Dog Meat
From: Nir Avieli <avieli@bgu.ac.il>
Date: Apr 9, 2006 1:23 AM
Subject: [Vsg] Dog Meat
Dear Colleagues
I am writing an article on facets of contemporary Vietnamese masculinity, based on my anthropological fieldwork in Hoi An during the last 7 years.
One intriguing phenomenon is the sudden appearence and popularity of dog-meat restaurants in the last couple of years in town. Eating dog meat in Hoi An is very much a masculine thing (though women of certain age groups and statuses also consume dog meat, but this is the exception rather than the norm).
Dog-meat eating is clearly identified by my informants as a Northern culinary habit that arrived to Hoi An (or, rather, to the Center and the South) with political cadres, other state functionaries and Northern immigrants. Indeed, my informants seem to hint that dog-meat eating has political connotations and reflects ambivalnce towards both the North and the political system (these remarks ar ambivalent-just like dog-meat eating: people are disgusted and scared yet drawn and seduced...).
what I lack is the historical context:
When did dog meat become popular in the north?
What about Chinese influence?
What is going on in other parts of the country?
I would welcome ofcourse any other idea or opinion...
thanks and happy passover
Nir
From: Vern Weitzel <vern.weitzel@undp.org>
Date: Apr 9, 2006 1:52 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Dog Meat
Here in the North (Ha Noi) dog meat is also considered unlucky,
especially at certain days of the lunar calendar.
It has also been expressed to me a 'a little silly', hence it
goes with strong wine or ruou nep.
The history of this would be interesting to explore as well.
A related issue is the kind of dog that is used for food. These
animals have been bred for eating and I am not sure if they have
other domestic uses aside from recycling garbage in a form that
makes it edible again. In this, dog-meat eating shares the pattern
of some other forms of animal consumption in the densely poppulated
North, a careful attention to maximising food production per square
meter.
VErn
From: Elise DeVido <aldi_tw@yahoo.com>
Date: Apr 9, 2006 3:01 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Dog Meat
Hi Nir:
Just some brief thoughts:
1. Dogmeat and masculinity: Because according to Chinese medicine dogmeat is very "bu" (replenishing). Males believe that they constantly need to replenish their "yang qi." Others who might eat dogmeat are the elderly or people recovering from sickness.
2. I thought of Ralph Litzinger's article about the Yao minority in China...most of their subgroups do not eat dog as it is highly taboo, BUT recently some young Yao men do (along with drinking, smoking, and general partying) as a way of conspicuous spending AND as young macho transgressions against social "norms."
See his article in Brownmiller and Wasserstrom, eds, <Chinese Femininities/Chinese Masculinities>.
3. There must be more references to this in Chinese anthropology and cultural studies... good luck!
Shalom to you this Passover,
Elise DeVido
(Natl Taiwan Normal University)
From: Markus Taussig <markustaussig@mac.com>
Date: Apr 9, 2006 6:02 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Dog Meat
I was told that eating dog reverses your luck. So if your luck is
good, you wouldn't want to eat dog. Unless it's the end of the lunar
month, when it doesn't matter, because everything starts fresh at the
beginning of the month. May have just been one man's personal way of
thinking about his own regular monthly dog consumption, though.
Something I've found interesting is the more illicit nature of dog
eating in Saigon (relative to Hanoi and the countryside). In mixed
company, dog eating seems to generally be referred to as barbaric,
but just among the guys it's usually a different story.
From: Chuck Searcy <chucksearcy@yahoo.com>
Date: Apr 9, 2006 6:28 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Dog Meat
As an aside to this discussion (I don't eat dog meat or any kind of meat for that matter), I was riding my motorbike along the dike road in Hanoi a few years ago, past the thit cho restaurants, and I noticed a pet dog, shaggy yellow hair and appearance similar to a large shepherd mutt, lying contentedly in the sun in front of a restaurant under a sign which read "dog meat" -- and behind were cages of small, short-haired dogs waiting to become lunch or dinner morsels I assumed, bred for that purpose. So the Vietnamese make a distinction between their "pets" and dog meat as an edible commodity. (I wish I had had a camera with me.)
