Koreans and the dog meat debate

Well seeing as two of my students chimed in on this one for their essay class, I felt I should do the same. Korea has, for some inexplicable reason, become famous as a place where you can get dog meat, leading to many a bad comedian joke or humourous remark (from people not trying to be humourous). So here's the facts:

Bo Shin Tang, or dog meat soup, was eaten at a time when Korea was a destitute, 3rd world nation (think Cambodia today). It was made the exact same way a chicken soup is made in the west, but with dog meat. It is extremely hard to find in Korea today outside of the country towns (and even there you have to go looking for it) but it does exist in a few major cities if you REALLY go hunting for it (in Daegu, population 3 million, I have seen ONE dog meat restaurant). It is actually outlawed in Seoul municipality and Incheon (where the airport is). I know very few Koreans who have ever eaten dog and most think it's disgusting.

Once you are over here you realize how rare it is and the big moral debate comes when you see how the dogs bred for food are treated (it's actually really disgusting how they are treated and killed). I know many a westerner and many a Korean who won't eat dog meat because of the unethical treatment of the dogs, not because of what it is. However, these standards apply to cows and pigs as much as to dogs. Frankly, unless you are a vegetarian I don't see how you have the right to complain about eating dog meat or criticize it.

A few points:

- food is cultural. Many Koreans think eating lamb is just disgusting. It's a dare to people when they travel to western countries to eat lamb. The Chinese eat dog as well, they also eat cockroaches. In Burma you still find people who eat monkey. Heck, soilent green is still a dish in parts of Papua New Guinea TODAY.

- we are spoiled. Westerners today are almost unique in our history in that we can actually pick and choose what we want to eat, how it's prepared etc. For most of human history vegetarians, vegans and people who would not eat animal prepared in certain ways... well, strarved to death. Places like India that had many vegetables had vegetarian cultures, but places like Germania, Manchuria, Siberia etc. ...... Just because we are so lucky today to be able to be so picky doesn't give us the right to attack what people who were not so lucky ate when the alternative was starving to death.

- I have personally eaten raw silk worm, recently prepared octopus (as in dead but still moving), spider, unprocessed crab (as in it looks just like a small live rock crab but it's been cooked and is in a dish) and grasshopper. That's no more or less disgusting but there's no cultural taboo so it's considered a cultural experience.

I have not eaten dog meat yet, but it's the preparation process that stops me, NOT the fact that it's dog meat.