Here's what kind of leather you might be getting if you buy a cheap jacket from China...

[zebedee]

Koreans eat only one kind of dog. The preparation begins before the dog is dead and it is distressing. Younger Koreans don't go in for it much and students I've taught are stuck between condemning part of their own culture (not very wise in Korea) or just ignoring the topic. I ate it once there because I wasn't told what it was, and it was unpleasant because it really smells. It also repeated on me, which turned a challenging experience into a bizarre one. I've not seen dog offered in Shanghai, Guangzhou or Beijing, or in Ho Chi Minh, etc. (although these places are massive and it probably goes on) and I've never overheard anyone asking for dog meat. In Yulin there is a festival for it, but again, most Chinese you meet are either upset by it (people demonstrate against it, and the government warned the locals that it was not a Yulin-People custom from long ago, etc.) or indifferent while not being dog-eaters themselves. You don't see it in supermarkets, for example.

Most people here would choose chicken or beef as far as meat goes- pork is popular, too. Animals should be treated humanely- and sadly they often are not- but in countryside areas of China where people are frighteningly poor and often poorly educated, animal life is not a priority because it's difficult enough for the human life to scrape by. If killing and skinning a dog is what you have to do to earn money to feed your family, then that's what you do. Abattoirs in Western countries aren't places of great joy and generosity either, to be honest. Poverty tends to be dehumanising and certainly redraws the boundaries of what one would do (or need to do) to survive and what one is bothered by doing.

 

[willyto]

I think the point here is the way they get the leather not that it comes from cats or dogs. Did you all watch the video? The way of getting that leather is just the work of savages.

There is a brand in Germany that offers their customers to make shoes out of their dead pets if they want (Dogs, cats,etc.) and I don't see anything wrong with that. It's just the way that leather is obtained that is horrible.

 

[Sloan1874]

In the UK, the vast majority of dog and cat homes have a no-kill policy.

 

[Fanch]

Thus far I have avoided posting on the thread. I will say I am appalled at the manner in which those animals were treated and am firmly against animal cruelty in any form. Having said that, I hope that Lounge members are aware of the radical agenda of PETA. I will say no more on this subject.

 

[tropicalbob]

In 10 years of living in China I have only ever seen dog meat in one province. If you really want to be appalled, check out Korean dog-preparation, but, again, it isn't consumed by many people. The majority of Chinese find the idea of cat or dog meat repulsive (it's on the news and the tone is condemnatory), and its sale is viewed as deception committed by usually desperately poor people. Chinese consumers are as irritated by fraud and fake goods as much as anyone else- perhaps more so as it is a matter of national shame produced by huge disparities in income and the need to make money to stay above starvation level. I doubt that anyone on this forum would buy a leather jacket made in China, in any case.

'Natural causes' that horses die of can include deliberate starvation. We hope that it doesn't happen, of course, but, were a Chinese documentary team to investigate it in the US/UK, viewer reaction here would be horror at such cruelty and barbarism, too, and the phrase 'these people' would be flung around as a generalisation, although I doubt that any Chinese commentator would be imagining assaulting people with sports goods.

Thank you for making these points.

 

[navetsea]

in my country, I think several areas like in Sumatera, Sulawesi, and the eastern islands after Bali, they eat dogmeat.

I saw it several time in X-mas dinner at a catholic church the family of my mom attend to, after the mass we were invited for dinner and one of the dishes was very dark meat with lots of herbs, were in small chunks and look like it had been cooked for a long time, they told me it was dog, favorite dish of the people there that come from Timor or Flores, etc. I didn't touch it.

they are not available in supermarket or people don't really advertise it, same like boar, rabbit, or horse... horse tho sometime naughty vendors sell them as beef meatball.

 

[Edward]

My experience in China (although I've never resided there full-time) is similar to that of Blackadder: while I'm sure dog and cat can be found if you go looking, I've never encountered it in Beijing. (I've eaten, and enjoyed, both donkey and horse, though. As a wearer of horse leather, I'm certainly not going to get squeemish about the idea of eating one, albeit that that's a separate issue from the animal welfare qustion which applies whatever species' meat I choose to consume.) The big game-changer is popular culture. Small dogs and especially cats are increasingly popular as pets (an influence both of the fashionability of Western pop culture, to some extent filtered through Japanese reinterpretations of the same). As this increases exponentially, the idea of them being 'food' drops off - much as it has in the west. There's also the fact that these sorts of dishes - cat especially, apparently it's vile (unsurprising, imo, given that cats are carnivores) - have for some time been perceived as "poor people food" and looked down on for that regard.

Of course, a lot of this sort of thing is the inevitable result of global demand for everything for nothing, or at least pennies. I'm not suggesting everying must or should pay out a ton for a simple leather belt, but by the same token if you're paying a pittance you have to question how it got to be so cheaply. I'm reminded of the hoo hah there was in the UK when it was discovered that horsemeat had entered our food chain, passed off as beef. In all honesty, how could anyone paying a pound for ten 'beefburgers' (often through need, but that's a whole other can of worms) expect it to be quality, well-treated meat?

 

[Worf]

I served in Thailand and Korea. They CALLED it beef or chicken... but when you went out of the compound and into "The Ville" you were NEVER sure what you were eating. Some of the "B Girls" kept dogs as pets but not many. I can't pass but so much judgment on people in "survival mode" as Puddin' calls it. My folks were from the rural South and lived through the Great Depression, if it lived, they killed it, cooked it and ate it. Dad loved, rabbit, possum, squirrel you name it, Mom gave all that a pass when she moved north. They ate everything off the Pig but the squeal.... I did not. Too citified I suppose. I smelled chitlins cooking ONCE and that's all it took for me.

Worf