinese, a practice dying out among
younger generations. The country is now very westernized and Singapore
Centre for Animal Welfare emphasise that in modern Singapore, slaughter
of dogs and cats for food is not permitted. Under the Singapore
Wholesome Meat and Fish Act, meat can only be imported from approved
sources using internationally acceptable humane methods. There is
currently no accepted humane method of slaughtering dogs and cats for
human consumption and such consumption is considered socially
unacceptable in modern-day Singapore. There have been tales of "Thai"
workers (generally of Chinese/Vietnamese origin) killing and eating
dogs and sometimes cats and one case (reported by SPCA Singapore) where
construction workers were jailed as a result of killing a dog.
Some Vietnamese formerly ate cat, but only through starvation.
Ironically, this resulted in a rodent problem. In fact cats and dogs
will have been eaten in almost any siege once other food sources had
been exhausted. Cat-eating is now illegal in Vietnam because cats are
essential to control rice-eating rodents, though there are accounts of
raids on cat-meat restaurants. Cat-eating is considered a vice. This is
comparable to the wartime eating of cat in Britain (along with other
taboo meats such as whale and horse) where cats were sometimes consumed
in the guise of "roof-rabbit". Similarly, it is said that cats and dogs
vanished from the streets of Japan after the second world war.
In Madagascar, cats apparently make a tasty and welcome addition to an
otherwise boring bowl of rice. Western travellers are advised to beware
of any dish purporting to contain rabbit. Cat and rabbit are
distinguishable only by the different shape of their ribs.
Cats are reputedly eaten by gypsies in various parts of India, but are
not openly eaten anywhere in India. It is also reported that cats are
eaten by some members of lower castes as well as by gypsy tribes such
as narikorvas (a South Indian gypsy tribe) throughout India and by some
people from Kerala. Cat is not openly eaten in Sri Lanka thought there
are tales of butchers and restaurants in Sri Lanka illegally selling
cat disguised as some other kinds of meat; however similar tales are
found in Britain!/P>
Cat eating is not widespread in the Philippines and there is no
commercial trade in cats, although there may be some personal
consumption. Rumours of cats being delivered to Chinese restaurants
apparently caused a boycott of the restaurant.
In Australia, where the feral cats have become a severe problem,
Aboriginal tribes now hunt and eat the feral cats. They may have little
choice because the cats have nearly wiped out their normal prey.
I have also heard of cat consumption in Mexico but this may be a racist
slur. One person wrote that her house was burgled by a man of Mexican
appearance. She challenged him and as he fled, he grabbed her young
cat, broke its neck and pocketed its body. She had heard reports of cat
being eaten at the time. She had heard many jokes about cat tacos and
dismissed it as Texan bigotry. She later was told that poverty among
Mexican illegal immigrants had led some to snatch cats and dogs to
supplement their diet. If true, this seems to be a case of pet-flesh
consumption by people to impoverished to afford more "acceptable" forms
of meat rather than a Mexican tradition. There are many racial slurs
about domestic pets vanishing in "ethnic areas".
In Western culture, forensic psychiatry considers killing dogs and cats
(other than humanely, due to accidents or incurable illness, or by
animal controllers tackling overpopulation) to be an indicative step
towards a career as a serial killer. In the USA, a man who ate cats
ended up in a psychiatric hospital despite protestations that eating an
animal traditionally regarded as a pet did not mean he was mentally
sick. In many countries throughout the world (including Britain),
animals traditionally classed as pets were eaten at times of severe
food shortage e.g. war-time.
In the United States, thousands of cats are bred deliberately and end
up in animal shelters where many of them are euthanized (or worse,
handed over to laboratories). So long as the conditions are not
stressful and the method of dispatch is humane, there is little
difference in breeding cats for food and breeding them as (ultimately
unwanted) pets - at the end of the day, the cat is just as dead.
Readers should bear in mind that the issue is not the consumption of
animals considered pets in the Western world, but the humane treatment
of those destined for consumption and a legal/ethical source (i.e. not
stolen or relinquished pets).
