[KS] custom and new environment:dog-eating

HEEKYUNG LEE 100290 at soas.ac.uk
Fri Jul 21 06:15:19 EDT 2000


> I also have been away, and now I would like to add my opinion.
> 
> Personally, I love dogs enormously, having two of them as family 
> pets.  Historically, of course, in East Asia, in ancient Chinese 
culture dog meat  would have been consumed and would even 
occasionally have been eaten in sacrificial and ceremonial context. 
> 
> Thesedays, Korean newspapers frequently contain articles debating the 
> pros and cons of eating dog-meat.  For myself, I do not see how the 
> Korean custom of eating dogs is any worse or any better than the 
> Western custom of consuming sheep, horses and many other sorts of 
> animal. 
> 
> Historically, in Korea, the quality of the land available for animal 
> pasturation was never particularly high.  This may be one reason why, 
> in the past, people ate dogs despite the emotional ties which arose 
> when people and dogs lived in such close proximity. It is interesting 
> to note the differences between the roles played by dogs in Western 
> and Korean societies, a subject which would perhaps be worth pursuing 
> on another occasion. In this light, I do not find the eating of dogs 
> any more or less cruel than the eating of sheep.  
> 
> Eating the flesh of other living beings may  well be cruel.  Yet, 
> in the name of human well-being we have always eaten the bodies of 
> other creatures.  However, it is also true that we seem, either 
> consciously or subconsciously, to try to eat only those creatures who 
> we feel are rather more 'remote' from ourselves than those we take as 
> our 'neighbours'.
> 
> Furthermore, thesedays, we Koreans have a  much wider range of 
possible sources of meat from which to choose. > The transformation 
of our natural environment has led to noticeable > modifications in 
people's behaviour.  In such a changed environment, I, "personally", 
believe that it would be much more considerate to > choose other 
sorts of meat rather than that of dogs.  This is because 
> they have, so far, been faithful neighbours to human beings.  A 
> similar argument, by the way, can be applied to the custom of hunting 
> in the West.  This is an activity which has been, and continues to 
> be, relatively widely pursued when compared to Korea, a point which I 
> cannot develop here. 
> 
> Heekyung Lee 
> 


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