Beijing say no to "Peiking Pooch"

Perhaps the most oft quoted prejudice against people in the Far East, after the fact that they "have slanty eyes and all look alike", is:

"Ugh, they even eat dogs! Can you imagine that?".

This silly prejudice is about as ignorant as they come, but is consistent with the confused attude that British people have to animals. For example, since the mid 20th century, they developed within their own food culture:

"Ugh, how can you eat veal!" and "Ugh, how can you eat mutton!"

This was because it was considered a crime to eat a baby cow, and lower-class to eat a sheep. So veal and mutton entirely disappeared from British supermarkets and butchers. (It is still impossible to find them, although in some Halal butchers, you can find lamb dressed as mutton!) The logic did not stop them from eating baby sheep, or grown up cows, for lamb and beef have never stopped being essential food items.

The British also balk at the thought of eating horsemeat, and just across the channel, have always launched this disgust at the French, who have always included horsemeat as palatable.

There are many people in Britain who think that dogs and horses are higher forms of life that humanity. While this is fine, they are extremely inconsistent in that they consider other forms of life to be entirely worthy of eradication. So in Britain, over the centuries, all sorts of species have become extinct, including the wolf.

Yes, even the wolf became extinct. But they will criticise Chinese people for eating dogs. Well everybody knows that dogs are descended from wolves, and isn't it funny that they drove the wolf to extinction but have spent the last 60 years worshipping dogs, even though they took away all the real jobs that dogs ever had. Yes, all dogs in Britain used to have jobs. For example, foxhounds were bred for fox hunts. Jack Russell terriers were bred for hunting and killing rats.

Now all the British breeds of dogs are out of jobs, because even fox-hunting was outlawed, and many breeds of dog are dying out.

What is there about this history that China thinks is worth copying?

Loveandtheplanet:

I spent a lot of time in Britain when I was younger. I studied there for some time, but I often wonder whether lived in the same Britain as is often described to me.

I know that things have changed a lot of over the years and the Britain that I used to know is now buried in the past beneath many years of that vulgar liberal-yet-conservative government that they have right now (Probably the world's only liberal nanny state), but I can't quite reconcile everything that you are saying with my own personal experiences. Are you sure that you are not thinking of another country?

What you say about veil is true. The British have little stomach for it because they consider the conditions under which a veil calf is raised to be cruel (Veil pens have been outlawed in Britain for any years) and I remember hearing about the riots that they used to have at the ports when eco-terrorists used to try to commit suicide by throwing themselves under the wheels of lorries exporting calves to France for veil.

However, Mutton? From what I recall sheep was considered to be an expensive dish because it was usually imported from Zealand as it was more economical for a farm to keep their sheep alive for the wool than to kill them for meat, and by the time they were too old for wool they were also too old for meat, and they were either sold to make pies and curries, or pet food rather than as mutton.

"you can find lamb dressed as mutton"

Why would you want to do that? Lamb is very expensive in Britain, why sell high quality lamb as low quality mutton? It makes no sense. It's like selling dog as pork in China

"The British also balk at the thought of eating horsemeat, and just across the channel, have always launched this disgust at the French, who have always included horsemeat as palatable."

The British have always lived close to horses. The poor used them as a working tool, the rich used them as transport and for show, and the entire country is almost as obsessed with horse racing as Hong Kong. To a British eating a horse would be like eating a family pet. Besides, the British make fun of the French for all sorts of other things. Being rude about the French is a British tradition. When a French eats frog the British laugh, yet most don't know that Chinese eat frog more.

"There are many people in Britain who think that dogs and horses are higher forms of life that humanity"

Animals, period. The British are stupidly silly about any kind of animal. They have so many animal protection laws that farmers there can barely afford to raise animals, which is why so much of their food comes from Europe, where animals aren't treated so well and are therefore much cheaper to farm. Which is rather ironic, I think.

"they are extremely inconsistent in that they consider other forms of life to be entirely worthy of eradication. So in Britain, over the centuries, all sorts of species have become extinct, including the wolf."

You're logic is faulty. Feeling this way is new to Britain, only over the last hundred or so years. When the wolf was eradicated it was many hundreds of years ago and nobody felt this way.

"they will criticise Chinese people for eating dogs."

