Dog Days in Yulin

[Randy W]

An ongoing topic - click here for Most Recent Post

 

previous topic - I Call it 'Hot Dog and Lychee Day'

The summer solstice is an occasion for many in Yulin to celebrate with lychee wine - and dog meat. The festival is still going on, although protestors have been trying to shut it down for years. I have some pictures from past years of dog carcasses displayed for eating along the street, but the activities have gone increasingly underground - the only thing I've seen in the past two years have been tables set up at sidewalk restaurants in preparation for an evening meal.

Pet cemetery: chilling scenes inside China's dog and cat slaughterhouses

 

Quote

Humane Society Internationalís (HSI) China specialist Peter Li visited dog meat markets and slaughterhouses in Yulin city in the Guangxi region, where locals consume dog and cat meat to observe the summer solstice each year on June 21. HSI has been working with local groups in the country to end the animals' suffering. Though the dog meat trade is in decline, some slaughterhouses remain in operation.

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[dnoblett]

Shanghaiist also posted about this, many of the same pictures.

 

http://shanghaiist.com/2015/06/06/yulin_dog_and_cat_slaughterhouses_get_ready_for_summer_solstice.php

[Randy W]

From a few years ago . . . http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff367/walserrjw/DSC00876a.jpg (click through to see)

Edited June 6, 2015 by Randy W (see edit history)

[dnoblett]

Another, dog thrives beaten for 9 hours in Hunan.

 

http://shanghaiist.com/2015/06/06/hunan_villagers_beat_dog_thieves.php

 

Hunan villagers spend nine hours beating up dog thieves, then turn on the police sent to rescue them

 

 

Two dog thieves messed with the wrong villagers. After being caught, they were tied up and subjected to a brutal beating lasting over nine hours, with the body of the animals they were alleged to have killed tied to their necks.

 

According to People's Daily, the incident took place in Yizhang county of Hunan province. At around 7 a.m. on June 4, two men were allegedly caught red-handed with two dead animals they are believed to have killed for meat.

 

Shortly after an angry mob soon gathered and decided to take matters into their own hands. The two men were savagely beaten before they had the dead animals died around their necks.

 

Police arrived later that afternoon and pointed out that mob justice just wasn't the done thing. As officers prepared to take the two suspects back to the police station, villagers stopped them and demanded 1 million yuan ($160,000) in compensation.

 

Presumably either the thieves or policemen said that the request was unacceptable, because villagers then turned on the policemen, attacking them with metal bars and smashing up their patrol car. Villagers blockaded the road with rocks and lay down in front of the police vehicle to prevent the thieves from leaving.

 

Only at around 6 p.m. that evening when local officials and additional backup arrived did the situation calm down. In a statement the local Public Security Bureau stated that their officers had been going about their work in the correct manner when they were attacked.

 

[Randy W]

In the NY Times

 

Q. and A.: Peter J. Li on the Clash Over Eating Dogs in China

Q. and A.: Peter J. Li on the Clash Over Eating Dogs in China

By Shaojie Huang June 18, 2015 8:05 pmJune 18, 2015 8:05 pm

Photo

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2015/06/19/world/18sino-li02/18sino-li02-tmagArticle.jpg

Dog meat for sale at a market in Yulin on Wednesday, ahead of this weekend's celebration of the summer solstice with banquets of dog meat and lychees.Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

An estimated 10 million dogs are killed for food each year in China. About 10,000 are expected to be slaughtered as the Yulin Summer Solstice Lychee and Dog Meat Festival gets underway this weekend in the southern city of Yulin.

However, opposition has been building to what its supporters call a local culinary tradition. Within China, confrontations between dog meat traders and animal welfare advocates have occasionally turned violent. Internationally, in advance of the Dog Meat Festival, Animals Asia Foundation released results of a four-year investigation concluding that the unregulated dog meat trade was encouraging pet-snatching. On Twitter, celebrities including Ricky Gervais and Nikki Reed are throwing their weight behind a #StopYuLin2015 campaign to end the festival. A petition on Change.org to pressure the Chinese government to take action has gathered more than one million signatures.

Peter J. Li, an associate professor of East Asian politics at the University of Houston-Downtown and a China policy adviser with Humane Society International, has studied and written about animal protection and wildlife conservation in China for the past 15 years. In an interview, he discussed dog eating in China and the conflict between those who defend the practice as part of their cultural heritage and those who increasingly view dogs as cherished companions.

