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Last December I was having dinner with a group of new acquaintances from different backgrounds when I was asked to talk about something unexpectedly.
"Do you eat dog meat?" someone randomly asked.
For the next hour, I tried my best to explain everything about Chinese culture and my experiences to them, but the one story that grabbed the most attention and caused the most outcry was when I recounted the first time I ever had a slice of dog meat.
I don't eat dog meat anymore, but millions of people in China do, and since this year marks the Year of the Dog, I thought this could use some explaining and nuance.
My father and mother were born in the era of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward, and had half a dozen brothers and sisters each. Shortly after their birth, they experienced one of the greatest famines in Chinese history with three years of natural disasters from 1959 to 1961.
My mother always told me that millions of people died of starvation in that time and my grandfather used to have to dig out bark to cook for the children. In those times, food shortages were widespread, making meat — which included dog meat — a very extravagant food item.
As China advanced over the years though, leading to better economic conditions, meat was no longer seen as an extravagant food item, but the experiences from those times carry on throughout the culture.
And by the late 1980s — when my generation was spawned — family members, old and young, would gather on the first day of each Chinese New Year to have reunion dinner together.
'This is dog meat': my mother
I especially remember one dinner roughly 20 years ago, when as a nine-year-old I was unexpectedly fed a piece of meat by my mother.
I remember sitting there staring at its reddish bacon-coloured surface, and when sampling a piece, remembering it tasted just like beef, but a little … different.
"What is this?" I asked. "This is dog meat," my mother said.
Now, I had my own pet Pekingese dog at the time named Duo Duo, who I loved, so you can imagine the shock and outrage that shot through my body at that thought.
I remember thinking as a dog owner, "I simply cannot accept this in any way". However my parents felt differently and just did not understand.
"What's the matter Bang? You eat chicken in the Year of the Rooster, beef in the Year of the Ox, so what's the problem now?"
For them dog meat was just like any of the other meats, and coming from a generation who lived through famine and the Cultural Revolution, I was told I should be grateful. For me though, it meant I was eating my own pet Duo Duo. I cried.
At the time, it was still the first day of the Chinese New Year, so it was a time for coming together, but I felt like I did not want to talk to my mother for the whole day.
That whole cultural situation with dog meat continued to put great pressure on me as a child, as I felt stuck in a generational misunderstanding that I could not solve.
Coming to Australia: Dog lovers vs canine dinners
It was only after I came to Australia to live and got asked questions by strangers like "do you eat dog?" simply because I look Chinese, that I realised that many people around the world are still stuck with the same dilemmas that struck me as a young dog owner in China.
But now I see this very much in the same way that Australian farmers love their cows and lambs. It doesn't stop them from slaughtering them, and many vegans would question why Western countries discriminate against all animals except cats and dogs — which again comes back to our different respective histories.
In China and South Korea, the tradition of eating dog meat goes back at least 400 years according to Government statistics. Meanwhile, throughout Russia and Switzerland and other countries, many people also continue to have dog-meat-eating customs.
During the current Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea, locals have reportedly expressed their outrage at foreign media coverage of the consumption of dog meat by locals, claiming that these reports did not respect cultural histories and differences.
And back home in China, the same conflicts between dog lovers and dog eaters remain, and I think it's important for people to understand it is not a uniform belief across the country.
Traditions, generational gaps, and Australian law
In recent years, Chinese netizens have often gone to war online to discuss the cancellation of dog-eating events like the Yulin Dog Meat Festival.
Before the opening of the Yulin festival in 2016, a petition representing several animal protection organisations in China collected more than 11 million signatures and submitted them to the local government to cancel the festival.
The Yulin government then reportedly issued a ban on the sale of dog meat by any restaurant, roadside vendors and traders at the event in 2017.
However, since there is no legislation forbidding the consumption of dog meat in China, and outside of Yulin people throughout the country in various provinces disagree over the issue, the festival continues, making some branches of the local government quite embarrassed.
Meanwhile, most people in Australia don't know that it is legal to eat dog meat in most states and territories except South Australia, however it is illegal to sell dog meat in any state and territories.
A four-year study about Chinese dog-meat eating by the Asian Animal Fund in 2015 shows that more than 70 per cent of the public in the nation agree that eating dog meat is different from eating lamb, beef, and mutton.
In 2014, People's Daily, the state media, said in an article that dog lovers believe dogs are companion animals. But, judging from the reality of China, no laws or morals have ever yet reached consensus, and no special status has been given to dogs.
So in China dogs continue to be associated throughout the country as both companion animals and cuisine.
The importance of Chinese New Year reunions
The very next day after I had eaten the dog meat, I told my mother that I would never eat dog meat again.
"I can understand you do not eat dog meat, but do you think dog meat is different from pork, lamb or beef?" my mother asked.
My mother and I both have deep connections to dogs, but our disagreement over eating dog meat has always been there.
As a child born under China's one-Child policy, I was one of the first in my family to have the opportunity to touch foreign culture, all of which widened the gap and views between my parents and me.
Mum passed away shortly before I moved to Australia about 10 years ago. I miss her greatly. And so every time I go back to my hometown, I visit the puppies of my childhood dog Duo Duo at my cousins' family and cherish all the ups and downs of my childhood and my culture.
And over time, I have slowly begun to understand the cultural and generational gaps between my parents and me. They weren't "dog eaters". They were just people that happened to have a different history that led to different animals being on the menu.
For example, my father's answer to "why do you eat dog meat" is that Australians eat kangaroo, and kangaroo is the symbol of Australia, and that "we would never do that in China" — and he probably has a point I think.
My intrinsic values have been continuously subverted by my early years as an immigrant in Australia, a process that has been challenging but carved out a new identity for me, that is, Australian-Chinese.
Although I have been away from China for a long time, the tradition remains in my blood. For example, even though I was very frustrated with the experience of eating dog meat at reunion dinner, it has not stopped my enthusiasm for celebrating the Chinese New Year.
And so this year, just like all the others, I will be celebrating the Chinese New Year with my friends in Australia, with the memories of my mother and Duo Duo — good, bad, conflicting, and sad — all floating around in my mind.
Topics: lifestyle-and-leisure, food-and-cooking, community-and-society, china, asia