Its That Time of Year Again Yulin Dog
Yulin Journal
Chinese City Defends Dog Meat Festival, Despite Contemptuousness
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In Yulin, It'southward Dog Lovers vs. Domestic dog Eaters
Every bit part of the summer solstice celebrations in Yulin, China, thousands of canines are slaughtered and served up in a controversial dog meat festival.
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YULIN, China — It was the night earlier the summer solstice, and the tables at a streetside nutrient stall here were set for the annual feast: steamed pumpkin, sautéed morning glory, smashed cucumbers and cold-skin rice flour noodles. At the centre of each table were the 2 traditional dishes most essential to the commemoration here: fresh lychees and heaping bowls of stewed canis familiaris, pungent with ginger, garlic, stale orangish peels, bay leaves and fennel.
It is this last dish for which Yulin has become notorious, thanks to an almanac dog meat festival that ended Monday, and the locals have heard enough, cheers.
"Why practise people always pick on Yulin?" asked Tang Chengfei, 24, a recent university graduate who was sitting at one of the tables. "Haven't you seen how the Japanese eat live bullfrog sashimi?"
Indeed, it is the perceived hypocrisy of the critics that seems to about annoy residents of this humming city of seven one thousand thousand in the southern region of Guangxi, which borders Vietnam.
"I understand the other point of view," Mr. Tang said. "Many people feel a special bond with dogs. But we grew up effectually dog meat. For united states, it's normal."
Yulin, whose lush subtropical environment are said to be the birthplace of the legendary imperial dazzler Yang Guifei, has get the target of a fast-growing animal rights entrada, which has made its residents feel increasingly under siege and at times defensive.
Led past domestic and international activists, animal lovers have called on local authorities officials and the Chinese public to put an finish to eating dog meat and to the often gruesome practices that accompany the nation's largely unregulated domestic dog meat merchandise. More than than 10,000 dogs are said to be served at the summer solstice celebrations in Yulin each year.
Celebrities like Ricky Gervais and Gisele Bündchen have rallied behind the viral social media hashtag #StopYulin2015, while an online petition addressed to the Guangxi governor and Cathay's government minister of agriculture had gathered more than iv meg signatures by Tuesday.
"Dearest Morons: Stopping the #YulinDogMeatFestival is less to do with them being dogs & more to practice with them being tortured and skinned live," Mr. Gervais wrote on Twitter terminal week.
In People's republic of china, where the effect of beast rights is given more space for debate relative to most grass-roots causes, opposition to the festival has become increasingly vocal.
Over the last few weeks, millions of letters condemning the culinary tradition have flooded Chinese social media. Protests and vigils organized by animal rights advocates were held across the country over the three-day holiday weekend, while more 40 activists from around the world traveled to Yulin terminal week to champion the cause, many for the second or third yr in a row.
The campaigners notched a big win final twelvemonth when the Yulin urban center authorities, in the confront of mounting criticism, distanced itself from the festival by declaring that it was not a sponsor and that it would strictly enforce food rubber regulations.
Despite the rapid growth of the motility, however, animal rights advocates say they are encountering increasing difficulties communicating their message to the people who matter most: the residents of Yulin.
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"The environment is much more hostile than ever earlier," said Andrea Gung, the Taiwanese-American founder of the Duo Duo Creature Welfare Projection, based in California, who visited the festival once again this year. "Earlier, the dog meat sellers might cutting off a piece of dog flesh and throw it near you. At present, they are much more aggressive. The cloak-and-dagger law had to step in to protect me."
The condemnation of Yulin has contributed to a growing u.s.a.-against-them mentality here, with many people saying they are beingness unfairly singled out.
Locals say the moral hypocrisy over the eating of animals is a bottomless grab handbag. What about the consumption of beef when cows are considered sacred in Republic of india, they say, or guinea pigs in Latin America, or dogs in Korea or turkeys in the United States? What makes eating domestic dog meat whatever different from eating the flesh of chickens or pigs, they ask?
"I experience like the activists would be making amend apply of their time addressing issues like the global water shortage or kidnapped children instead of making things more cluttered here," said Yu Ping, 48, a Yulin resident and a preschool teacher. Ms. Yu, like many residents, insisted that the dogs eaten in Yulin were especially farmed, while animal rights groups say that a large percentage of the dog meat comes from stolen pets or strays.
Canis familiaris meat is not widely consumed in China, merely it is a long-established office of the diet, especially in the far due south and n. Equally many equally 10 million dogs and four million cats are consumed in China each year, according to animal rights groups.
The processing, like that at any shambles, is non for the squeamish.
Around iii:xxx a.m. on Sunday at Dongkou Market, the main source for canis familiaris meat, most of the shops were dark and quiet except for a pocket-size slaughterhouse.
A rusty metal muzzle was tossed from the shop, clanging to a halt near a pile of cages that had been unloaded from a large truck. In one of the cages, iv golden-haired dogs were crammed in like Tetris blocks. The dogs crouched silently as they waited to exist emptied into a holding pen inside the store.
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Through an open door, a man in a white T-shirt could be seen working silently in dim fluorescent light. With a small club he bludgeoned dog later dog, pausing periodically to motility the dazed animals with tongs clamped around their necks.
In the back alley behind the slaughter-house, five men, some shirtless, worked with boiling vats of h2o and blowtorches to set the carcasses for Yulin'south specialty, crispy peel dog meat.
A pocket-sized grouping of animal rights activists stood silently outside in the alley, documenting the scene with photos and video to share with the news media and with lawyers who are gathering show for a potential courtroom case. Behind them, a group of men who did not place themselves were shooting video of the activists, and later followed them back to their hotel.
By afternoon, Dongkou Market was open, and the scene was transformed. The range of nutrient offerings on display was impressive, from everyday vegetables to ram heads, about $8 each, and live civets, which were selling for as much equally $580 an animal. Farther down the market place, across from the now-silent slaughterhouse, butchers lined across iii aisles hacked abroad at gold-skinned dog carcasses on thick wooden blocks, equally customers, some nevertheless sitting on their motorbikes, placed orders for domestic dog meat at $3.50 a pound.
Not far abroad, a commotion erupted at the outdoor animal market. Yang Xiaoyun, a 65-yr-old animal rights activist, had arrived, bracing herself for yet some other twenty-four hours of dealing with dog traders looking to capitalize on her willingness to pay to a higher place-market prices to rescue dogs and cats.
On Saturday, Ms. Yang, a widow who runs an brute shelter in Tianjin, had spent more than $ane,600 to rescue nearly thirty dogs and 60 cats. Her actions have fatigued criticism from other activists, who say that it but encourages dog traders to set aside surplus stock for Ms. Yang to buy.
"A life is a life," Ms. Yang says.
On Sunday, yet, she was forced to go out the market after existence swarmed past passers-by and traders threatening to torture the animals unless she bought them. As she drove away to the temporary shelter she had set up to house her rescued animals, the crowd of canis familiaris traders continued with their taunts.
"We are besides dog lovers!" they yelled. "We are dog meat lovers!"
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/world/asia/dog-eaters-in-yulin-china-unbowed-by-global-derision.html
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