Animal lovers, local traditionalists face off at dog meat festival(2)

Volunteers call for people not to eat dog meat in Yulin on June 21. Photo: Li Hao/GT

Their protest soon drew notice and the restaurant owner confronted the protesters while trying to wrench the banner away.

The mood of the crowd seemed to favor the festival as onlookers asked "we eat chicken, pork and beef, why not dog meat? It is not against the law."

There are no animal welfare laws in China. The ministry of Agriculture issued a regulation in April, requesting local governments to strengthen cat and dog quarantine measures to control the spread of diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans. In response to this, the Yulin government doubled down on its insistence that all dogs eaten at the festival were raised on dog farms.

But one local butcher told the Global Times that he does not pay much attention to the safety issue.

"It is the government's job to decide whether it is ok to eat dog or not, my job is to kill them and make money, I don't ask where they come from," he said.

Li Junqing, head of Yulin's food and drug administration, was spotted at the festival. His loyalties were quite clear. "If you try to stop people from eating dog meat, they might greet you with a knife," he was quoted as saying the Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News as saying.

Not all locals favor eating the dog meat. Tangwei Lingling, 24, said she never eats dog meat, helped animal rights activists with their campaign and acted as a guide to show them how to find the black dog meat market.

"I have two dogs at home, I feel really sad to see how dogs are cruelly killed and eaten. As a local I need to do something to stop them," she told the Global Times.

Animal lover Lisa from Shenyang, Liaoning Province came all the way to join Du's campaign in Yulin after seeing pictures of dogs being skinned.

"Our protest doesn't seem to make a difference because there are too many dog eaters and not so many protesters," she said.

However, the protest blazed a trail across the Internet. A month before the festival, animal lovers petitioned the While House's website, demanding an end be put to the tradition.

"Please help us stop the Yulin festival of eating dogs in Guangxi. It is bloody and disregards life," said the petition created on May 12 and that has collected about 800 signatures.

Online opposition has been further boosted with celebrities joining the cause. 

Debatable impact

None of this seems to have phased local residents who have not been put off their canine treats. "Let's keep eating, let reporters take photos and show outsiders how to celebrate the festival" was the general sentiment around town.

However, some restaurant owners told the Global Times that their business had worsened due to the ongoing protests.

"There are rumors saying some people are going to come and put us in jail for killing dogs," one restaurant owner named Zhou said. "Our business is legal, I hope outsiders can show some respect for our tradition."

It seems restaurants don't necessarily need to change their menus anytime soon as volunteers have been trying to buy the dogs' freedom.

Activists pooled together nearly 100,000 yuan to buy the freedom of 450 dogs from the festival, which brings up another problem: what to do with the dogs that are freed.

"The butcher holding a stick in his hands asks you only one question: will you buy it or let it be killed? We didn't have a choice," Du told the Global Times. "Now we are calling for more volunteers to take care of these dogs as many of them are sick."

The tradition is not unique to Yulin. Other places in China such as Zhejiang and Guangdong Province are also known for eating dog meat.

In ancient China, dog meat was considered a medicine that could warm up the body and boost male fertility.

But not all authorities have been as stubborn as those in Yulin. In 2011, the government in Zhejiang Province cancelled a dog meat festival held every October in the wake of animal rights protests.

"A festival can bring economic benefits to a city, but if it poses a threat to people's health and ruins the city's reputation, it's not really worth it," Professor Sun Jiang from the Northwest University of Politics and Law told the Global Times.

Xie Changping, deputy director of the Guangxi Traditional Culture Research Institute, argues that eating dog meat "is just a traditional habit. Why do we have to follow Western values on this?"

Zhang Dan, founder of the NGO China Animal Protection Media Salon, argues that if a tradition is becoming a bad habit, it has to go.

"Eating dog meat is dwindling worldwide, it's behind the times," Zhang told the Global Times, "It may be hard to see this habit die out and the biggest challenge will be changing people's minds."