Dog Meat Struck off Menus in Southern City
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The character for "dog" has been covered on the menu of a Yulin restaurant |
(Beijing) – Many restaurants in Yulin, in China's southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, have blotted out or stricken the character for "dog" on their menus and advertising board, as the city's annual dog-eating festival nears, China News reported June 11.
Restaurant owners in the city were recently called to a meeting and told by local authorities to take measures not to offend dog lovers. The authorities asked restaurants to expunge "suggestive words" from the menu and to undertake the slaughter of dogs in private, the report said.
The festival is held on the summer solstice, which falls on June 21 this year, and is typically observed with friends and family gatherings in which dog meat and lychees are served. Many participants of the festival believe that having dog meat in their diet strengthens physical stamina during the winter months.
The use of dog meat has long been part of the region's culinary traditions but was placed in the spotlight in 2012 after an artist and animal activists organized an event to draw wider attention to the city's annual festival.
Since then, pet lovers and animal rights advocates have fought to end what they say is a cruel act without much success. Violent clashes have been reported as some of them try to save caged dogs from restaurants during the festival.
A battle has also raged online with dog lovers including many entertainment celebrities urging the city's residents to stop eating dog.
Yang Mi, a famous actress, said on her Sina Weibo, "I object to Guangxi Yulin's lychee-dog festival on June 21 and I call for a ban on any kind of dog meat festival." The post was published on May 2 and has been re-tweeted nearly 200,000 times as of June 11.
"The minority of conscienceless people will never succeed and I believe the civilized majority will not tolerate this behavior," Patrick Tam, a Hong Kong actor, said June 4 when he re-tweeted a messages calling for an end to the festival.
Many defenders of the festival and those who say they don't like the way critics hurl abuses said the angry crowd was self-righteous and hypocritical. "Those waving the banner of nobility to enforce their own standards of right and wrong are perhaps similar in their behaviors to the members of an evil cult," said one post published June 7 on Tianya.cn, one of the country's most popular online forums.
Observers have called for both sides to show restraint. But as the festival approaches, concerns on the risk of violent incidents are on the rise. According to China News, despite purging "dog" from their menus, many restaurants still serve dog dishes.
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