Third Rock From The Sun

No more tentacles please!

School lunch has grown repetitive(, as school lunches are apt to do).

I’m tired of filing into the cafeteria, taking a metal tray (that could serve as a prop in a prison movie) and then having it filled with the same food I’ve eaten for months now. Day in day out, it's rarely any different: rice, kimchi, side dish and something swimming in broth.

I’m especially tired of tentacles! No more tentacle soup for me please! I don’t care if it’s squid, octopus or star fish. Can one even eat star fish? Who knows. Sometimes I feel that if it walks, crawls, remains still, breathes or has gills it is being eaten somewhere in Korea. The only taboo it would seem is cannibalism.

But then a really plump kid passes me, as I’m contemplating the tentacle that I am busy chewing, and I begin to wonder, “what is this kid being fattened up for? How is it that in a country obsessed with fitness that this podgy kid is left to munch away on tuckshop snacks?”

It would be reassuring if I arrived at school one day and I was told that “today is role the fat kids down the hill day!” We would then role the fat kids down the hill, the roundest wins (of course) and he is given a lollipop to fill that grinning chubby face as we depart for our regular classes.

No discussion of Korean food, at least for a westerner, is complete without a mention of ‘boshentang’: dog soup. Boshentang, and dog meat in general, has been illegal since 1988 but is openly advertised. The consumption of dog meat is an everyday affair in Korea, certain restaurants specialise in it, but opinions about the practice diverge significantly with little middle ground. It’s either, “No that’s disgusting”, or “yes I eat it”. Somewhat unsurprisingly it’s the younger Koreans that react with disgust while older people shrug their shoulders at the affair. Sometimes I wonder whether the kids are being entirely honest with me, and I suspect that some students merely yell the answer that they expect I want.

In truth dog meat is often a specialty dish eaten by older men, in part to maintain their ‘stamina’, and so it would seem natural for younger Koreans to have no interest in the practice. When I look at the students I wonder how many of those who vehemently oppose the practice as teenagers will eventually come to eat dog meat themselves as they come to find their place in Korean society. Or is dog meat destined to become an outdated cultural relic, hidden away, and available only to the connoisseur in the know?

Certainly if the drive to embrace everything that is western continues the taste for boshentang may diminish, but then again it is difficult to predict Korea’s future. Much of Korea’s culture seems to hang in the balance: on the one side Koreans hang onto traditional values, while on the other they avidly consume every available western fashion, product and idea.

The banning of dog meat prior to the 1988 Olympics , which were held in Seoul, was itself part of the incredible balancing act. On the one hand the government banned a practice that disgusts many foreigners, but on the other Koreans have continued to consume as much as 8500 tons of dog meat a year since the banning. A further 96000 tons of dog meat is used in a medicinal tonic.

My personal feelings on boshentang are mixed and confused. I believe that we should respect differences, in culture and even take ourselves out of cultural comfort zones – ‘hey why not try that bowl of steaming boshentang? You don’t have to finish it. Just try it, it’s part of the cultural exchange’ – but eating dogs does not sit well with me.

During my last few weeks in South Africa, prior to leaving for Korea, I often laughed and joked about how I intended seeking out dog meat. Now that I am eight months into my stay in Korea, the notion of eating a dog has grown far less appealing. I know exactly where to order boshentang, it’s available no more than 500m from our apartment. I miss my dogs though which is very off putting.

I eat beef and pork, but dogs? Surely one can’t eat dogs? These are animals that were bread and nurtured over many thousands of years to love and care for people. Dogs naturally seek out human company, it’s in their nature. To eat a dog seems like a betrayal of some basic and fundamental compact.

Apart from missing my own dogs I’ve seen dogs destined for the dinner table. While teaching in Andong in January I saw dogs being transported in stacked cages on the back of a truck. They looked miserable and were packed into cages so small that the only way to get a dog into one would have been to have the dog step in and then lie down. You can’t get a sheep to step a cage and then obediently lie down. It’s impossible. Dogs are loyal though, you can coax a dog into a cage and then have it lie down. Dogs trust the person that have them do this, it’s in their nature. We bread dogs to trust us and yet some people have them step into cages that eventually lead to the dinner table.

Coincidentally procrastination, earlier today, and an interest in ‘Laugh it off’, led me down the garden path to reading about how hens are raised in USA. The stories are horrific, and there were some interesting pieces on the intelligence of chickens. (Man – when I procrastinate I procrastinate – how much further can one get from preparing classes than reading about chickens intelligence??)

All of this has got me thinking: what makes it ok to eat a chicken, cow or pig and not a dog? Why do we eat any of these animals at all, and why don’t we eat everything that breathes or has gills?

[I’m thinking of rewriting this piece and submitting it somewhere or other, any freed back or ideas who might be interested in publishing it would be appreciated.]