It seems like summer is finally here! The lovely, sunny, sweaty, hay fever ridden British Summer. But how do you cope with the heat? What traditional methods of keeping cool do you count on?
The Internet is currently riddled with articles and online petitions asking to end the Yulin dog meat festival held at the end of June. This annual festival celebrates the consumption of dog (and cat) meat by marching crates full of pups through the streets before skinning and cooking them ready to be eaten. This is supposedly because eating dog meat helps you fight the heat during the summer. And if you cook the dogs alive, then the adrenaline will make the effects more potent. There is also a similar but slightly less well known festival in South Korea in July, known as the Sambok or Boknal (which literally means ‘3 days of dog eating’) festival. Again, these dogs are eaten to help the consumers handle the hot weather. Has no one ever offered these guys an ice lolly?!
Unsurprisingly, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding these festivals. Most people see the practise as barbaric and completely unnecessary, where as some, mostly street vendors and traders that make money off of the whole thing, claim that it is a tradition and should be respected. True, eating dog meat has been a tradition for over 300 years. Basically, before such wonders as air conditioning and fridge/freezers were about, so other methods were needed to get you by in the midst of summer. But the festivals are a much more recent addition. The Yulin festival only started in 2009, and I don’t think something that’s less than a decade old can be considered a time honoured ‘tradition’. So I don’t think that argument floats somehow.
Obviously I am going to be against this practise, but it’s not just because my furry canine friends are being served up as soup. Though that doesn’t exactly sit comfortably with me, there are a number of issues surrounding Yulin and its relatives. Some arguments are based on the fact that a lot of meat eaters are protesting, but why is it alright to eat a chicken or cow but not a dog? Now as a vegetarian I’m clearly of the mind that all animals are friends, not food, whether they reside in fields, coops or your own home. However, for the sake of this argument, I’ll push that to one side for a moment and focus on the treatment of the animal as opposed to whether or not it should be eaten in the first place. Firstly, the animals are crammed on mass into tiny cages where they are held until being paraded through crowds of people and then beaten, hung, skinned or boiled alive. Barbaric, right? And around 10-15,000 cats and dogs are slaughtered this way every year just for a 10 day festival. Where do they find so many dogs, you ask? Well, mostly from people’s gardens. Many of the dogs are either stolen pets or strays taken from the streets miles away from the site of their slaughter. Imagine your beloved furry companion being stolen and ending up in a dog hot pot after being bludgeoned to death or boiled alive. Horrific, no? And why do they need to be treated so badly before their supposedly ‘humane’ slaughter? Because the adrenaline improves the meat? Seriously?!
So if the dogs were raised and killed in a more humane manner, like cows or pigs are (if you believe that), would the festival be supported more? Possibly. However, considering that the whole thing is based on a belief that dog meat somehow helps the consumer cope with the hot days of summer, aka the dog days of summer, I think the whole practise is completely outdated. This amazing little thing known as science has uncovered a wealth of methods to keep yourself cool, surpassing these archaic traditions. Such as modern medicine has eradicated the need for many traditional asian medicines. So why is it that endangered animals such as tigers, rhinoceros and sea horses, along with over 30 other animal species, are still being hunted for their use in ‘traditional’ medicines? I’m all for herbal remedies, but I don’t see why an entire species should be wiped out just because some guys have trouble getting it up. Especially when I constantly see adverts and emails telling everyone about miracle pills that make you last for hours. It’s not like China and Japan, where a vast amount of these ‘traditional’ remedies are sold, are unable to get these modern medicines. They’re two of the richest countries in the world!
So that’s my point. Despite the request for mankind to respect these traditions, I think we all need to take a serious look at which traditions are worth keeping, and which ones are overdue a good rewrite. Like the Asian tradition of binding a woman’s feet that is no longer considered acceptable. And didn’t we once have to show a wedding party the bloody spots on the marital sheets from the bride’s broken hymen? Feminists would have a field day if that tradition was still admissible! We are built to evolve and adapt with time, and the ways of living are expected to change with us. The sooner humans understand this, the better our world will be.
And what do I have to say to those who still support the ‘tradition’ of the dog meat festivals?
Buy a fucking fan and leave the dogs alone.
LPW xo
Little Pixie Wild 