WHY ARE CATS EATEN
In the vast majority of cases, cats (and dogs) are eaten because they
are a source of protein. They can be fed on scraps unfit for human
consumption and convert those scraps into edible protein. This is no
different from the family pig fed on household leftovers and windfall
fruit and killed to feed the family during the winter. In some
countries they are eaten through choice e.g. as a gourmet item,
elsewhere they are eaten through lack of choice i.e. other animal
protein sources are in short supply. Depending on how it is prepared
and served, cat is described as tasting either like rabbit or like
chicken.
In pet-keeping cultures cats and dogs are a food of last resort during
times of siege or famine. Except where there is a huge rodent
population, it is uneconomical to rear large numbers of cats purely for
the table.
The commonest meats habitually consumed by humans (discounting
subsistence hunters) are the simplest and most economical to raise -
they are either herbivores or omnivores: pigs, cows, chickens, sheep,
goats. They are low down on the biomass pyramid and their diet includes
vegetation humans cannot digest. It is economical for cattle to convert
indigestible grasses into digestible steak.
Cats are obligate carnivores and are expensive to rear, feed and
fatten. They are at or near the top of the biomass pyramid. The cat
consumes many prey animals e.g. pigeons, rabbits. It makes better sense
for humans to eat those prey animals than to eat the cat. Humans and
cats are at roughly similar levels in the food chain and are
competitors rather than predator/prey. However protein is protein and
most carnivores/omnivores will eat other carnivores/omnivores if the
need or opportunity arises.
Cat flesh only becomes economical where the cat is fed on scraps or
where it eats rodents. Otherwise the expense of rearing cats for
consumption makes it an expensive delicacy. There is not much meat on a
cat unless it has been specially fattened. Stray cats which rely on
their own hunting or scavenging skills are generally very scrawny.
Where cat is eaten it is eaten through necessity or as a delicacy.
Sometimes this is bound up with superstitious belief about certain
foods endowing certain properties upon the diner, especially if the
food is prepared in a particular manner. Certain animals are used in
traditional remedies which owe more to superstition than to fact. This
is the case in Korea. Those of a squeamish disposition will not wish to
read any further.
According to veterinary professor Lin Degui at the Beijing Agriculture
University, cat meat can be dangerous since cats carry parasites.
Several people in Guangdog were reported as being made ill by eating
street cats which had consumed rat poison. There have previously been
similar reports of rat poison in cat flesh in Singapore.
CAT EATING IN KOREA
In China, the skin of a cat is believed efficacious against rheumatism.
In Korea, a soup or paste made from cat forms part of a traditional
remedy for rheumatism although actual cat-eating is considered to be
relatively rare.
The abolition of cat and dog eating in the Republic of Korea was
supposedly achieved in 1978, 1980, 1984, 1986, 1988, and 1991,
according to statements by Korean officials. The Korean Animal
Protection Law was approved on May 7, 1991 and was supposed to prevent
cat and dog eating. Despite the illegality of the cat and dog meat
trade, the law is rarely enforced. Attitudes have certainly hanged, but
not in the way Westerners would like. In the 1970s and 1980s, merchants
proudly posed for photographs with doomed dogs and cats or allowed the
activities to be filmed. In late 1998 a photographer was allegedly
assaulted while trying to photograph the same activities.
Western slaughterhouses believe that a stressed animal produces tougher
meat. Popular Korean belief is that due to the adrenaline rush it
creates, the more painful the death, the tastier or more potent the
meat. Hence certain animals are tortured to death rather than killed
outright.
Cats may first have their bones broken with a hammer, before being
boiled alive and pureed into a "health drink," which may be sold in
plastic packets for home consumption. They may be beaten to death in
hessian sacks. Cat soup is the preferred way to prepare cat meat and
kittens are considered to have a more delicate flavour. "Goyangi-tan"
(Liquid cat) (being a phonetic translation it is sometimes rendered
"goyangi-tang" or translated as "cat stew") is believed to have
medicinal qualities. Though they might not eat the cat meat, a soup
paste made from cat is used to treat rheumatism.
