It’s more than two years that I live in China – the country of dog-eaters by default – but I’d never seen a slaughtered dog.
It may be because I only spent a few weeks in Guangxi and Guangdong Provinces, the Southern provinces where the habit of eating dog meat is most common.
Or maybe because eating dog meat is not as common as people think and you have to make a conscious effort to find it.
The point is that it took me less than two hour of sightseeing in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, to find a dog butchery.
Well, it wasn’t exactly a butchery as there were two girls selling raw and roasted dog meat (thịt chó in Vietnamese language) on a table in the street.
This is a controversial topic in the West.
We do not eat dogs. We consider dogs as part of our family. I personally grew up with a German Shepard called Apo and I love dogs. Almost as much as I love cats. And I distrust people that dislike animals.
But before you get mad at the Vietnamese for eating dogs – or at me for showing these pictures, – think about that.
In India you go to prison if you kill a cow. In California people can legally butcher AND eat cows but slaughtering a horse is forbidden. In Italy we eat both cows AND horses. However we are horrified by people that eat dogs.
In Northern Vietnam eating dog meat is a widely accepted tradition. This is their culture and we should accept it, even if we disagree.
This photo gallery show slaughtered dogs. If you think it may hurt your feelings, you should leave this page now. [Read more...]
