Recently, there is news that the South Korean side has taken into account the international image problem and begun to ban the consumption of dog meat for the whole people.
In fact, this refers to a government decree in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, this year, the scope of fasting is limited to Seoul, other regions, if you want to eat, you can still eat normally.
A clerk displays "Korean cuisine" made with dog meat
To be honest, although the Western media is always keen to report on the Chinese dog meat festival, constantly accusing and demonizing the Chinese the "choice" of ingredients, in fact, the "national tradition" of Koreans eating dog meat has always faced a lot of "international pressure", especially the South Korean government, which has also encountered "continuous critical attacks" from various "international forces".
For example, earlier in 1988, when the Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, many Western animal protection organizations attacked, they threatened to boycott the Olympic Games, strongly demanding that South Korea ban the eating of dog meat in the form of legislation.
In 1994, the well-known French actress Brigitte Bardot wrote a letter to the then South Korean president Kim Young-sam, asking him to use the president's rights to put an end to the dog-eating behavior of Koreans, or he would call on his fans and the entire French compatriots to boycott Korean products.
In 2002, when the World Cup was held in Korea and Japan, a large number of celebrities, organizations and public opinion pressure from the West once again focused on dog meat on the traditional Korean recipe.
This time, even FIFA has come forward to express its "attitude" - sending a letter to the South Korean government asking it to take measures to ban dog meat.
There are often Western volunteers who come to Korea to "save dogs"
In July 2018, before the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, a large number of U.S.-based film and television entertainment stars and members of animal protection organizations wore short sleeves printed with the slogan "Don't eat dog meat" and held dog taxis in their arms, and came to the South Korean Consulate General in Los Angeles to protest against The Koreans eating dog meat.
Later, when the American ski star Gusken Worthy came to South Korea to participate in the Winter Olympics, he also specially led a group of Winter Olympic athletes to the dog farm, participated in the "rescue dog" activity in a high profile, and left a message before leaving - "This is the saddest place I have ever been." ”
A dog "rescued" by Pyeongchang Winter Olympic athletes
However, is the South Korean government really so rigid that it has ignored these "international pressures"?
The truth of the matter is that every time it faces great international pressure, the South Korean government has tried to ban dog meat at the national level in the form of legislation, but it has not been done again.
The South Korean government's attempt to ban dog meat is almost as long as its founding history.
Syngman Rhee, the first president of South Korea, in order to please his American father, once tried to legislate against the people from eating dogs.
From the beginning of the 1980s to the eve of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, several South Korean governments have also been under pressure to enact laws banning dog meat, but each proposal failed to pass the vote and was eventually aborted.
After all, on the one hand, there are a considerable number of members of the South Korean parliament, behind which are powerful rural monopoly forces, and even some members of the parliament open their own dog farms and dog meat restaurants.
Waiters at a dog meat restaurant in Seoul exchange raw cut dog meat for France. This is a course for French students – learning about Korean culture by eating dog meat
In addition, given South Korea's strong obsession with its own culture and national traditions, how can it tolerate such a "national diet" being explicitly banned?
For example, the scene below is in 2018, after the news of President Moon Jae-in's request to the relevant departments to study the legislative plan to ban dog meat came out, some South Koreans wore the words "Confrontation!" unite! The turbans, gathered in front of Congress, took a high-profile gulp of dog meat in protest of legislation prohibiting the practice of slaughtering dogs for meat.
At the same time, the Korean Dog Farmers Association also launched a "live promotion": on the one hand, it handed out leaflets and invited passers-by to taste dog meat products for free; on the other hand, it also put up banners with advertising slogans such as "Dog meat is rich in collagen, good for the skin, anti-aging" and so on.
In the end, in order to successfully host the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, the South Korean government temporarily changed the names of the dog meat restaurants in Seoul and Pyeongchang through persuasion and "inducement", and the dog meat related dishes were also replaced during the competition.
Due to the pressure of the government and in order to get the considerable "name change compensation", since then, many restaurants in South Korea have begun a career of "hanging sheep's head and selling dog meat".
For example, the traditional dog meat restaurant is called "health care hall", and the dog meat related dishes have been changed to "nutritious meat", "tonic soup", "four seasons soup"....
Similar to the situation in 2018, this time, the dog meat restaurant in Seoul City has cleverly "turned around" in order to cope with the relevant ban - isn't it an international image problem, change the name, foreigners can't understand it, the tradition of the ancestors, but can not be lost...
To say that the "national tradition" of Koreans eating dogs, the earliest traces, is still related to the fact that they were too poor.
Relatively speaking, Chinese folk also have the custom of eating dogs, but it is not very common, and there is even an old saying that "dog meat does not go to the table".
Originally, in the pre-Qin era, Chinese also often ate dog meat, like the Shang Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago, dog meat was used for sacrifice and as a gift, and in the Western Han Dynasty, the folk still had a special "dog farm" to raise meat dogs.
For example, Fan Duo was a butcher who sold dog meat in his early years, because Liu Bang often went to his shop to eat dog meat, and the two gradually became acquainted, and eventually reached the point where they could form a rebellion together.
However, since the Wei and Jin dynasties, eating dog meat has become less common.