In 1986, press attache Young Mo Ahn of the Korean embassy in Washington
D.C. stated " Koreans have never made a practice of consuming cat meat.
There is an old belief among the people that a benevolent spirit
resides within cats. Therefore, to harm a cat would be to harm the
spirit. Cats are kept by many households and restaurants in Korea to
keep rodents under control, and are therefore highly valued. "
According to other Koreans, many there have a disdain for cats and
could not imagine eating them though they could imagine harming them.
The rough handling, crowded caging and slaughter in front of each other
may be little different from the treatment of many food animals in the
US and Europe, but the deliberately cruel methods used to make the meat
more potent is unnecessary and are based on superstition.
Cat and dog eaters are currently an influential minority of Koreans.
Governments tend not to oppose popular practices in order not to lose
votes hence the problem of enforcing legislation. In addition, the cat
and dog meat is worth about US$950 million per year, making it about as
lucrative as the US retail fur industry - in a far poorer nation.
Though a distressing concept to many Westerners, the fact that cats are
eaten is not the fundamental issue. The real issue is that they are
dispatched using procedures designed to intensify and prolong their
suffering for superstitious reasons and that this is dismissed as a
matter of cultural practice, not of morality.
PREPARATION OF KOREAN "LIQUID CAT" (FROM IFAW LITERATURE)
An overcrowded crate of cats and kittens awaiting slaughter. Cats are
territorial creatures and find overcrowding highly stressful. They will
be able to see other cats being slaughtered and prepared.
Cat tethered in front of a cauldron of boiling water. Its bones may be
broken before it is dumped into the cauldron. Cats have been heard
trying to claw their way out of the boiling water for several seconds.
In all likelihood this cat was boiled alive. The suffering endured is
believed to enhance its potency as a health food or traditional remedy.
The bodies of cats await the next stage of preparation for "Liquid
Cat".
BAN ON CAT-EATING IN VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA
In October 2002, Australian government officials in Victoria banned the
eating of cats and dogs. The move by Victoria state came after a
newspaper sparked public outrage by publishing a story about a man
pretending to eat a dog in a shopping centre.
A report in the Moonee Valley Community News stated that an Asian man
was seen in Victoria acting as if he were consuming a 10-week-old dog.
The puppy's owner said she couldn't believe someone was trying to eat
her dog. As a result, Agriculture minister Keith Hamilton decided to
toughen up meat industry laws concerning the consumption of animals,
describing the practice of dog eating as "abhorrent".
There has been concern that minority groups would be offended by the
new law, but the President of the Korean Society of Victoria said
Koreans living in Victoria did not eat dog because they followed
Australian culture.
During 2002, there have been email and newsgroup stories of Australians
eating dogs and cats at barbecues and this being quite normal. Quite
why Australians have been singled out is uncertain. In the outback,
feral cats are eaten by Aboriginal people. Feral cats are considered a
serious pest species in Australia and have severely affected species
which traditionally formed part of the Aboriginal diet.
BOYS ARRESTING FOR EATING CAT IN NAIROBI, KENYA
In December 2002, Reuters reported that three Kenyan schoolboys, aged
12-14, had been arrested for killing and eating a cat they suspected of
stealing chickens set aside for their Christmas feast. The three boys
had killed, skinned and roasted the cat for lunch on 17th December
according to the Kenya News Agency (KNA). They were arrested after
complaints from residents in Mororo village in eastern Kenya.
BRAZILIAN MAN HUNTING AND EATING NEIGHBOURHOOD PET CATS
In March 2003, Folha de Sao Paulo reported that a 70-year-old man was
arrested in Brazil on suspicion of hunting and eating domestic cats.
Elias Cassini was allegedly caught skinning a Siamese cat outside his
home in Sao Paulo and two further dead cats were found inside the
house. According to a police spokesman, police received an anonymous
phone call alerting them that Mr Cassini was hunting all the cats in
the neighbourhood. Cassini will go on trial for animal cruelty and
faces a month in prison if convicted.
