Reading the above, one could easily be forgiven for thinking that dog eating is dying out. JoongAng's "weekly tip on Korean customs" is, unfortunately, grossly misleading. There is evidence to suggest that the practice, far from becoming marginalized, is in fact growing in popularity. The following report on whale meat also sheds a more realistic light on the popularity of dog eating.

Dog stew diners puzzled by fuss over whale meat

21 Jun 2005 03:45:45 GMT

Source: Reuters
By Jon Herskovitz

ULSAN, South Korea, June 21 (Reuters) - Waitress Pak Suk-kyun brings a bowl of dog stew to a table of hungry South Korean men and wonders why people are making such a fuss about eating whale meat at an international conference down the road.

At the To Suk Chung restaurant, which specialises in dog meat stew, there is little sympathy for the calls of conservationists to curb, or ban, the whale meat trade being made at the International Whaling Conference, a short taxi ride away from her bustling eatery.

"Whale meat and dog meat taste really good. They are a part of our culture," Pak said. "I remember something my grandfather told me. He said there are 99 different tastes for whales. Whale is great."

Some animal welfare activists condemn South Korea for its tradition of raising dogs for the stewpot. But those Koreans who eat dog defend the dish as part of their heritage and say the animals are bred to be eaten.

Critics -- including many Koreans who do not eat the meat and dislike the tradition -- say some dogs are unlawfully beaten to death rather than humanely killed.

Dog stew is a popular summertime meal, mostly among Korean men, who say it provides them with vigour and energy to beat the heat.

Patrons and staff at the To Suk Chung have a message for those who think the practice is unseemly.

"They should come on in and give it a try. It's wonderful," Pak said.

Another patron, who is involved in the whale meat trade, said he did not understand the opposition to whaling.

"This is hurting us economically," said Lee To-gun.

Conservation groups such as Greenpeace say South Korean boats have been catching an increasing number of whales and declaring the catches as accidental. Greenpeace says it is no accident, but an attempt by some crews to cash in on the lucrative trade in whale meat.

Ulsan, once a whaling port, still has a few restaurants that serve whale.

Many of the patrons wiping sweat from their brows as they munched on steamy dog stew said if a dish was tasty, eat it, and if the source of the meat was growing scarce, then protect it.

"If scientists can show that a species of whale is going to go extinct in a few years, then there is no way anyone should hunt it," said Kim Chong-kang, a retired oil company worker.

Dog stew in South Korea comes in many varieties. The speciality at To Suk Chung is a stew in which the dog meat is served with leeks and aromatic herbs. The meat, which is dark and a little fatty, is then dipped in spicy Korean soyabean paste, ginger and more aromatic herbs.

A pot of stew sells for 13,000 won ($13) a person.

"Maybe part of the reason there is opposition to dog stew is that Western people may not have a palate that is used to this type of dish," said Bae Jong-do, a businessman.

It is certainly true that most Westerners don't have the palate to torture dogs to death, for which we are thankful.

More evidence of the popularity of this barbarous custom is revealed in the following excerpt from an article reported in the Anchorage Press, Alaska, on 29th June 2005.

Despite its allure, dog meat stew is technically illegal. The Korean government banned its sale and consumption just before the 1988 Seoul Olympics, in hopes of avoiding negative international publicity. While reference to the dish was erased from restaurant menus across Korea, the dish itself never disappeared from restaurant kitchens.

Fourteen years after the official prohibition of dog meat in Korea, approximately 4,000 restaurants nationwide still served dog meat in 2002, according to Reuters. Although the ban had been enforced in a handful of highly publicized instances over the years - perhaps most famously in 1992, when a ship carrying 13.9 tons of dog meat from El Salvador was turned away by customs officials in Busan - no serious legal action had been incurred since 1996, when a man charged with selling $500,000 worth of dog meat to restaurants was acquitted on the grounds that his product was sanitary, edible and popular.

Amidst the controversy, a question remains: Why is eating dog meat so popular in Korea, while the very thought of such a practice provokes revulsion in the United States? I often asked this question during my two-year stint in Korea, and the most common answer I received was that Koreans eat only ddong-gae (literally, “shit dogs”) - semi-feral mutts that are not fed by caring owners, but survive on garbage and feces. In other words, Koreans consider pet dogs different from food dogs.

Even domestic dogs in Korea have never really been considered pets in the sentimentalized, Lassie sense of the word. To this day, many older Koreans, raised on the ideal of duty to family, are as put off by the American love of dogs as Americans are put off by Koreans' taste for dog meat. Why, they wonder, do Americans gladly spend hours teaching their dogs to do silly tricks, yet consider it an act of extreme generosity and sacrifice to go to the care home and chat with their grandmother once a week?

Historically, both Old and New World cultures ate dogs when other food became scarce. The Korean practice of eating dog meat is said to have originated in the Stone Age, when (as in Manchuria) dog meat was a staple during the cold winter months. As Korea developed into an agricultural country, dogs continued to be regarded more as barnyard animals than pets, and since dogs were much less useful in the rice fields than oxen, they were ultimately regarded as a handy source of meat. The Sino-Korean character for “fair and proper” (yeon) literally translates into “as cooked dog meat is delicious.”

Ancient Korean medical texts recommend dog meat to fortify the spirit, warm the body and aid recovery from illness. They make no mention of the virility-enhancing qualities of dog meat, however; using dog meat stew as an aphrodisiac is generally considered a 20th-century fad. It's especially popular during Sambok, a 30-day period on the lunar calendar when the summer heat is believed to deplete one's sexual energy. During this time of year (usually July or August), back-alley boshin-tang restaurants in Korea are usually packed with loud groups of men. The mood of such gatherings is something like American men visiting Hooters on payday.

The half-hearted attempt to defend dog eating above falls flat on its face for several reasons too lengthy to go into here (see our web site for our arguments). Its author does however confirm that "dog meat (is) so popular in Korea", a fact to be remembered when the Korean politicians and press repeatedly claim that it is steadily dying out. If this practice was in decline, why would the Korean govt be so keen to overturn the current Animal Protection Law and make Korea the first country in the world to legally accept dogs as meat animals? Please continue to send those protest emails - this issue hasn't gone away.

Please visit our web site and that of our friends at the Korean Animal Protection Society, www.koreananimals.org for more info.