I’m especially thinking about Yulin, the grotesque Dog-Eating Festival that’s going to occur on June 21. Dogs and cats are often tortured to death by the chinese, believing that this makes the meat taste better
What can we do about these Chinese low-lifes. Boycott their products ?
How many Chinese people actually participate in Yulin? (Assuming, of course, that it exists at all and is being described accurately.) Is the average dog eaten in China treated any worse than the average pig or chicken eaten elsewhere?
Personally, I’m more offended by China’s treatment of human beings. But that’s just me.
Yea, as causes go, telling a bunch of people on the other side of the world that they’re eating the wrong kind of meat seems kind of meh. And a bunch of first-worlders telling people where the average income is something like $2000 that they should only eat western approved food comes across as rather dickish.
Plus even if you convinced them not to eat dogs, you’d just be causing the murder of thousands of cows or chickens or whatever they’d eat instead.
Here is an example on Youtube from a chinese zoo where they feed tigers with a living cow, just for amusement
And look how well internet petitions have worked there, too!
Eating dog is a thing in some areas, but it’s rare enough that you have to seek it out (I tried in a half-assed way every dog-eating festival and never got any.) Dog meat is considered “warming” in traditional medicine, and is eaten in certain circumstances.
Animal cruelty is also a thing, as is general callous disregard for animal’s comfort. I’m not sure how it compares to American factory farms.
I’m all for treating animals a little better, pretty much everywhere. But if it’s not endangered or able to hold a conversation, I’m not concerned about what animals people eat.
Fret.
Arguably, eating large living animals is what tigers do - they are, after all, apex predators.
People, on the other hand, have no justifiable reason for eating their food while still living and able to feel pain, nor is there a justification for torturing our food prior to eating it.
On the other hand, I don’t think the Chinese give a damn what we over here think about their eating habits. As a practical matter there really isn’t anything we can do about it. Well, let them know we think it’s uncouth, but that’s about it.
Know anybody who has a pet snake? You feed them baby mice. Living baby mice. Living baby mice that have been knocked against the table to stun them.
Carnivorous predators have needs that cannot be satisfied by means that all human moralists will find tolerable.
Not many; it’s estimated that the total number of dogs eaten in this festival is only 10,000 or so; really small fry in a country with China’s population.
(You can buy dog meat in many restaurants / towns in China, often at Korean restaurants, but I have not heard any specific allegations of cruelty regarding this regular dog meat. Certainly willing to have ignorance fought on that though).
Certainly there seems to be evidence that the ones in this festival are: plenty of distressing videos have been snuck out on weibo.
Even in China where animal cruelty is barely even thought of as a thing, there have been a lot of protests and now the yulin festival requires significant policing.
Even supporters believe that the festival will only last a few more years.
Personally, I still want to go there and join the protests (I live in Shanghai).
It is not about them eating dog meat.
It is about the cruelty.
Are you ok with blow torching a dog alive (note the muzzle taped shut so it can’t howl)?
Have you seen what we do to chickens at factory farms?
Firstly, I’m not sure that we routinely blowtorch them alive.
Secondly, I’m personally against all animal cruelty, so just saying animals are treated cruelly elsewhere doesn’t make the whole thing OK for me.
If the point is “Why bother with yulin, when so much animal cruelty happening elsewhere?”, the answer is that there is especially sadistic cruelty happens there, and being a small town it’s possible with public pressure to shut it down comparatively easily.
Also, for me as someone who lives in china, it is a local problem.
And a final disclaimer: I think human lives matter more than animals’, and I also get involved in protesting human rights abuses.
Yes, but not for amusement purpose. And this are large animals, not mice
A very good point. Thats is exactly my point
Living things are cruel, pretty much across the board.
Watch a few more nature shows, such as lions or hyenas eating a buffalo alive from the anus in.
If your point is that sentient, intelligent creatures like humans shouldn’t be doing that, then you have to start with a defense of your ethical argument, which should have some sort of rank for what it means to be cruel, and whose cruelty is at the top.
If China’s cruelty toward animals meant for consumption is at the top of intelligent life being cruel toward other life, then westerners get to point fingers at China. Once we get to point fingers, then…
Try to change their hearts and minds. Tough sell, because the next guy over is going to be putting China’s carbon emissions at the top of his cruelty list (killing off future civilization seems a bit cruel to him) and try to get ahead of you on the China lecture circuit.
Or just stick with recreational outrage.
Some people do find watching snakes eat live prey entertaining.
Do you think mice somehow feel less pain and fear than cows?
This might be just me, but I don’t hold all animals to be equal.
When the melamine in dog food thing happened, I boycotted Chinese imports for about a year. It’s not easy. I would go to a store to buy something only to discover there were no non-Chinese import options.
“I’m only worried about cute animals” is pretty universally considered to be a crappy argument and to go against the cause of animal rights by makings its supporters look ridiculous.