Cassini is reported to have said: "I do have the habit of eating cat
stew and fried cat. I do that because I don't have enough money to buy
food." However, Mr Cassini's family told the police that he has
adequate means to support himself and that cat eating is a bizarre
habit, not a means getting adequate food.
CAT EATING IN SWITZERLAND
In June 2003, Animal protection groups in Switzerland became concerned
about the increasing popularity of dog and cat meat, especially in
rural areas of the country. The meat and fat of cats and dogs was also
believed to have medicinal qualities. Slaughtering pets for their meat
is prohibited under Swiss law but the meat is available on the black
market.
In January 2004, Reuters reported that Swiss culinary traditions
include puppies and kittens. While many European countries prohibit the
eating of cats and dogs, in some rural parts Switzerland the only
prohibition is on the trading and distribution of pet meat products.
Private consumption of cat and dog is permissible. Swiss animal welfare
groups say it is hard to estimate how many pets end up salted and
smoked, or in Swiss frying pan, each year. Animal protection
legislation is unlikely to end this longstanding tradition because
meals served in private homes are none of the state's business.
There is a waste-not-want-not logic to the consumption of pets. As with
many countries, many farm cats and farm dogs are not neutered. When the
farm's cats or dogs have offspring, there are surplus ones which will
be killed. Since they are going to be killed, they might as well be
eaten. Despite laws in many European countries, the rural habit might
be even more widespread. Several years ago a man in a rural town in
France was reportedly put on local animal rescuers' blacklists after
regularly adopting (or buying) kittens for his own consumption.
CAT EATING IN MALAYSIA
New Straits Times 25th July 2003. Alor Gajah (Malacca): Vietnamese
workers who were recently laid off when the Super Latex Sdn Bhd factory
went into receivership, apparently resorted to eating cats and dogs.
Residents in the Kelemak industrial estate began complaining of pets
going missing. Phan, a Vietnamese worker, admitted that he and his
fellow countrymen killed and ate cats and dogs as they could not afford
to buy meat and did not have enough money to pay for their passage back
to Vietnam. One of the Nepalese workers claimed to have seen a
Vietnamese man using a piece of wood to strike a cat and placing the
dead animal in a plastic bag. A local restaurant owner claimed that his
two pet puppies had gone missing and believed they had been eaten by
the Vietnamese workers. 50 Vietnamese and 40 Nepalese were living at
the factory hostel awaiting deportation. Management were providing
daily rations of rice, potatoes, dhall and chicken. If the reports are
true, it is a symptom of hardship. The possibility of racist rumours
cannot be discounted though.
Footnote: As an aside, cats are farmed in parts of China. They are
tethered using wire and farmed for their fur and potentially their
meat. The fur is used in trinkets and fur-covered animal figurines.
Killing is by stabbing, bleeding or drowning either in containers of
water or, to avoid damaging the fur, by forcing a water hose into the
cat's throat. Although the British RSPCA stated (September 2001) that
cats are not farmed for their fur because it is unprofitable, this
contradicted reports and photographic evidence from American humane
societies.
Postscript
Having been told that my refusal to condemn Asians (an inaccurate
blanket term) outright for of eating cats and dogs (as opposed to
condemning the avoidable cruelty) makes me a disgrace to "whites",
those critics (who are primarily racist rather than being entirely
concerned with animal-welfare) should consider the following acts of
cruelty from "white" culture:-
* Hare-coursing where live hares are often ripped apart like
Christmas crackers by two greyhounds; hunting with hounds where the
live fox is similarly torn to shreds by as many hounds as can fix their
jaws on the fox (dogs do not kill by neck-bite - they disembowel their
prey, as can be seen in video footage and stills). Those animals which
do escape are likely to be so physiologically damaged that they will
not survive.
* Bullfighting, bronco-busting (both legal in some countries),
dog-fighting, cock-fighting and badger-baiting (generally illegal, but
occur nonetheless).