Because, at this time, China's agricultural civilization has made significant progress, coupled with the great integration of ethnic minorities in the north and the Han people in the central plains, animal husbandry has also developed well, and the choice of animal products has expanded.
Therefore, China's demand for dog meat has not formed a long-term industrial chain.
In South Korea, in the streets and alleys of restaurants, from ancient times to the present, there is always a steaming dog meat soup figure, and also formed a more standardized dog raising, slaughtering dog, dog selling industry chain.
Obviously, whether in ancient times or today, the difficulty and cost of daily meat eating by Koreans is much higher than that of Chinese, and various ingredients are particularly precious.
Food for contemporary Korean troops
Korean army canteen
Eat with a satisfying heart
The Korean Peninsula has a limited territory and is mountainous, making it difficult to develop agriculture and animal husbandry.
Therefore, from ancient times to the present, Koreans have been relatively lacking in the choice of animal products.
Then, in order to replenish their energy and satisfy their appetites, they turned their eyes to the dogs around them...
Dogs are omnivorous animals, people eat, dogs eat, so it is very good to feed; in addition, the breeding ability of dogs is very strong, coupled with the east Asian tradition of dog meat "big supplement to drive away the cold", peninsulars fall in love with it as soon as they eat it...
Even in today's South Korea, compared to the "Korean cattle" sold by grams, equivalent to more than 1,000 yuan per kilogram, dog meat is still a relatively acceptable source of animal products.
Koreans are picking out dog meat
To say why South Korea's meat, fruits and vegetables are amazingly expensive, in large part, has to do with their resistance to foreign imports of agricultural and sideline products.
In the education of Koreans from childhood to adulthood, but if there are some conditions, they must also choose to eat expensive domestic agricultural and sideline products, such as "Han niu", in order to save money to choose cheap imported agricultural products, that is a proper unpatriotic behavior, you are sorry for the country, sorry for the nation.
Propaganda let everyone spend a lot of money to buy "Han Niu" for the sake of patriotism
It is said that such education is also inseparable from the manipulation of South Korea's domestic agricultural monopolies - when capital is coated with a layer of "patriotism", it comes with irrefutable authority.
As a result, we are stunned to see that the resistance of Korean people to imported animal products has sometimes even reached the point of madness.
In that year, after South Korea and the United States signed an agreement on the import of beef, the next day, at the same time as the "anti-American cattle" march of 10,000 people in Seoul, a number of strong citizens protested in the form of "self-immolation". One of them, who was later seriously injured and died in pain, died in the hospital icu, and the remaining self-immolators also fell into different degrees of lifelong disability.
The scene of the demonstration that year
Objectively speaking, south Korea, as a small country, does not have the conditions for the comprehensive development of the first, second and third industries like China and the United States, and its rise is mainly based on manufacturing, and agriculture and animal husbandry belong to its shortcomings.
Under such circumstances, it is understandable to focus on the development of major industrial chains and national brands, and then drive the entire national economy, in order to ensure people's livelihood, appropriately import foreign agricultural products, not to rise to the level of "national honor and disgrace" and "national dignity".
Moreover, on the one hand, they resist imports, and on the other hand, they do not have a "vegetable basket project" regulated by our government.
In this way, Koreans should eat meat, or according to the old rules, eat dogs.
Cook dog broth
What's more, eating dog meat also belongs to one of their great and splendid traditional national cultures.
But... In this regard, it is difficult to understand why South Koreans, who care deeply about "national dignity", can gladly accept the US military stationing in their territory, and even before 2012, South Korea could not exercise full command of its own military - the US military can deploy the ROK army, but the ROK army cannot mobilize the US military.
In this regard, they have not even talked about "national dignity".
And to change to the "vegetable basket" problem of the common people, it violates the "national dignity"?
In fact, in addition to China, South Korea, Vietnam, those European and American countries that pride themselves on being "pioneers in animal protection", there are still some dog eating phenomena in the folk.
Deli dog meat vendors on the streets of Vietnam
Typically, like Switzerland, which is known as one of the models of Western civilization, the daily tables of some farmers at the foot of the Alps are also inseparable from the "ingredients" of cats, cats, dogs and dogs.
For example, the following picture of the British Daily Mail news, the title translates to this - Swiss farmers regularly use cats and dogs for cooking. According to locals, eating dog meat can effectively alleviate and treat rheumatism.
Because they eat their own animals, they have not violated the relevant local animal protection laws.
In some rural areas of Saxony, Germany, a set of "good craftsmanship" of concocting dog jerky and dog meat sausages is still passed down, accompanied by liquor and garlic, which has become a Christmas dish.
Modern French people have also carefully used dog meat as an ingredient. In the American Revolutionary War movie "The Patriot", there is a special depiction of the French eating dog meat.
In addition, there are photos of the "Dog Meat Festival" in Kansas, USA, but the authenticity is unknown.
To tell the truth, since the Age of Discovery, in just a few hundred years, how many animals and humans have been extinct (including some indigenous people in Oceania and the Americas), and so far, some "upper class people" in Europe and the United States have occasionally been exposed, spending a lot of money to hunt wild protected animals in Africa - so that the mere use of cats and dogs as a criterion for "civilization" or "barbarism" is indeed not very valid.