“Dog Meat Festival” Cancelled After Popular Public Opposition

The following call to action was reposted over a 100 thousand times on popular Chinese microblogging service Sina Weibo (similar to Twitter), placing it amongst the most forwarded posts for several days this past week, and accumulating over 20 thousand comments by Weibo Users…

@君常在:

[10.18 Bloody Massacre] Oppose the “Zhejiang Jinhua Dog Meat Festival”. The “Save Zhejiang” society proposal/petition + Four point plan + Hotlines for the Asian media. (Doesn’t matter if you are a celebrity or an ordinary common person, please forward this as each time is one more sliver of hope). This is not a festival, this is a massacre! Call on China to pass animal protection laws! Proposal address: http://t.cn/adLqZY

The link leads to a post on a Chinese movie blog that protests the city of Jinhua in Zhejiang province of China holding a “Dog Meat Festival” next month on October 18th, similar to the annual beer festival in Qingdao except involving dog meat and people who enjoy eating dog meat.

Due to popular opposition, the festival has already been cancelled and it appears that the campaign now is to ask the Jinhua local government what will happen to the dogs that were originally prepared for the festival.

The page also prominently features the following images (click to enlarge):

These images are old, and appeared as early as 2006 in a blog post that suggests the first photo is of a street scene during the Jinhua Dog Meat Festival. An internet post dated in 2007 includes these photos in a story about a village in Hebei province that kills 2000 dogs every day to be shipped elsewhere as dog meat, earning it the nickname of “#1 dog killing village”.

Comments from Sina Weibo:

Alkooooooo:

!! The people slaughtering the dogs can go to hell! And the people who eat dog meat, truly perverse!

张馨予:

If only the people who eat dog meat could truly be stopped… but unfortunately what they are doing is not against the law! Apart from our opposing them in spirit/argument, in China, they aren’t going to go to jail for this.

国境之龙:

Spread this. If you can bear doggies being killed, then go watch Hachi. Afterward you will love and be kind to doggies.

Cynthia丁_CC:

I call for China to pass animal protection laws.

婧_cherry:

The person who first organized this festival/holiday, have him drawn and quartered!!!

茱晓萸:

Weibo truly can change some things, the Jinhua Dog Meat Festival has been called off.

Y_趙先森:

Sigh…despicable! I’ve had dogs every since I was small, and dogs are too loyal to humans… But there are exceptions, which would be the Chow Chow…

meirenhe4:

This dog is so cute… Why are humans all like this… Will there be a day where humans conquered by another species are held for a “Human Meat Festival”?

PM-小格调:

Actually, I truly don’t understand why there are always people who refuse to spare them when they are such loyal companions.

牡丹木:

Too perverse, with so many other festivals to celebrate, why this one?! This festival is meaningless! Everyone should love and protect small animals, and refuse to eat cat and dog meat.

善忘的芝麻:

My fifth time forwarding [reposting, “retweeting”] this! Are our countrymen really this indifferent towards killing?!

水晶小虫子:

Resolutely oppose! If there wasn’t a trade [in dog meat] then there wouldn’t be any harm!

孟非:

I don’t dare believe this is real! I think if they end up being rescued, the doggies should also thank the internet.

吴璇WENDY:

Avoid eating [dog meat]. I went to Copenhagen once and on the train I met a cute pretty little girl, maybe 12 or 13 years old, riding the train by herself to Sweden to visit friends. We started chatting with her and when the subject of her impressions of China were brought up, she said a lot of people still eat dog meat. At the time, I told her it was the Koreans who eat dogs. Now I’m speechless.