* Battery chickens, veal crates,long-distance transportation of
livestock across Europe without rest, food or water; gavage
(force-feeding) of geese to produce foie gras; bleeding-to-death of
unstunned livestock, other intensive farming practices and
high-throughput slaughter methods.
* The use of Draize eye tests, LD50 tests and carcinogen tests on
laboratory animals for testing vanity products (cosmetics).
* Conditions found in fur farms and, in many countries, in trapping
with leg-hold traps (gin traps).
* Acts of individual cruelty in the USA where live dogs, cats and
other small domestic pets have been microwaved and live kittens thrown
onto barbecues. In some cases, the judicial system seems unable to pass
punitive sentences on the perpetrators.
* In addition many other gratuitously cruel practices litter
"white" recent history: bear-baiting, horse-fighting, pig-sticking, the
hurling of cats (also goats) from towers.
Jake
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Travel Features
Our newest Dog Meat Section - The Dog Meat Festival of October, 2003.
Click to enlarge
Dog Meat
The purpose of this section of our Web site is to show people who are
not familiar with Korean food, Seoul, and South Korea in general, what
a dog meat farm is, what it looks like, what types of conditions the
dogs being kept in such a farm live with, and to address the issue of
people eating dog. Note: According to the Korean Society for the
Protection of Animals, Koreans do go around in neighborhoods, find
"edible" dogs, steal them and sell them for their meat. This is in
Korea, we do not know of this going on outside of Korea. If you have a
large dog with you in Korea, lock it up and keep it inside. It may be
stolen, as dog meat is very profitable.
Watch this intro statement to Chilsung Market
by the CEO of Seoul Searching Magazine 4 min 15 sec.
Click play to view this video about a dog, cat, goat, chicken and duck
meat market in Chilsung Market, Daegu, South Korea. Rated R. It is very
graphic.. Also according to the Korean Society for the Protection of
Animals, animals are beaten and boiled (read 2nd paragraph), Please
view at your own discretion. Please do not show this to children. Time:
14 minutes 05 seconds. Filmed on January 24, 2004.
People in South Korea eat dogs and cats. People in India do not believe
in eating cows and are horrified at the way cows are treated in the
U.S. As one travels around the world you are bound to encounter things
that you perceive as abnormal or unacceptable. Our goal is to show you
what we found on 01 July 2002 at a local dog farm near Seoul. We are
not making fun of eating dogs, and we are not making fun of the people,
customs, culture or cuisine of Seoul or South Korea. As you look at
these photographs, consider issues like animal rights. This is provided
for informational purposes only.
Because dog meat is expensive, the people in rural areas raise and kill
the dogs themselves; or steal them. Several places in South Korea serve
dog as a regular part of the menu. It is common. What the staff of
SeoulSearching.com did not like about this dog farm were the conditions
by which the dogs were kept. Frankly the place was a nasty, stinking
mess. Dogs were in hot, dirty and cramped conditions. Fecal matter and
urine were running away from the facility. Flies were everywhere. The
dogs smelled bad. They were in poor condition with little or no food,
and dirty water. We saw piles of dog fecal matter next to freezers that
contained butchered dogs, and other areas that were used for cooking
dogs. We saw refrigerated trucks used to transport dog meat to various
markets and restaurants. We saw dogs being killed, and dogs barking and
crying as other dogs near them were being killed by very slow and
primitive means.
If South Korea needs to continue with dog meat operations, they need to
clean up their act and maybe follow some improved protocol concerning
how dogs are kept, cared for, and killed. Our information has been sent
to other animal rights organizations for their input, comments,
suggestions, or actions if any. Some personnel at SeoulSearching.com
have unfortunately witnessed cats being boiled alive recently. The
scene was disturbing. These practices need to change. If you want to
eat dog, fine. Just make sure you know where it came from. Would you
eat any meat covered with flies and maggots locked inside of luke warm
coolers next to large piles of dog fecal matter with a river of urine
running around it?
