By Choi Sung-jin
Whenever Korea hosted international athletic or cultural events, the time-honored custom of eating dog meat among some Koreans was on the lips of foreign animal lovers.
The 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, on the other side of the world, has reignited the “dog meat debate” here.
Sparking the debate was an interview given six years ago by the father of Ki Bo-bae, one of the three female archers who won the gold medal in the team event Monday (KST). In the interview, Ki’s father said his daughter turned in excellent performances after eating dog meat during her school days.
An angry response came from the mother of model and actress Choi Yeo-jin on Sunday. The mother, known only by her surname of Chung, criticized the star archer using abusive language, on her social network service. When other netizens attacked Chung, she deleted her posts and apologized. But she said, “Whatever price I will have to pay, my mind will never change.”
Some netizens reminded Chung of her daughter taking part in a fur fashion show, questioning her qualifications as an animal lover. On Monday, Choi also posted her apologies on behalf of her mother, but the online debate shows no signs of easing.
Last Friday, Korea Animal Rights Advocates (KARA) invited foreign activists and experts to an international conference at Seoul Museum of History to put an end to eating dog meat. At the same venue, the Korea Meat Dog Association, an interest group of people who raise dogs to be eaten, held a protest rally, holding pickets saying, “Dog meat is Korea’s traditional food,” and “Dog breeders are citizens of the Republic of Korea, too.”
On July 26, a day before Jungbok (the second of the three dog days when Koreans used to eat dog meat to fight summer heat), two British women staged a protest in Gwanghwamun Plaza calling for eating of dog meat to be made illegal. On their pickets were pictures of dogs being brutally slaughtering and the phrase “No more boshintang (dog soup)!”
Some passers-by expressed their displeasure, asking, “Why are they meddling in other countries’ culinary culture?”
Going further back, French actress Brigitte Bardot sent an open letter to then President Kim Young-sam in 1994, describing Korea’s dog meat culture as “barbaric.” In 2001, a year before Korea hosted the finals of soccer World Cup along with Japan, FIFA, football’s governing body, raised the dog meat issue, triggering criticism about cultural chauvinism.
The debate is likely to escalate next year, a year before Korea hosts PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Last month, an Italian female parliamentarian called for the EU to boycott the winter Olympiad because of the dog meat issue. In the U.K., more than 100,000 people have signed a petition to be sent to the parliament, calling for the dog meat trade to be banned.
“The prohibition of eating dog meat goes beyond cultural relativism, and should be approached from the viewpoint of animal welfare as a universal value to be pursued by humans,” said Chun Jin-kyung, a KARA executive. “We at the animal rights groups want to raise the levels of protecting animals, starting with those closest to humankind, like dogs and cats.”
Others presented opposite views. “It runs against the principle of equity if we ban only dog meat under the pretext of animal protection,” said Choi Young-in, secretary-general of the Korea Meat Dog Association. “We should also take into account the reality in which more than 1 million people are engaged in the meat-dog industry.”
Meanwhile, archer Ki, responding to the ongoing controversy, said, “I don’t care one bit about it.”