Chuck Searcy
From: Ngan Dinh <ngandinh@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 9, 2006 9:08 AM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] Dog Meat
Not sure if this helps at all on your question about the Chinese influence, "The Food of China" (Anderson, Yale University Press 1988) does have some mentioning on 'dog as meat'.
1. Philosophy.
Mencius (Confucian, 372-289 B.C.) "is not just saying that well-fed people are better behaved - his main point is that they have the sage/ruler's good example.
'...[F]ish is what I want, bear's palm is also what I want. If I cannot have both, I would rather take bear's palm than fish. Life is what I want; dutifulness is also what I want. If I cannot have both, I would rather take dutifulness than life.'
"The Chou Li and the Li Chi, as well as the Book of Songs, tell us much about Chou dynasty's feasts and sacrifices. Sacrifices were chickens, pigs, dogs, sheep, and oxen, in descending order of abundance..."
2. History
"By 5000 B.C., the Neolithic villager's main meat animals were pigs and chickens, as they are in China today.... For the dog, cow, and goat, the last appearing about 3000 B.C. - China drew on the Near East."
3. Health Value
"There is a category of "cold" (han) foods that are quite separate from cooling foods...."Coldness" is not very salient,..., such foods are thought to give one a cold feeling in the stomach or to make the body actually feel icy. They are the opposite not of heating foods in general, but of those specific heating foods that are standardly used in winter to make one feel warm: dog meat, snake meat, guava, and the like."
On a second note, I am not from Hoi An (I am from Ha Noi), I thought your connection between eating dog meat and masculinity quite interesting and a bit surprising. You will notice that 'thit cho' often goes with 'bia hoi' (dog meat and beer). This may have something to do with the 'cooling foods' and 'heating foods' mentioned above. If that's the factor that gives rise to men's masculinity - then the question is not only on the material or history of dog meat, but rather the 'culture of eating dog meat.' If women, and probably some men eat dog to enjoy it (in which case dog meat is a consumption good), the other men eat dog and drink beer to feel good and feel the power to do other things, then dog meat is not only a consumption but also a production good.
Finally, while going to the bar doesn't seem to be a gendered activity in the west (at least the U.S.), going for 'bia hoi' is predominantly a men's thing. I might be wrong. Please correct.
-Ngan
From: Oscar Salemink <OJHM.Salemink@fsw.vu.nl>
Date: Apr 9, 2006 11:26 AM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] Dog Meat
From observations over the years, in Vietnam dog eating was primarily a northern phenomenon, but it spread throughout the coutnry with migration of northerners to the center and south in the 1950s and after 1975. But in the south it is often frowned upon. Dog eating was and still is a largely male thing because of its association with (sexual) potency ('hot' food). However, during the past 10 years or so dog meat has become more and more a women's thing as well. Just like 'bia hoi' and 'nhau' has become a more or less respectable Friday afternoon thing for male and female office employees, dog meat has become attractive for women who want to show that they are nothing less outgoing and daring than men. BTW, dog meat is also popular with young expats who like to shock 'home audiences' by going native and riding their Minsk motorbikes to the dogmeat dike.
There is a special breed of dogs for eating, and before slaughtering the dog has to be made angry or afraid, for the adrenaline seems to make the meat more tasty (like Chuck I don't know from personal experience). While dogs as pets and as food are generally distinguished, 'pet-dogs' are not always excluded from the menu. As a former dog owner in Hanoi I know that one's dog can run the tisk of being 'dognapped'. One can sometimes see such dognappers ride their bicycle with round cage at the back and with a device to put around the neck of the unlucky dog. How often this actually happened or happens, I would not know.
Oscar Salemink
From: Le Dong Phuong <phuong@fpt.vn>
Date: Apr 9, 2006 6:05 PM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] Dog Meat
From observations over the years, in Vietnam dog eating was primarily a northern phenomenon, but it spread throughout the coutnry with migration of northerners to the center and south in the 1950s and after 1975. But in the south it is often frowned upon.
