NOTE: There are some pretty horrible pictures on this page - please do not scroll down unless you are prepared to look at them!
Xi Chang Market. December
1997
Xichang is known as China's "space city" and is capital city of the Liangshan Yi
Nationality Autonomous Prefecture in southwestern Sichuan Province, People's Republic of
China.
These are pictures of a market area on an embankment above the river in the old part of town. At the front there are puppies and kittens for sale as pets and further back are about 100 dogs waiting to be selected by customers. When selected the vendor puts the dog in a sack and weighs it. After a price is agreed the purchaser kills his dog and butchers it (sometimes in that order, more often in the reverse order). Business was brisk with a dog being killed about ever 5 minutes. There seemed to be two techniques. The one man technique was to hit the dog twice on the head with a wooden plank which dazed it sufficiently to make it safe for him to plunge his knife into its jugular without getting bitten. He then held the dog up by the tail until it bled into unconsciousness - he would then proceed to butcher it with the dog coming in and out of consciousness. With the two man technique, one man held the dog up by her tail while the other pulled the neck back with a wire round the dog's neck. The first man was then able to reach down, again without fear of being bitten, to sever the jugular vein. Since the dog was in no way stunned, she struggled and howled and urinated until passing out. The watching dogs were also shaking and howling. The dog was flung onto her back and the butchering began - consciousness returned on lying flat but she was too weak then to struggle much. One of the men laid down his knife and put his mouth to the inside of the dog's hind leg - I couldn't see what he was doing.
What upsets me is not so much that people capable of such cruelty
exist in
China (they exist in every country) but that there are so few Chinese people
coming forward to stand on the side of the animals.
Pictures of another Chinese dog slaughterhouse here. (black and white - fast download)
More on Food Dogs.
For dog eating in Korea, please click here.
Waiting their turn:
Watching the proceedings and waiting:
Dog weighing:
Watching the show:
Dividing the spoils:
Applying his mouth to the inside of the leg:
Trembling and whining piteously as she watches:
The true meaning of vivisection:
Selecting the family roast:
Holding the animal over the edge while waiting for the blood to drain out of the neck wound (still fully conscious):
"Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity." (Shaw)
"The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom." (J. Mill)
