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Yulin, China: Dog Meat Festival to Go Ahead Despite Worldwide Outrage
Arcadia Weekly Jun 06, 2016
Hoge with High Point student Eliana-Courtesy Photo
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Thousands of dogs and cats are brutally killed during the festival, and then served at local restaurants. – Courtesy photo
By Terry Miller
A friend of mine recently alerted me to what has to be one of the most cruel and inhumane events I have ever heard about … the capture, torture, and subsequent murder of thousands of dogs and cats in Yulin, China, during a “dog meat festival,” which they claim is part of the summer solstice.
Held every year, the “Yulin Dog Meat Festival” results in the callous slaughter of thousands of dogs and cats, which are then served in the restaurants in this city in south China. It is a business as well as a torturous tradition.
As an international campaign to stop the killing grows, millions in the west have signed petitions calling for China to end the festival, which is scheduled to start this year on June 21.
According to a recent report on PBS ad affiliate websites it is not only western outrage that is opening up peoples’ eyes to the horrific events. Some in China are now questioning these atrocious and vicious acts.
Theft of dogs is common in Beijing, according to numerous reports, and organized gangs allegedly use poison darts to sedate and then steal pets and stray dogs.
The festival in Yulin, is a city of roughly 600,000 people in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China.
A google search of images and stories about this city will be enough to make any animal lover angry and terrified at the same time. By now, it is time to take action and there are a number of ways you can make your objections known.
One is through PETA:
Thousands of dogs and cats are brutally killed during the festival, and then served at local restaurants according to Layla Wen, a special projects coordinator for PETA Asia.
“I think the thought of killing, cooking and eating dogs is abhorrent to most of us in China or all around the world, because we know them, we know the dogs. They are our family members and our best friends. We can imagine their fear when they are caged with other dogs, when they are unable to move even one inch, and the agony that follows,” she said.
“In Yulin, slaughterhouses sometimes kill the cats and dogs with clubs, in front of other animals, to increase the level of fear-induced adrenaline in the meat, which traders say makes it taste better,” according to VOA news.com
But as pet ownership has become popular among China’s new middle class, the Yulin festival has increasingly sparked indignation on Chinese social media.
Some Chinese animal rights groups have staged public protests and attempted to halt trucks transporting dogs and cats to slaughterhouses. Some groups, like the Animals Asia Foundation, have waged a quieter campaign, working directly with government officials to try to shut down the festival.
“A lot of the time it’s just working quietly with the local government, rather than going out in the streets as other groups do,” said Jill Robinson, founder of the Animals Asia Foundation. “We all have different tactics. Animals Asia works inside the country and we want to do that to the degree that the government understands what we do and why we do it.”
A couple of weeks ago, LA Weekly did a cover story on a Sherman Oaks man who single handedly led hundreds of dogs from certain death of these dog markets. Marc Ching has to be one of the bravest men I know … saving dogs from certain death in Asian slaughterhouses is not an easy thing to do.
In fact, according the story in the Weekly, Ching has to go undercover and pretend to be a buyer of dog meat to save these helpless creatures.
“Ching heads out of the hotel, carrying a backpack that contains a change of ‘dump-and-go’ clothes. The 37-year-old Hawaii native has short, black hair, a compact and muscular build, and a brow that’s permanently furrowed. He joins his driver and translator in a cargo van, puts in his earbuds and starts listening to a playlist of melancholy songs, from Aquilo’s ‘You There’ to Erik Jonasson’s ‘Like a Funeral.’ It helps him connect and empathize with the dogs he’s going to try to save.
“Soon a truck arrives, stacked with long cages full of dogs, their paws and muzzles sticking out through the wire grates. As the cages are loaded onto a dolly one at a time, the dogs whimper and whine. They are wheeled into the slaughterhouse as toddlers and women holding babies look on. Sheltered by a roof but open on both sides, the killing floor is wet and dirty. Large bowls of boiling water are bubbling and steaming atop individual fires; Ching knows what will be coming next,” Kevin Stevenson reports for LA Weekly, May 17.
The local government banned its officials from openly participating in the event, according to Carrot Chen, a spokesperson at the Hong Kong-based NGO Animals Asia. Dog meat sales were down by a third on last year, Chinese media reported.
“My grandfather, my father, and I all sell dog meat. I could sell dozens of dogs a day last year during this time, but I only sold a few this year,” Zhou Jian, a 55-year-old vendor, told China Daily.
Many locals resent the backlash as an unwarranted moral stand against a deep-rooted – and technically legal – tradition. They claim that eating dog meat on the summer solstice confers health benefits that last through the winter. Some held the event a week early to avoid the expected animal rights protests.
Indeed many cultures differ with regard to food and animal rights but few can deny that this yearly mass killing in Yulin is exceptionally cruel, merciless, and unjustifiable.
Cruelty like that at Yulin is the result of virtually non-existent animal welfare laws. Please contact your local Chinese Embassy and urge officials to do everything in their power to ban this cruel festival and to strengthen laws to protect animals. Find your local embassy at: http://embassy.goabroad.com/embassies-of/china.
Dog and cat fur from China is often deliberately mislabeled as fur from other species and is exported to countries around the world to be sold to unwitting customers. If you are buying fur, there is no easy way to tell whose skin you are wearing – it could be from someone’s once cherished animal companion. Pledge to be fur-free and fab.
How can we help? Follow these links, sign the petition, and become aware of the tragic and horrific killings of animals. Make a difference:
– Petition against Yulin festival: https://action.hsi.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=104&ea.campaign.id=38221&ea.tracking.id=windowshade&_ga=1.256740931.956370555.1464902796.
– PETA Asia: www.petaasia.com/news/yulin.
– Humane Society International: www.hsi.org/issues/dog_meat.
