2019.12.02 11:18
2019.12.02 11:35
2019.12.03 12:32
Dr. Lee
I used to be so vocal openly condemning dogmeat eaters following such traumatic experience during my early childhood - one of old customs in KyungSangDo was to serve the dogmeat to visiting father in law and naturally one of the dogs had to be sacrificed. Indeed, while we were at YoungChon, my home village to avoid possible B-29 bombing to Seoul one year before WWII was ended, my mother side grandfather visited to our house and my dog was helplessly sacrificed which I didn't know a couple of days. I was furious and did not forgive my parents for years though they immediately brought a new dog almost identical to the old one!
So I simply hated the people to eat the dogmeat. Indeed, during my residency at SNUH in '60, one of the rituals after the surgery was to go to dogmeat restaurant after the operation almost routinely as a team altogether, often hosted by the patient family. But I never had dogmeat but instead ate goat or chicken.
Well, when I went to Chungquing in early '90 for the first time, the host took us to a special place to taste nationally known delicacy and soon learned it was specially raised dogmeat! I learned they keep/call the dog raised for the meat as "gu" while other dogs called to "gyun". So I learned Chinese eat the meat of certain kind of dog raised for such unique purpose and I presume Koreans got this custom from Chinese. Further, one of the unique dishes served in French quarter in Hanoi, Vietnam was also dogmeat as well! Believe me, the meat was literally melt in the mouth!
So I stopped my open critism to the dogmeat eaters.
BB Lee of '63 Class
This is a heart warming story that all dog meat eating Koreans must read.
As the story says, the interest of Koreans' dog meat eating is steadily declining,
which is indeed a good news, although I wish the government somehow outlaws
the practice and stops it immediately.
One of things that makes Koreans feel ashamed has been the dog meat eating tradition
of Korea. I remember a few times I blushed when my American friends brought the question
up to me. People in the west think indeed that only the barbarians will do such a thing, I believe.