{"id":8718,"date":"2016-06-07T10:00:52","date_gmt":"2016-06-07T09:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saporedicina.com\/english\/?p=8718"},"modified":"2022-02-03T13:53:15","modified_gmt":"2022-02-03T12:53:15","slug":"dog-meat-yulin-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saporedicina.com\/english\/dog-meat-yulin-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Dog meat in China and the Yulin festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nDisclaimer: This article is an opinion article based on contrasting information and personal experience. The comments section is open to discussion. However, just like with any article on SDC, any comments considered to be clearly offensive or insulting will be deleted.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Lately, we received a wave of insulting comments against Chinese people, and strangely on an article dedicated to dog meat in VIETNAM<\/a>. This fact bugged me a bit, as first of all, I don’t like to spend all day deleting insulting comments and second of all, the comments didn’t have anything to do with the article. Why insult Chinese people on an article on Vietnam?<\/p>\n

Regardless, I was curious about the reason for this wave of comments. I found the answer quickly by reading the newspaper. Apparently, people had started a worldwide campaign to stop the Lychee and Dog Meat Festival in the Chinese city of Yulin, in Guangxi, which is held every year on June 21.<\/p>\n

This is the reason why I have decided to cover this subject in the most objective way possible today.<\/p>\n

Truths and myths about the consumption of dog meat in China<\/h2>\n

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Chinese people eat dogs<\/h3>\n

Yes and no. Is it obvious that in China, people eat dog meat, but contrary to what most people think, the consumption of dog meat in China is not very widespread.<\/p>\n

Basically, dog meat is eaten in southeastern provinces, such as Guangdong or Guangxi (close to Vietnam), and in the northeastern area that borders Korea.<\/p>\n

In the southeastern part of China, people boast that they eat anything with four legs other than tables and chairs. Culturally, in these areas, people have a predilection for eating “strange things” as they consider that the stranger a food is, the more luxurious it is. In fact, in my opinion, this is the reason why the idea that Chinese people eat everything has become so widespread.<\/p>\n

In the northeastern area, the winters are extremely harsh and according to traditional Chinese medicine<\/a>, dog meat is very warming, and therefore helps to combat the extreme cold. However, except among ethnic minorities, the consumption of dog meat is getting more and more rare.<\/p>\n

Only Chinese people eat dog meat<\/h3>\n

This idea is very far from the truth. In fact, the Chinese are not the biggest consumers of dog meat, by far. And while they may be quantitatively, qualitatively, they aren’t. Let’s take a look at some numbers.<\/p>\n

In China, it is calculated that between 10 and 20 million dogs are consumed each year. That’s a lot, isn’t it? However, China has a population of approximately 1,350 million people, and that means, by doing the basic division, that approximately one dog is eaten for every 100 Chinese people in one year. To compare, in my country (Spain), approximately one pig is consumed per person per year.<\/p>\n

In fact, in countries such as Korea or Vietnam, the consumption is much more widespread. In South Korea, 2.5 million dogs are consumed and in Vietnam, 5 million dogs. Considering that Korea has around 50 million inhabitants and Vietnam around 90 million, one dog is eaten for every twenty people in Korea and for every eighteen in Vietnam. That means that in South Korea and Vietnam, dog meat is consumed around 4 times more per capita than in China.<\/p>\n

In China, you may be eating dog meat without knowing it<\/h3>\n

It is possible for this to happen, but it is extremely unlikely. In fact it is more likely for the opposite to be true; that is, that they sell you pig saying that it is dog. The reason is very simple: dog meat is much more expensive than other types of meat, as it is considered a luxury. In addition, finding restaurants that serve dog meat is hard, and because of that, it is unlikely that you will order it by mistake.<\/p>\n

In China, people treat dogs poorly<\/h3>\n

This is obvious: what animal destined for human consumption isn’t mistreated?<\/p>\n

It is common to see articles on the treatment of dogs in China<\/a>, with them transported piled on top of one another in cages with no water, etcetera. However, how is this different from how lambs are transported, for example. Personally, I have seen lambs transported in my country in conditions very similar to or even worse than the images of dogs in China.<\/p>\n

It is true that legislation on the treatment of livestock is more developed in countries other than China, but this isn’t a dog problem but rather a problem with the treatment of animals in general.<\/p>\n

How can they eat man’s best friend?<\/h3>\n

This is a cultural question. For SOME inhabitants of South East Asia, dog is not man’s best friend but rather a simple food source. However, it is worthwhile to mention that for the majority of Chinese people, eating dog meat is unthinkable. Other examples of cultural differences in this respect could be:<\/p>\n