Jake
Article Navigation:
* Live Monkey Brains
* Annotated References
* The Chinese and Exotic Foods
The Chinese and Exotic Foods
There are many stories in the West about the strange and disgusting
eating habits of other cultures, especially about Asians and
particularly about Chinese people. The stories range from relatively
benign tales of dog and cat eating, to nauseating stories of sadistic
feasts on the brains of living animals. The Western telling of these
tales focuses on the bizarre and barbaric stereotype of The Chinese and
what they are liable to eat, and depend on a certain gullibility (or a
willingness to believe) on the part of the listener. While some tales
have some basis in reality, the point of the telling is often
prejudicial in nature; the most sensational stories frequently have no
evidence of being true beyond second- and third-hand reports.
Gross is in the Taste Buds of the Eater
The Chinese do not eat gross, disturbing or exotic food as a normal
daily occurrence. This should be self-evident by the definitions of
gross, disturbing and exotic. Although there are some things that
Westerners (or people from any other culture) might find unpalatable,
this can of course be said of any "other" culture. It is a simple task
to generate a long list of funky (but not disturbing) foods that are
common in Chinese markets: green pumpkin drink, fermented (stinky)
tofu, Durian, squid jerky, minnows in peanuts, and congealed blood in
many dishes (esp. Hot and Sour soup).
Some gross things that some Chinese eat may be a result of recent
economic history. In the West, many older people ate (and continue to
eat) chicken gizzards, necks and hearts, since this was an economic
necessity when they were growing up or perhaps because they were raised
on a farm. Most modern city dwellers now throw out these perfectly
edible and tasty parts of the chicken during the process of cleaning a
store-bought bird. There may be a similar process happening right now
in developing areas of China. While you can get
chicken-hearts-on-a-stick as a snack outside movie theaters, most
people prefer to get the more expensive slices of breast meat. Dog meat
can be eaten at a very small number of restaurants in Taipei, but young
people do not seek it out or relish it anymore. In ultramodern and
cosmopolitan Hong Kong, it is illegal to kill dogs and cats for food
(enacted in 1950:Chapter 167, Section 3 Part II).
Likewise, it is not too hard to create a list of foods that Westerners
eat that are considered gross: deer/cow testicles, sheep brains, fish
eggs, sausages, and goose liver for example. And you can add to this
list a number of items that some Chinese people specifically find
unpalatable, but that Westerns enjoy, including cheese, sour cream,
sour kraut and salty bean dishes (red, pinto, black). If you think
about it, it is really quite strange to drink the milk intended for
baby animals of another species. All cultures have food taboos.
The Chinese Problem
One of the largest errors people make when telling stories about what
the Chinese eat is in lumping one billion people together. While many
Chinese people may find cheese not to their liking, Pizza Hut is doing
quite well in Asia. So it is with any food story: Some Chinese people
might eat dogs, but some certainly do not. Most gross food stories
involve animals, but some Chinese are Buddhist vegetarians. Some
Chinese are quite squeamish about what they will or won't eat and some
are very adventurous. Personal taste is as varied in China as it is in
the West. As anecdotal evidence, I have traveled with Chinese friends
who were afraid to eat even non-Chinese Asian cuisine in Thailand and
Vietnam. One friend went so far as to pack instant noodles and an
electric boiler in his suitcase just in case he didn't like Thai food.
Should it be a revelation to learn that some Chinese people like some
Chinese dishes and dislike others? Just about any pronouncement that
starts with "Did you know that the Chinese like to eat..." is going to
automatically be wrong on some level.
Food versus Medicine
That being said, it can easily be documented that some Chinese do eat
some very strange and exotic animals (by Western standards). Some of
the tales are disturbing. The implication of most of the stories
surrounding these meals however, is that they are savory delicacies,
relished by a strange Asian appetite for the exotic. An important
distinction needs to be made between cultural delicacies and
traditional medicines. A delicacy is anything that is very rarely
eaten, usually only on special occasions and that has a particularly
wonderful flavor. Chinese delicacies that might show up at a wedding
banquet include: jelly fish, beef tendons, shark's fin soup or bird's
nest soup. These dishes are relished because of the marvelous taste and
their relative rarity. A similar list could be created for any culture
and might include caviar and frog's legs in the West.
