The day my dog was cooked for dinner
By Juliana Liu, Hong Kong correspondent
This week about 10,000 dogs and a number of cats were killed at an annual dog-meat festival in south-western China, to celebrate the longest day of the year. For the BBC’s Juliana Liu it was a reminder of one of the most traumatic days of her childhood, in the Chinese city of Changsha.
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One day, my mother announced we were going shopping – and when we returned a few hours later Doggie was no more. He had been strung up by the legs in our communal yard, and was soon turned into a stew, complete with herbs and hard-boiled eggs.
No-one paid any attention to my tears. I heard the neighbours say I would soon forget the whole thing.
They, on the other hand, were in a celebratory mood. In the years before China’s economic boom, when some food was still rationed, it was rare to have the chance to feast on a whole animal.
I refused to eat the stew – and I have never eaten dog in my life.
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How dog is eaten
Chinese food expert Fuchsia Dunlop writes:
Judging by the sporadic waves of outrage about dog-eating in China, you might think it was one of the pillars of the Chinese diet. Actually, however, the consumption of dog meat is extremely marginal: it’s seldom seen in markets and on restaurant menus, and most Chinese people eat it rarely, if at all.
Dogs, like pigs, have been reared for their meat in China since the Neolithic age, but in modern times their flesh is regarded as a delicacy in just a few areas, such as Hunan and Guizhou. Even in these places, it tends to be eaten only occasionally, and in certain seasons. According to traditional Chinese medicine, dog is a “heating” meat which can offer a useful energy boost in midwinter, but is best avoided after the lunar new year.