Challenging the ancient tradition of eating dogs

 BEIJING - Some Chinese animal welfare groups are challenging an old Chinese tradition that has a history thousands of years old - eating dogs.
Citing health reasons and animal rights, the groups are resorting to advertisements and social campaigns to persuade people from eating dogs - an effort that is, however, irritating meat traders and fans of the cuisine, popular in northeastern and southern parts of China.
Fang Dan, director of the publicity department of Ta Foundation, a private foundation for animal welfare, said that videos calling for people to give up eating dogs are being broadcast 20 times a day on nine of Beijing's outdoor advertising screens and screens of many office buildings.
Celebrities were invited by the foundation to be part of the videos. In one video, Zhang Yue, one of China's most celebrated presenters, said that the dog meat sold in China is "not quarantined and contains large amounts of bacteria", so people should not eat it.
Ta Foundation plans to have more videos broadcast on televisions to change people's "nasty habit" of eating dogs and cats.
Unlike many Western countries where dog meat is banned, eating dogs in China dates back to the Neolithic Age. Eating dogs, especially in winter, is socially acceptable as people believe the meat has medicinal qualities and can help combat diseases such as cold.
In Compendium of Materia Medica, the encyclopedic work on traditional Chinese medicine written during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), four prescriptions containing dog meat were recorded.
Eating dogs is also especially popular among some ethnic groups, such as Koreans.
Jin Meihua, deputy director of Jilin Provincial Academy of Social Sciences' Center for Northeast Asian Studies, said that it is common for people in the autonomous prefecture of Yanbian, Northeast China's Jilin province, to consume dog meat.
"It's a tradition; it's part of life ... it has never caused any controversy here," said Jin, who is from the Korean ethnic group.