Well, it takes all kinds, s you know, some Chinese eat dogs; dog production for eating has in China been a cottage industry; dog meat is considered by some as a source of meat for specific medicinal benefits attributed to various parts of a dog and as it keeps body warm during winter, is also eaten in Siberia, Alaska, northern Canada, and Greenland! Vietnamese too took after the Chinese with many believing that Dog meat is supposed to raise the libido but as always whilst considered suitable for males, is not for women. Years ago, I’ve seen people people eating monkeys’ brains – supposed to make them intelligent! Talking about cruelty, the poor monkey had its ‘shaved’ head inserted through a hole in the middle of the table, and these connoisures took a small hammer and banged its head (whilst it was still alive), cracked its skull and mixed alchohol with the brain before dipping their spoons into it – yuk! If you think that strange, ask Undergrad2 whether or not its true that there are restaurants in New York that serve “exotic” foods, like worms, crickets, scorpions, tarantulas, maggots, and ants. :)

Dogs are viewed as man’s best friend, so its perhaps considered cruel and barbaric to mistreat or eat them. But what about eating silk worms (normally reared for silk) and all kinds of other worms, rabbits, turtles, scorpions, cockroaches, ants – is that cruelty to animals? Even in the case of normal diet – fish – when I was in Beijing, they’ve got this fish which they wrapped a wet cloth around its head and dipped the whole body into boiling oil and when it was served on the plate with its body fried golden brown, its head appeared still alive with the gills and mouth moving…, I asked them if it was not cruel, and they replied that fish was not sentient ie had no nerves to feel pain – just like crustaceans eg shrimps that, in Chinese restaurants, are sometimes served by being poured live into a hot pan of boiling oil before the customers. I asked them that if they were not fish or shrimps how would they know that they felt no pain. Cruelty or otherwise is also relative to culture – and religious practices. The method of animal slaughter used by Jews and Muslims to ensure Kosher and Halal meat respectively appall the animal rights groups : it is a single cut to the throat for the cow rather than the more widespread method of stunning with a bolt into the head before slaughter. You’d recall some backbenchers slaughtered six cows and ten goats in the compound of our august Parliament House on July 10 this year, just to celebrate the recent wedding of Pak Lah and Jeanne Abdullah! Do you know how hooded Islamic terrorists in Iraq sometimes kill their hostages in halal way? The victims were placed facing a certain specific direction, had their throats slit by a single cut, they take several minutes to bleed to death!

I’ve said it before and would again that the problem of “mentality” in the civil service and municipal authorities (the positions in which are by appointments and not election) could be ameliorated only if the government sumons the political will to make it a point to impose a racial quota (say, 55% Malays, 25% Chinese 12% Indians with balance for others) to ensure a multiracial mix in these places reflective of that existing in wider socierty. It is through mixing in the work place with people of different races that people become more tolerant and sensitive to others’ different outlook, values and culture, and when they make and enforce rules affecting our lives, they would be skewed and tunnel visioned.