Greetings from Changchun. New city, new contract comming soon.
Anyway, this city is quite different, but I'll get to that later. First, I'll tell you that at least one waitress in these parts opines that dog meat isn't meat!
My first morning in Changchun city, I woke up early and walked about to get a feel for it. Considering that about 10% of the population here is of Korean ethnicity, I decided to stop at a lokal korean restaurant for breakfast, asking for vegetarian, no meat.
Well, along comes the food a few minutes later, with the soup. At first the soup tasted really good, like beef. But sinse I'd made it clear that I wanted vegetarian and she had responded that she had clearly understood, I supposed that it must be mushroom with special herbs to create the beef flavour.
But then I came across a big slab of what was definitely meat, and so asked the waitress what it was, expecting here to tell me it was beef.
'Dog' she answered!
Dog?
Dog!
Dog as in puppy dog?
Yes, dog as in puppy dog.
As in woof woof dog?
Yes, dog!
At that stage I thought I was about to vomit, but restrained myself and asked why she gave me dog meat.
'Well, you said you didn't want meat' she said, 'so I gave you dog'.
Hmmm, well, how do I argue with that? I should have known better though; in Hefei, some consider only pork as 'meat', the very definition of 'meat' being very flexible depending on where one goes. So, my fault, couldn't argue, she won the argument there. So I just stopped eating the dog soup, paid and walked out, buying a bottle of water with which to rinse my mouth being one of the first things I'd done after I'd walked out!
On the positive side, though, unlike in Hefei, there are many more practicing Buddhists, and so there are more than a few vegetarian chops and restaurants. Anyway, as it turns out, dog soup is pretty standard in all the Korean restaurants in this city (note to self, dog isn't meat, and so remember to specify that you eat neither meat nor dog!)
Anyway, that's my story for today.
On a logical level though (cultural bias aside) isn't eating dog or any otehr meat the same? After all, it still involves killing an animal to eat. So why would one not react so nauseatingly to, let's say, beef, than to dog? I can only guess that it's because many of us have dogs as pets and consider it a part of the family, thus making it equal to eating a family member. After all, dog's are man's best friend.
Anyway, this city is quite different, but I'll get to that later. First, I'll tell you that at least one waitress in these parts opines that dog meat isn't meat!
My first morning in Changchun city, I woke up early and walked about to get a feel for it. Considering that about 10% of the population here is of Korean ethnicity, I decided to stop at a lokal korean restaurant for breakfast, asking for vegetarian, no meat.
Well, along comes the food a few minutes later, with the soup. At first the soup tasted really good, like beef. But sinse I'd made it clear that I wanted vegetarian and she had responded that she had clearly understood, I supposed that it must be mushroom with special herbs to create the beef flavour.
But then I came across a big slab of what was definitely meat, and so asked the waitress what it was, expecting here to tell me it was beef.
'Dog' she answered!
Dog?
Dog!
Dog as in puppy dog?
Yes, dog as in puppy dog.
As in woof woof dog?
Yes, dog!
At that stage I thought I was about to vomit, but restrained myself and asked why she gave me dog meat.
'Well, you said you didn't want meat' she said, 'so I gave you dog'.
Hmmm, well, how do I argue with that? I should have known better though; in Hefei, some consider only pork as 'meat', the very definition of 'meat' being very flexible depending on where one goes. So, my fault, couldn't argue, she won the argument there. So I just stopped eating the dog soup, paid and walked out, buying a bottle of water with which to rinse my mouth being one of the first things I'd done after I'd walked out!
On the positive side, though, unlike in Hefei, there are many more practicing Buddhists, and so there are more than a few vegetarian chops and restaurants. Anyway, as it turns out, dog soup is pretty standard in all the Korean restaurants in this city (note to self, dog isn't meat, and so remember to specify that you eat neither meat nor dog!)
Anyway, that's my story for today.
On a logical level though (cultural bias aside) isn't eating dog or any otehr meat the same? After all, it still involves killing an animal to eat. So why would one not react so nauseatingly to, let's say, beef, than to dog? I can only guess that it's because many of us have dogs as pets and consider it a part of the family, thus making it equal to eating a family member. After all, dog's are man's best friend.