Not for young doggie readers...

You probably all know by now that i'm a travelling dog.  My humans are seasoned travelers too.  We do that for a living and it's great!  We meet new people, see new places, learn a lot about other cultures and write about our experiences.  Sometimes, we encounter strange habits and we wonder "why they do that?".

I asked myself the same question when Dad went to China.  I was really eager to hear all the stories of his trip there, but when he told us about a certain restaurant, i stood in the middle of the living room, in shock...

This Chinese guy he met invited him to this fancy place, with dancers, music and great "authentic chinese food" as he said.  Dad went with him, no questions asked.   Of course, Dad doesn't speak nor read chinese so he said to the guy "i'll have what you'll have".  Bad decision...

The menu was entirely meals cooked with DOG MEAT!!

In China, there's this saying that a guest shouldn't never insult his host, so Dad had no choice but to eat dog meat.  On the table, there was dog soup, raw dog meat with vegetables, dog's brain with tomato sauce, dog's sirloin, ... He even saw the chef cooking big bones in a pan!

raw dog with vegetables

dog's brain with spicy tomato sauce

I couldn't believe it!! Why they do that? What's the point in eating dog meat?  Don't they have enough rice there to feed the people?!

But then, as i was listening to dad's story, i realized that i shouldn't judge them.  Of course, it troubled me A LOT but really, who am i to judge?  Here in North America, eating dog is almost a crime, but we do eat rabbit and deer and moose and duck.  Cute little anipals we raise not for the fun of it, but to eat them.  We even eat horses!  Chinese people would probably think we are crazy too.

That's what we call culture shock.  Going out of your comfort zone and trying to understand that some people are totally different than you.  You may not agree with the way they live but you have to be tolerant.  We scream out loud to save those dogs' lives but here, we turn our head and close our eyes on puppy mills...  Easier, isn't?

By no means i will encourage eating dog meat.  I'm against that practice.  But i will try to understand.  Being a dog, i can't imagine that a human would eat me, but i can try to understand that some humans, in other parts of the world, would.

At the end of the story, Dad looked at me with tears in his eyes and said "Dude, while i was in that restaurant, i kept thinking of you and i was sure you knew what was going on.  Hope you'll forgive me and i promise you, i'll never eat dog again in my whole life."

Don't worry Dad, I forgive you.  I always will.  And think about it for a minute.  Mum went to Africa and probably ate a cute lil zebra, for all she knows!