Chinese dog-eating festival outrages foreigners

a reply to: WarminIndy

I wouldn't know.

I only eat gmo vegatables, and meats with pumped hormones, and antibiotics.

Different cultures. Some Jews and Muslims probably think the same of us eating pork. I wonder if the Chinese have the same origins writing that we have because they really take this seriously:

Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

biblehub.com...

originally posted by: intrepid
Different cultures. Some Jews and Muslims probably think the same of us eating pork. I wonder if the Chinese have the same origins writing that we have because they really take this seriously:

Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

biblehub.com...

To be fair, I don't think Jews and Muslims keep pigs as pets. But I understand the correlation.

I have said before on ATS that you can never trust a man that eats dogs.Now a whole nation,forget about it.
First and for most they are mans best friend.

a reply to: paraphi

In Buddhist-majority countries, like my own, people don't make these artificial distinctions. All life is equally sacred.

Of course, this doesn't stop Buddhists from killing and eating animals, or from killing people for that matter.

a reply to: paraphi

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Ever met a living pig? One that was allowed to be a free and happy animal? One that was allowed to interact with humans - or be a member of the family?

Pigs are smart - very

I don't say this to be an in your face, naggy, smarty-pants, tree-hugging social nuisance...

Oh, wait - maybe I do :-)

Human beings become accustomed to certain things. We compartmentalize and rationalize - what seems normal to us isn't normal to someone else... Culture, habit and history determine what's normal

I am as heartbroken over what they do to dogs as you are. Some people eat monkeys - or experiment on them. Some people keep animals locked up for years in horrible conditions. Some animals live a life of torture just so they can make more animals, or be eaten, or have things sprayed in their eyes, or surgically inserted into their bodies - or have limbs amputated - or get burned

Dogs sometimes are experimented on - in western countries: Dogs in Laboratories

It's all a matter of perspective. There's no need to single out another culture and make them out to be monsters. We is all monsters sometimes

a reply to: ketsuko

...I'm only arguing that from what I've seen of Chinese practices regarding animals, they are generally less concerned with the animal's welfare then in some other places. So they tend to be cruel.

You should do some reading - figure out how we really do treat our animals here in the benevolent west

How self-deluded we can be at times with this need we have to believe that we are so superior to the rest of the world

a reply to: Spiramirabilis

Quite - while we certainly do have legislation that provides for the best animal treatment anywhere on the planet, whether it is actually adhered to in the farms and slaughterhouses is another thing entirely.

As I said earlier, the best we can do is try to only buy food from traceable and reliable sources to try and force food producers to adhere to these rules otherwise we remove our business, but this is not always possible.

a reply to: stumason

You guys walk the walk much better over there than we do here in the states Stumason

Here it's mostly talk. We'll get there - eventually. Hopefully

Money will decide these things I think. When people insist on humanely treated products they create a market

You can now find more products with the humanely treated label on them in the stores here. A few years ago that didn't exist

im going to go back and read all the replies but i wanted to say my piece first.

i dont get why people get so bunged up about the thought of eating dog.
whats the big deal?

maybe people cant stop thinking of them as pets or something.
i dont get it.

i have never eaten dog but i would with no problems. now i am not saying i would like the meat and would eat it again but i would try it.
seems like a perfectly good food source to me.

people eat pig and cow with no problems. chickens and ducks without a problem.
i wonder why we cant buy dog meat at the grocery store next to the beef.

people breed cows and pigs and farm them for meat. seems like they could do the same thing with dog.

ive wondered this a lot.
what about horse? again, seems like a perfectly good source for meat. why cant we get that at our local grocery store?

there are usually small sections with bison meat. most places carry duck.
people eat frog.
this just seems like one ore source.
i would try it and if i liked it i would eat it again.

i would try cat as well.

people eat snake, turtle, rabbit.

i see no real good reason why we dont consume dog meat on the reg

a reply to: PLAYERONE01

i think you are thinking of a different movie.
interestingly enough, one of the young guns, dirty steve...his horse was named dog

a reply to: Spiramirabilis

Sorry. Your point is what exactly?

A pig farmed in the UK, as per the current standards of welfare has a better life than some poor animal in China where the animal welfare is very poor at best. Dogs are treated poorly, farmed and eaten. The point of the OP is to highlight this. I suppose if dogs were treated in a decent way prior to being fed to the masses then that would at least calm my abhorrence.

a reply to: WarminIndy

gator is really good.
frog legs are awesome too.

im with you on the balut.
thats funky stuff right there.

a reply to: paraphi

My point is obvious. If you want to argue for the sake of arguing - that's up to you. I live in the states - we regularly abuse our livestock - and dogs for that matter

Maybe where you live it's perfect? Well - we could probably argue about that too. Doesn't matter - your OP openly attacks the Chinese when there's plenty of evidence that animal abuse occurs in every single civilized western country

Just thought I'd kill two birds with one stone

(I would never kill a bird...)

