Letters to the Editor
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Bears, dogs, cats, people
All this ridiculous political correctness... goodness. Having spent some time in China I can assure you that the Chinese generally are not exactly nice to animals. They actually often seem to have no feeling at all for other creatures. But they can also be like that with each other so there we go. We all know that human rights go hand in hand with animal rights, so this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
I have no problem judging crappy barbaric behavior whether it's in China, or in the west in our disgusting slaughter houses that play out scenes from a horror movie every day of the week. Oh, and to all those tiring people who like to watch wildlife shows on Animal Planet none of this has anything to do at all with how wild animals kill each other for food - really, nothing. Just google some videos of factory farms or dogs being skinned alive if you dare. But you probably don't dare.
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it is the epitome of arrogance to criticize another culture's taste in animal flesh.
there are in fact objective differences between different animals which do have moral implications. It is true that (setting aside, which I'm not at all sure we should, the social aspect) there isn't much intellectual difference between a pig and a dog but the difference between eating a chimpanzee and eating an oyster is more than a matter of cultural taste. Talk about moral relativism run amok.
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In defense of chickens
First, I disagree with those who think (anthropomorphically) that certain higher order vertebrates can think and have emotions and others don't. Chickens, for instance, can run around scared when they are being chased, or not? Pigeons can all kinds of fancy cognitive stuff. Rats are smart. Etc.
Theoretically there is no difference between a human eating meat from a cow, or meat from a dog. Or a dog eating meat from a human. Animals have been eating animals for, oh, about a quarter billion years, that's the way it goes in our corner of the Universe.
Some people possess irrational attachment to their dogs and it clouds their judgment. It's not that they don't want to eat them, or others to eat them, (I would not want to eat my cichlids and gouramis either), but they imagine that the life of a dog, because it can think, has a higher value than that of a cow which, they presume erroneously, can't think. Newsflash: there is much more in common between the thinking of a dog and a cow than between the thinking of a human and any other animal. Aside from that, what kind of a value system is that? Thinkingism?
Although it is not part of Nature (ever seen any NatGeo shows? ever seen what unspeakable horrors do animals commit against one another? ) we humans try to get our meal in a human-like, i.e. "humane" way. Paradoxically, the loudest proponents of "humane" treatment of animals are the same people who would not let you pick up a pebble at a national park because it is "changing nature". Well, what do you know, one human inconsistency resolved, 10 million more to go.
And I agree. We should keep our animals well and kill them fast. I don't know why, it just feels right.
Back to chickens. Has the dear reader ever heard of Kaparot (also spelled Kapparot), some weird Hassidic ritual practiced right here in Olympic-aspiring NYC? If you have a strong stomach you can go to YouTube and search with these terms. PETA is on them, I wonder how they fared.
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Come & Get It!
Having done business in China for 18 years & lived here for the past 5, I've seen a lot in China which doesn't phase me, especially when it comes to eating & how Chinese view other life forms that happen to be lower in the food chain.
Probably the worst was seeing what literally appeared to be a zoo in front of a large restaurant in Shunde that included many different species of cats & dogs for the gourmand to chose from. Another was waiting to pass through a toll booth in Guangzhou & having a livestock truck pull up next to my car filled with barking black dogs, all straining their heads out the bars for me to pet them before being driven off to their doom. Black Angus they are not, but they were the "food dogs" I've heard about that are bred specifically for eating in the south. In Shanghai where I used to live, I can buy dog noodles in several restaurants in my old Puxi neighborhood. And who can forget those cost saving entrepreneurs, our street side kabob vendors from Xingang who were busted several years ago for substituting cat meat for the lamb they sell on a stick for 2 quai apiece. It became such a profitable venture, stray cats from as far away as Beijing were being shipped in to fill demand! One can understand how we felt a few months ago when our young British Shorthair tom disappeared after the housekeeper accidently let him out the door. Luckily he came back home a week later safe & did not end up as some cute furry home accessory to be placed on the shelf in a child's room.
I certainly hold a special place in my heart for the Chinese & their rich culture spanning more than 5,000 years past our own. Granted, the attitude towards pets has greatly changed in the past decade & will continue to improve, but that still doesn't make me feel any better knowing how many locals still view animals as well as what I routinely see offered on menus in this fascinating land I call home.
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it never ceases to amaze me how often the argument "animals do it so people should too" comes up in relation to food choice
but obviously never in relation to murder, war, infanticide, etc. ad infinitum. Obviously it isn't only people who think too much of animals whose judgment is clouded by emotion.
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the bigger question is how do we (humans) treat all animals?
Tolstoy said:
"A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral."
i can't put it any better myself.
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xenophobic and ethnocentric baloney, pigs, cows, dogs, whatever...
Okay so the Chinese eat dog...BFD. Americans eat pig and a great deal of the world doesn't and finds that objectionable. Is the US going to stop eating pork? Should I write an expose vis-a-vis the human rights violations in Iraq and Gitmo and relate it to the eating of pigs? How about going after all the countries that eat insects? Come on, get real.
Given the U.S. has 5% of the world's population yet uses 30% of the total resources, is the largest consumer (per capita) of animal flesh on the planet, we really shouldn't be going off on what other countries do. Once you kill an animal for food, the blood on your hands isn't any different. The animal is dead.
Frankly the general U.S. puritanical superiority complex, be it about war, religion, what animals you eat or don't, is tiring and stupid. How about being a grown up and accepting that other people in other parts of the world do things differently. Get over yourself.