[danb]

Yulin made CNN about the dog festival. Here is a link:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/22/asia/china-dog-meat-festival/

 

There was another stories a few days back. Something about a lady who buy 100 or so dogs from the chopping block. Here is a link to that story:

 

http://time.com/3929673/china-yulin-dog-meat-festival-rescue-cruel/

 

Danb

[Randy W]

Yulin made CNN about the dog festival. Here is a link:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/22/asia/china-dog-meat-festival/

 

There was another stories a few days back. Something about a lady who buy 100 or so dogs from the chopping block. Here is a link to that story:

 

http://time.com/3929673/china-yulin-dog-meat-festival-rescue-cruel/

 

Danb

 

 

From here, though, it looks to be dying a natural death (the festival, that is). Five years ago when I first saw it, tables would be set up in the streets, and the streets turned red from the lychee peels.

 

Nowadays, you see increasingly fewer tables set up - and fewer still actually occupied. Jiaying took me to a couple of places where there is festival-related activity. One of them looked like the same store featured in the CNN video. I was told to not take any pictures. She was VERY surprised at how small the festival had become. I wasn't, since I had ventured out each of the previous two years to look around.

 

This is a picture of where protesters can buy puppies to save from the festivities at $10 each. Jiaying said there were no outsiders here

 

[Randy W]

This is the coverage in the Shanghaiist

 

Despite protests, Yulin dog meat festival draws in huge crowds

 

When I took the above picture, I could have turned to my left and taken this picture (this one is from the Shanghaiist article) - but no one was there

 

Edited March 3, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[amberjack1234]

Well if they don't want anyone taking pictures perhaps they are getting the message that things just are not kosher any longer.

[Doug]

I like dog....meat. Best meat I ever ate. I like dogs too. Do, they ever eat cats?

[Randy W]

I like dog....meat. Best meat I ever ate. I like dogs too. Do, they ever eat cats?

 

 

Some of the videos show caged cats, ready to be processed, also. I think it's MUCH less common, though.

[Mick]

Where we lived in Guangdong, dog hot pot was always served in December and never in the summer. I never ate any of it, but it is supposed to raise one's fire and help combat cold weather. I wonder why Yulin has the festival in the summer?

[Randy W]

Where we lived in Guangdong, dog hot pot was always served in December and never in the summer. I never ate any of it, but it is supposed to raise one's fire and help combat cold weather. I wonder why Yulin has the festival in the summer?

 

 

This was said about that

 

According to Chinese lore, eating dog meat stimulates internal heat, making it a food that wards off winters’ cold. But on this inaugural day of summer, it’s a superstition that’s driving dog consumption: the meat is believed to bring good luck and health. At the festival, hotpots are fired up, lychees peeled and liquors poured. Animal activists estimate over 10,000 dogs are killed for the festival, according to China Daily, the government’s English-language mouthpiece.

 

. . .

 

In contrast, the Yulin Municipal People’s Government issued a statement on June 7 in response to the social media outrage, stating that while locals in recent years have hosted small gatherings to consume dog meat and lychees, a widespread festival for these activities has never existed.

 

“The so-called summer solstice lychee dog meat festival does not exist,” it reads. “Neither Yulin government nor social organizations have ever held such activities.”

 

 

5 Things You Need to Know About China’s Dog-Eating Festival

 

 

It really IS simply a day in which people will eat more dog meat than on other days. My first year here, in 2010, tables were set up in the streets and the streets turned red from lychee peels. Now there are a small number of sidewalk restaurants which set up extra tables, many of which go unused.

 

Sorry, but dogs WILL be eaten in China until something is done about that. Most animals to be eaten ARE treated VERY inhumanely - I can often watch a restaurant worker choke my chicken that is about to be cooked for me and drain the blood into a trench running alongside the restaurant. But "rescuing" dogs at $10USD each simply gives them an additional source of profit at a time when the market must be VERY uncertain.

[Randy W]

It also has to do with the lychee harvest, The "festival" WILL occur on the summer solstice every year (i spite of what you here about "decoys" being staged early), although the dog meat backlash IS having a VERY large effect on the participants.

[Mick]

Thanks for the clarification on why the dog meat is consumed at the solstice. Like I mentioned, in other places it is considered at food that raises the internal heat and combats cold, thus December is a common time to chew Fido.

 

I found the statement by the Yulin Municipal People's Government somewhat humorous in a strange sort of way. When I lived in China, I noticed that local governments often dealt with sensitive issues by simply denying that they existed. This, unfortunately, can have tragic consequences. We lived near Ground Zero of the first cases of SARS back in 2002-2003 (the same time, by the way, that we were buried deep in the visa Black Hole created by the immigration dominoes falling subsequent to 9/11). The initial response to SARS, at the local level, was denial that it even existed and was nothing more deadly than a common cold. Further, early research pointing to the Civet Cat as being the likely source of the virus was discounted and largely ignored. Interestingly, as soon as the official denials came out, there was a run on face masks and vinegar (to burn indoors to kill germs). Price gouging was rampant. The point, however, is that the locals knew that official denials meant something was up.

Edited June 25, 2015 by Mick (see edit history)