Food can also be seen as folk-medicine in China. Almost all foods have
some kind of health-properties associated with them and illness can
traditionally be traced to eating behavior. For example, all fruits can
be divided into Hot and Cold categories: Strawberries are hot and
apples are cold. It is believed by some that eating too many
strawberries can give you a fever. Again, this is not a universal
belief system, but is widespread folklore. This extends into Chinese
traditional medicine, which can involve absolutely nauseating smelling
and tasting herbal concoctions. Most people, Chinese and Westerners
included, do not enjoy these potions any more than they do a shot of
cough medicine. It is not a rule that these medicines need to taste
horrible, but it must be considered that these foods are not consumed
because they taste good. Many of the more disturbing animal stories
probably involve traditional medicine and not a delicious feast.
Legendary Eats
The live monkey brain story is a classic food legend that has two
tellings, a Western version and an Eastern version. Both share many
characteristics, but differ in one significant way. The Western telling
implies that Chinese people are so radically different and have such a
bizarre values system that they love (desire) to eat monkey brains as a
savory delicacy and that they are a barbaric people who care nothing
for the suffering of the monkey (or animals in general). The Chinese
telling is quite different and implies not that the dish is a delicacy,
but that it is eaten as a powerful and rare health food. Whether it
tastes good or not is irrelevant. So the legend actually works on two
levels, with the Western version stressing the bizarre/barbaric other
who enjoys eating this rare delicacy and the Eastern version stressing
the exotic/ancient/extravagant other whose motivation is health and
intelligence. The motivation between the two stories is different and
this in turn results in a different reaction in the listener. The
Westerner sees this as a completely disgusting Chinese cultural trait.
While the disgusting aspects are not lost on an Eastern audience, the
focus is instead on the extravagant and ostentatious nature of the
eater, usually a businessman or politician looking to increase his
power. The question to ask then is, if Jiu Wang was given the
opportunity to eat live monkey brains, would he do it? And, although
the motivation would be different, would he be more likely to do so
than Joe Blow?
There are a number of other Chinese dishes (as collected from Chinese
sources) that are legendary. Legendary is used in the sense that the
stories are passed around and are widely known, but it is impossible to
find a restaurant that serves these exotic dishes, although there are
plenty of rumors about who eats it (some other group), where you can
get it (someplace else) and often when it was available (in the past).
The "true" stories are frequently told as classic friend-of-a-friend
(usually a grandfather) accounts.
* Live monkey brains
* Live goose feet, fried on the grill while the animal dances about
* Live bear paws, fried on the grill while the animal dances about
* Live rat embryos (Three Squeaks)
Concepts of Cruelty
Another problem with these tales is that they suggest that the Chinese
are barbarians who have a different notion of cruelty when it comes to
animals. It may be possible that some Chinese may have very different
standards of what constitutes cruelty from the general standards held
in the West. This is also an area where there are a great variety of
views. In the US, the range of quite sane and normal people includes
vegans from PETA and animal rights organizations as well as farmers and
hunters. There are very strict laws banning cruelty to animals in Hong
Kong (dating from 1935: Chapters 169 and 169A). Sadism is probably not
an inherent part of Chinese Culture (whatever that is) or behavior
(which is what the legends imply). Who knows how the West will view the
contemporary positions on ethical medical animal research in twenty
years? While the examples of animal cruelty in the legends are so over
the top as to seem that this would be a level of cruelty that would be
universally agreed upon across the globe, I can't be certain that there
aren't some sane and normal Chinese who might tolerate such abuses and
not be nauseated by them, especially if done in the quest for better
health.
Summary
Stories about the strange things that the Chinese eat are almost always
flawed. First, it is obviously true that what one culture finds
delicious, another might find disgusting. Second, it is impossible to
say anything accurate about the eating habits of a billion people.
