Letters from readers:

Visit to China served
as shock eye-opener

Hello,
I have just read the letter in a previous issue from Tony, a self-professed Englishman living in China. I would just like to say that Tony must be walking around with his eyes closed while he's out there if he genuinely believes dog meat is only eaten in rural areas in China. The dog meat trade is rife in China and it's mainly the large dogs that get eaten, so no, I would never ever advise any breeder to send any large breed puppies to China, regardless of the explanation. There are hundreds of dog farms in China breeding large dogs for the meat trade. When fully grown these unfortunate animals end up in markets and shops and are even sold to restaurateurs in cities.

Many small dogs - strays or abandoned dogs - also end up being eaten as there are no regulations in this trade and no animal welfare laws, so being a petite canine offers no real immunity from this dreadful fate. How do I know all this? Not through "Western ignorance" or "xenophobia", but through first-hand experience. I have been to China, staying with a member of my family who lived there for more than a year, and was shocked by how banal and commonplace brutality to animals - and humans - was.

Unfortunately many Westerners turn a blind eye to the atrocities there, perhaps because they simply don't care, or perhaps because it makes mealtimes easier for them (outside Hong Kong all menus are in Chinese). Then of course there are those who think it is a sign of being adventurous or culturally enlightened to eat things like dog, cat, live and semi-cooked fish and turtles - which have been scooped out of their shells alive etc. What is the difference between eating cow or dog, they ask, without taking into account the horrific way in which dogs and cats in China are killed. Anyone with a heart would vomit if they saw the killing process. Open your eyes Tony and ask a few questions. - Nina

Hello Nina,
Thank you for bringing that subject to our attention again. Tony certainly must have been wearing a blindfold or something, although I suppose it is quite possible to live in such a country and be transported to work and back home every day, spend the days in an air-conditioned office and the nights at home in an air-conditioned apartment and when you go out to dinner leave the ordering to someone else and ask no questions! Even then I doubt if you would be able to avoid being sickened at some stage of your stay. As you point out the Barbarian attitude there towards animals has long ago taken its natural course and developed into the same cavalier attitude towards human suffering, which has become the norm in both China and Korea. Which of course goes to prove what our psychiatrists have only fairly recently accepted - that those who torture and murder animals are just a step away from doing the same with humans. - Ed