A CHINESE government proposal to take cat and dog off the menu around the country has prompted an angry outcry from regions where the meat is popular, saying it would destroy local culinary traditions.
As it stands, there are no laws banning animal cruelty or killing animals for food in China, a country in which famine is still in many people’s living memory and which is less sentimental than the West when it comes to how our fellow creatures are treated.
One of the more alarming sights for a fledgling Western visitor to China can be seeing dogs and cats in cages in the wet markets of Guangdong province.
People have been eating dog meat in China for thousands of years. The meat is considered by some to have medicinal properties and in the northeast, people believe it helps keep the body warm during the freezing winter months. It is particularly popular with Korean minorities near the North Korean border.
Cat is less commonly eaten, but parts of the animal are used in some dishes.
Both dog and cat meat are especially popular in parts of China such as Guangdong, where the joke runs that the Cantonese eat anything on four legs, or with its back to the sky, except a table.
A popular Cantonese dish is called longhudou, or “dragon duels with tiger,” with the name deriving from snake and cat meat, although usually civet cats or wild cats were used rather than household moggies.
The consumption of the civet cat was banned in the wake of the Sars epidemic in 2002, when the animal was linked to the spread of the illness.
The draft laws were proposed by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences after campaigns against animal cruelty.
Chang Jiwen, who is director of the social law research department at the academy, said his team would gather expert and scholarly opinion before making its proposal.
During the Olympics in 2008, the consumption of dog meat was banned, but as soon as you reached the city limits, there were signs for restaurants offering dog meat for those missing their diet of man’s best friend. The current proposal has met similar defiance.
The manager of the Caiji Dog Meat Restaurant in the southern city of Guangzhou told the Global Times newspaper: “The proposed law is totally infeasible here, because eating dogs and cats has been part of the Guangdong culture for so long.
“I don’t believe the draft could be passed, nor would I change the way we operate our restaurant,” he added.
A Beijing resident, Du Quanbin, argued: “If we should ban eating dogs, why not ban eating pork and beef? Securing the lives of many poor people now is much more important and urgent.”