Byrnzie wrote:Some Chinese mistreat animals, though the majority of people don't. There are also some places that are worse than others for such things - Guangzhou in the south is known for it's dog meat, and it's markets where you can buy cats and dogs for food. But If I'm not wrong, the famous market down there was closed down about ten years ago.
Still, in a lot of the big cities now keeping pets has become very popular. I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that 'the Chinese ' treat animals like shit. China is a country of over a billion people. Most people probably couldn't afford to have pets until fairly recently, so that may explain why generally China isn't known as an animal-loving nation.
One thing I am aware of is how most of the people I know with pets don't give their pet a name. I sometimes ask my students what their pets name is and they tell me they haven't given it a name. It's pretty weird. I think a lot of people here just regard animals as objects.
But yeah, fuck anyone who mistreats an animal. Though I've not seen anyone mistreat an animal here yet, and I've been here for four years.
Apparently another popular activity in those cities where pet ownership has grown is people buying expensive designer dogs as a display of their monetary wealth (a big focus in Chinese culture now... the biggest), and apparently one of these purchases don't cut it. It's common for them to throw their dog into the street once they either get sick of owning it or want to further display their wealth by buying another, yet more expensive designer dog. So what is going on now is that these poor dogs that are tossed into the street are often either picked up by unfit owners or for unsavory means (ie puppy mills), or just die miserable deaths in the streets.
And then, of course, there are all the stray non-designer dogs, who authorities just go out and kill with bats or collect for slaughter on a semi-regular basis - dog culls aren't uncommon in the cities. Here near where I live there is an area that is about 65% Chinese immigrants, and there is a massive rabbit infestation there now, because they all went through a phase where buying rabbits for pets got stylish... and then most of them would regret their choice (as many do who buy bunnies), and they all just released them into city parks, and the city was forced to do a rabbit cull. I was told all this by a friend of my mother's, who is from China and came to Canada to get the fuck out of her own country because she says their culture is going to ... the dogs. Badump-bum.
Many other Chinese who have left have said the same thing (it's a rather common subject around Vancouver because the Chinese immigrant population is massive, which has been creating some degree of culture clash given the significant incompatibility between Chinese and Western cultures, making the subject of the state of the Chinese culture a more common conversation, often being carried by certain Chinese people who are very unhappy about the direction it's taking (and that it is migrating to Chinese communities abroad). I know not very PC, but still true; don't shoot the messenger. It's a shame... a result, one would assume, of the good ol' cultural revolution, totalitarian "communist" government, population crisis, growth and normalization of corruption in government, business, and education, and the uncontrolled rapid push towards industrialization; they all seem to have combined to create something quite unfortunate as a whole).
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata