Restaurateurs in a southern Chinese town are holding an annual dog meat festival despite international criticism.
Eateries reached by phone in Yulin reported brisk business Sunday during the event marking the summer solstice. They say eating dog meat is traditional, while activists say the festival has no cultural value and was invented to drum up business.
As many as 10,000 dogs, many of them stolen pets, are slaughtered for the occasion held deep in the largely rural and poor Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Celebrities such as British comedian Ricky Gervais and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen have called for an end to the festival.
Dog is eaten in some parts of China but is not a common dish.
Be careful when ordering the 'hot dog.' Incidentally, 'hot dog' is also Mandarin slang for 'cop.' Complex eaters, the Chinese.
(Score: 5, Informative) by blackhawk on Wednesday June 24 2015, @01:11PM
The outcry is not just because they are dogs, which in many cultures are considered pets / companions / friends. It's because of the brutal way they treat the animals prior to slaughtering them. They beat the dogs to death and perform cruel torture because of a belief that it makes the meat taste better.
You can check this out pretty easily with an image search online:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dogs+beaten+tortured+before+eating&ia=images [duckduckgo.com]
https://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1450&bih=918&q=dogs+beaten+tortured+for+food&oq=dogs+beaten+tortured+for+food [google.com.au]
It's pretty disturbing stuff. I've seen images of them strung up on a pole bound with rope with a rusted jagged tin lid over their mouths as muzzles.
Eat what you like, just be humane in how you raise and slaughter the animals.