Unless one is prepared to make accusations that the Romans ate flamingo
tongues (Pliny the Elder Hist. Nat. X 133), medieval Europeans ate
living geese (Akerman, 1990, p. 147) and Americans eat deer testicles,
it is not possible to claim that the Chinese eat these strange foods.
Third, Western tales about what the Chinese like to eat are often based
on the faulty assumption that the food described is eaten for its taste
as a delicacy, when it very well may be consumed for its purported
health value.
Some aspects of these stories are certainly based in reality however,
and the range of items that might be eaten as traditional Chinese
medicine is amazingly broad. It might be easier to list all of the
animals and parts of animals that aren't used as medicines than to list
all of the ones that are.
These legends are based in a universal belief that centers around how
strange other people are in other cultures and make for wonderful
stories. The damaging aspect is the tendency to uncritically believe
these tales without a second thought.
The following summarizes this discussion in table form. Note that the
various categories often overlap and that talking about Chinese or
Western is a grossly broad generalization. This is not a table of
facts, but is instead designed to visually put the stories about
Chinese eating habits into perspective.
Common Gross Chinese Foods Chinese Delicacies Rare Chinese Foods1
Foods That Almost All Chinese Find Gross2 Real Health Medicines
(not food)
Chicken Hearts
Pig Intestines
Pumpkin Drink
Durian
Stinky Tofu
Squid Jerky
Blood Sausage Jellyfish
Pigeon Soup
Beef Tendons
Shark's Fin Soup
Bird's Nest Soup Cat
Dog Rat
Worms
Ants (in alcohol) Live Snake Blood
Live Turtle Blood
Bear Paw
Animal Penises
Antlers/Horns
Monkey Brains
Common Gross Western Foods Western Delicacies Rare Western Foods1
Foods That Almost All Westerners Find Gross Legendary Health
Medicines
(not food)
Cheese
Sour Cream
Salty Beans
Raw Vegetables
Sausages Caviar
Goose Liver Pate
Frog's Legs
Live Lobster Haggis
Head Cheese
Alligator Deer/Bull Testicles Live Monkey Brains
Live Goose Feet
Live Bear Paws
Live Rat Embryos
1Some people might also define these as delicacies. This also varies
wildly by region.
2It is unlikely that any of these are regularly eaten anywhere,
although they may be thought of as local delicacies. These are examples
I have personally seen on television shows.
Created: 4 April, 1999
Updated: 5 October, 2003
NOTES:
The article was inspired by the Live Monkey Brain legend. In addition
to collecting many oral versions of that story that fit the legendary
mold precisely, there is at least one first-hand newspaper article and
two historical references.
There are a range of dishes that don't really follow the standard
format of a legend. These dishes may be eaten because they taste good
or may be eaten for health despite the taste (all foods have some type
of folk-health aspects). Some examples of this might be monkey brain
stew and Whale Shark meat. I have found no evidence that these dishes
are actually eaten beyond unsubstantiated reports. The Whale Shark meat
reports have the potential to mutate into full blown legends as I have
heard people mention that they had heard that the Taiwanese were eating
Whale Shark (called Tofu Shark in Chinese) as a tofu substitute, which
is obviously not true.
There is of course cross over between categories. For example, bear
paws are probably eaten primarily for their health effects, but they
might taste quite good. It is also significant that bear paws are
served in fancy restaurants, whereas snake blood is purchased in a dark
and crowded market.
The speculation on these dishes is based on "it could be true, so..."
logic. I don't see anything particularly wrong with this sort of
thinking, as long as the value of the reasoning is not overstated.
I've roamed the back alleys in Taipei and seen turtles quickly speared
through the head with an ice pick into a block of wood so their heads
could be cut off and the blood poured into shot glasses, so I admit
that there may be something to the idea that there are differences in
what is considered cruel. It was not long ago (100 years?) in our noble
and gentle First World society that a small pig would have been killed
by having one person knock it over and kneel on it while another
plunged a large knife straight into its throat and far into the chest,
making sure the pouring blood ran into a pan, all while the pig
screamed hideously. How else would a poor farm family do it? Is there
any humane way to slaughter an animal with a knife?