:-)

originally posted by: Spiramirabilis
your OP openly attacks the Chinese when there's plenty of evidence that animal abuse occurs in every single civilized western country

Not to the extent of the Chinese. I'm not familiar with the states, but at least there are animal welfare rules. There are non in China. No rules against cruelty to animals. That's a big difference.

a reply to: paraphi

I think the outrage is mostly due to the closeness and the anthropomorphism we place in our canine friends. Further than that is the treatment of such animals as livestock, and the cruelty inherent in doing so.

While I do not approve of eating dogs personally, I can understand in times of need doing so. What I cannot understand is the systematic cruelty that the livestock undergoes in perpetuation as part of the "food chain."

I do find myself torn though because I do believe that all animals have some sort of sentience, whether it is my imagination or not, it's hard not to look into eyes and see some sort of life force and understanding. So at least for me, it's a moral problem worthy of a lot more introspection. After seeing certain things my dogs do, and things that cows, apes, birds, cetaceans, are capable of performing...it makes me wonder quite a bit about it all.

Sorry if I'm rambling, but I think that this "dog eating festival" is a good think point and representative of more than just a "should we eat dogs" question. Someone earlier in the thread said something to the effect that "meat is meat" and if that's the case, then really, we're all meat too.

originally posted by: johnb
Never understood why anybody gets upset by people any particular type of animal.

You can either eat them all or none or its just hypocrisy (or for religious beliefs - although i don't think any religion says you can't eat dog)

Exactly.
I don't eat meat myself but if you do, why differentiate?

Chinese dog-eating festival outrages foreigners
could easily change to:
Chinese hotdog-eating festival delights foreigners

Humans Eh!

a reply to: paraphi

People tend to point their fingers elsewhere while defending our own practices at home

There are non in China. No rules against cruelty to animals. That's a big difference.

The Chinese Animal Protection Network was founded by Dr. Jenia Meng in 2004, with its first project, the Chinese Companion Animal Protection Network. Since then, the organization has initiated projects targeting issues such as lab animal rights, vegetarianism, and opposition to indiscriminate culling as a method of population control of animals. Those projects have led the direction of Chinese non-governmental organizations. By 2008, the organization had 48 member groups, two branches, and more than 20,000 individual supporters. The organization reported on its website in 2014, that its network has expanded to reach almost every part of China, with more than 200 partner groups around world.

It's a start. The movement is growing - worldwide. China has a lot of meat eating people to feed - like the USA. Animal welfare is not a priority, but that will change

Different countries have gone both forward and backwards on this for ages. Actual ages. The UK has made a lot of advances - you guys should actually be very proud. The USA is trying... Modern factory farming is about money (of course) and, so - here in the states (and elsewhere) animals get the short shrift because protecting them and making their lives better interferes with profit

Your story about dogs makes me sick - I'm not defending the Chinese. But, so long as we look at other parts of the world and judge them to be culturally and even maybe intrinsically more cruel than we are, we will never look ourselves in the mirror and do better here in the west

My examples with the pig were only to show that an intelligent, lovely animal like the pig is treated pretty much like dogs are in China

I also linked a story about how we treat our dogs - right here in the USA

So, I guess - my point (that you asked about earlier) is that as awful as that story is - it's not just the Chinese. It was your OP - but I was moved to post because of the many comments that want to use the at least we don't... argument. The Chinese are no different from us. Not if you read what we've been up to here

originally posted by: kelbtalfenek
Someone earlier in the thread said something to the effect that "meat is meat" and if that's the case, then really, we're all meat too.

I agree with that, and if I was starving I would have no issue with eating 'long pork' to stay alive.
It would only be a problem to me if the dead person was someone I loved.

Lost on a desert island, haven't eaten for a few weeks and someone else washes up on the beach all dead and bloated, yep, I'd cook them up in a heartbeat.
Obviously all other avenues and options explored first but you get my drift. I will eat anything to survive if it will sustain me.
I love my cat Molly but if I was starving I'd kill and eat her no problem, but it would be swift, painless, and I would say sorry to her.

a reply to: Spiramirabilis

Yet China has no animal welfare laws in place. You can skin a dog alive and no one will care one jot. In fact they do.