British see dogs as part of the family, not as a food animal. This is why they feel this way. Hindu think that the cow is sacred and can criticize British for eating it. Muslims and Jews think that the pig is filthy and can criticize the British for eating it. Does this make Hindu and Muslims and Jews bad people?

"isn't it funny that they drove the wolf to extinction but have spent the last 60 years worshipping dogs"

The dog was made by man for man, the wolf was made by nature and is a competitor to man. Why should British love the wolf as they love the dog?

"they took away all the real jobs that dogs ever had"

I have to disagree, the British are amongst the biggest users of dogs in the world. Despite begin a developed country the British use many dogs on farms, they use them as guard dogs and rat dogs to protect crops and machinery, they use them as gun dogs to collect animals shot during hunting, they even train them to gather together sheep on their farms.

Britain also uses dogs with the police to catch criminals, with border police to sniff out bombs and drugs in airports, and with rescue patrols to find people lost on mountains and buried in earthquakes. British also train dogs to guide blind people to stop them walking into busy roads or down holes in the ground or into objects that other people can see but they can't, and to hear things like telephones for deaf people. The British also have special dogs that they use for racing. It is a popular pasttime amongst working class people in Britain, and they often gamble in them like they do horses.

Seeing as Britain has changed so much in the over 20 years that I have known it, and that much of its history and culture has only become gradually revealed to me the longer I have lived here, I would suggest you can throw away everything that you ever knew about living here, just as I can throw away everything I knew about where I lived 25 years ago.

Veal is not always reared in cruel conditions. For example, every calf that is born to a dairy cow is either male or female, and the male ones are of no use. Because of the fashion that developed against veal, these male calves are destroyed, although sometimes there is a market for them abroad, and they are shipped.

As for mutton, it is the original meat that has kept people alive in Britain for centuries. Much of the mutton and wool trade died in Britain because the globalized economy of the British empire encouraged cheap imports from New Zealand, whereas in Britain, there was a lack of people and still is, willing to do the dirty work of sheep shearing and shepherding.

Indeed, in times of poverty and food scarcity, the British peoples often resorted to sheep's milk instead of cow's milk.

The Halal butchers cater as you know to Muslim requirements for meat, which means that they only sell mutton/lamb which has been slaughtered according to their religious requirements. Well I tried some of their mutton recently, and I was disappointed, because it was so young that it was clearly just an old lamb, rather than a sheep. Where it comes from, who knows, because Halal butchers have not caught up with the demand for declaring food provenance.

British sheep, when they are no longer useful for producing lambs, are shipped live and wholesale in trucks and driven through Europe, for eventual consumption in Africa and Europe. The lambs that are sold here are slaughtered at a much younger age than they are in New Zealand. All this is part of industrialized farming practice that began after World War 2, and had only in the last decade been changing because of the BSE crisis, the foot and mouth crisis, the rise of culinary sophistication in Britain, and the organic food movement.

You mention dog racing. Guess what? Animal rights protesters are protesting against Greyhound racing, and they are shutting down.

Nobody uses dogs to protect crops or machinery or for catching rats anymore. That wouldn't work any more! Some people keep dogs as guard dogs. Most people keep dogs as companions.

(The dog was made by man for man, the wolf was made by nature and is a competitor to man. Why should British love the wolf as they love the dog?)

Dogs were bred from wolves, which is different from being made by man. Man makes machines and tools, and is also now capable of creating life from raw genetic material.

If anybody wanted to breed all the different dogs again, it would be better to keep the wolves that had all the traits to start with, because the wild animal always has the most vigorous genetic stock.

(This is why they feel this way. Hindu think that the cow is sacred and can criticize British for eating it. Muslims and Jews think that the pig is filthy and can criticize the British for eating it. Does this make Hindu and Muslims and Jews bad people?)

I would say that many British people would be horrified if they were criticised (say by Hindus, Muslims, or Jews) for eating pork or beef. Therefore the British people should not criticise, say, Chinese people for eating dogs. And indeed, there are TV celebrities like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall who have built their careers on challenging the narrowness of their minds, because he will openly eat everything.

The wolf was but one example. In the last 50 years, the water vole became extinct in South West England, and nearly extinct in Scotland. Many of the species of life on the planet that are becoming extinct are not such notable mammals as a wolf or a cuddly panda. They are the little things that make up the complex ecosystems, which only people who get outdoors and look will see. They are the insects, the amphibians, the reptiles, the fish, the corals, all of which are animals.