--> False.
Eating dog meat is a traditional feast for longer than imaginary. It is spread to the South along with the Vietnamese while expanding the vietnamese border to the south.
Dog eating was and still is a largely male thing because of its association with (sexual) potency ('hot' food).
--> Not true. Dog meat is talked as containing much 'energy' but did not related to sexuality (unlike goat meat which is.
However, during the past 10 years or so dog meat has become more and more a women's thing as well. Just like 'bia hoi' and 'nhau' has become a more or less respectable Friday afternoon thing for male and female office employees, dog meat has become attractive for women who want to show that they are nothing less outgoing and daring than men. BTW, dog meat is also popular with young expats who like to shock 'home audiences' by going native and riding their Minsk motorbikes to the dogmeat dike.
There is a special breed of dogs for eating, and before slaughtering the dog has to be made angry or afraid, for the adrenaline seems to make the meat more tasty (like Chuck I don't know from personal experience).
-->No. Any kind of dog could be used. But the traditional Vietnamese (ie. on the country side) prefer the normal dog instead of the Chinese or japaneses breads.
From: Erica Peters <e-peters-9@alumni.uchicago.edu>
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Date: Apr 9, 2006 11:53 PM
Subject: [Vsg] Re: Dog Meat
Here are some citations on eating dog meat, for historical context. I for one would be eager to see other quotes, if people have collected them. List readers are welcome to bring to bear their own assessments of the reliability of the various authors:
British traveller John Barrow, in Cochinchina in 1792-93: "They eat dog meat as in China, and frogs are part of their regular diet."
French missionary La Bissachère, in north-central Vietnam around 1800: "The Tonkinese are exempt from prejudices about food ... they find good and healthy the flesh of Dogs, Cats, mountain rats, Horses, monkeys, elephants and tigers. Dog meat is considered the most delicious and is the most expensive. A European has to force himself to eat it the first time, and one is nauseated by the idea; but once used to it, one no longer has trouble eating it."
British envoy John Crawfurd, in Saigon in 1822: "There are [...] other [articles] for sale in the market of Saigun, not so well suited to the European taste, such as the flesh of dogs and alligators. These, indeed, are in little esteem, and not eaten by persons of any consideration."
Henri Mouhot, in Cambodia in 1859:
[Speaking of "Annamites" in general] "Their dirtiness surpasses anything I have ever seen, and their food is abominably nasty. Rotten fish and dog’s flesh are their favorite diet.”
H. Aurillac, published Cochinchine: Annamites, Moïs, Cambodgiens in 1870: "Many have spoken of the Chinese and Annamites having a taste for dog meat. It is true. We have attended meals of this nature, and we can say that if we were disagreeably impressed, it was less by the sight of that faithful quadruped's flesh, than by the simplicity of its preparation. After having first scraped it like a pig, they skewer it without other formalities, and roast it on the fire, without even gutting it!"
A. Bouinais & A. Paulus, published L’Indochine française contemporaine: Cochinchine, Cambodge, in 1885: "The people are not very delicate in their diet. [...] Everything is edible for them: dogs, cats, rats, bats, snakes, silkworms, swallows' nests."
Michel My, published Le Tonkin Pittoresque in 1925 (explaining Tonkin for his fellow southerners):
"We now arrived at the stalls of "edible dogs" [chiens comestibles]
Dear readers, don't be startled to read these words, edible dogs. I was not mistaken. [...]
-- What? I asked. Dog meat is sold here, in the middle of the marketplace?
-- Yes, replied Loulou. [...] Everyone eats it in Tonkin.
-- In Cochinchina, if someone wants to indulge in this caprice of eating dog meat, they hide as if they were committing a bad deed. They only invite their closest friends to this sort of banquet, which is always held in the countryside, far from other people.
-- Here, nothing is more natural than to transform into sausages the puppy one petted the night before."
Regards,
Erica