South Korea. Travel. Culture.
South Korea — Don’t They Eat Dog There?
A simple question with a complex answer
So you’re a dog in Korea, life could go one of two ways. Either you’re all dressed up for dinner, or well, you are dinner.
If you are a handbag-sized dog, fluffy and white, congratulations, you have won the coin toss of life. Heads, you are a pet.
One of my favourite past times in Korea is laughing at funny little dogs in silly little outfits. It’s more strange to see a dog WITHOUT a jacket than with one. Someone call the police for indecent exposure; that dog is NAKED!
I’ve seen it all. T-shirts, shoes, denim shorts, jumpers, dungarees, backpacks, dresses, jaunty hats. The list goes on. And it doesn’t stop with clothing; I’ve often seen a dog with a fluffy purple dip-dyed tail — even makeup and jewelery. I’ve seen dogs with little circles of pink blusher dyed onto their cheeks and a bead necklace. But my personal favorite was a white dog with thick black eyebrows drawn on it, and it looked so surprised! Two hours later, I was still giggling to myself whenever I thought about it.
As most people live in apartments, it’s unusual to see larger breeds of dogs on the streets. When you do, they are admired and respected. Koreans love and dote on their pets; they are often very spoiled. If you cannot have a pet, you can go to a cat or dog café to spend an afternoon petting them.
What about the other side of the coin? If you are a larger sized dog, mainly the Korean breeds Nureongi (누렁이) or Hwanggu (황구), I’m sorry it looks like you’ve lost.
I lived in a place in Busan called Gupo, which has a huge outdoor market. This market had a prominent animal section or, more precisely, dog section. Now I have walked through this section of the market, and it was jarring. I saw live dogs in cages next to dead dogs in glass cabinets with their chest cavity split open and ribs exposed. Not your average shopping trip. Upon doing a little research for this article, I was happy to hear that the Grupo dog market closed down in 2019. I also read that many other large markets and slaughterhouses have closed down.
I know this can bring up a big debate about why it is considered OK to eat some animals and not others. I can’t answer that question. I love dogs and their sweet, kind nature, and it doesn’t sit right with me. My vegetarian friend cried and refused to go anywhere near this section of the market.
Eating dogs (Gaegogi) is believed to have medicinal properties, especially in virility. Still, it is not commonplace in modern Korea to see it on restaurant menus. Attitudes of the younger generation are changing. There’s been a rise of animal rights groups in Korea. The government is closing down large operations to clear up its image. Through this, I believe and I hope that eating dog will become a thing of the past.
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Georgina Nelson. Traveller. Writer. Photographer. Yoga teacher.
Sh*t Happens — because the things that go wrong make the funniest stories.
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