The Day I Ate Dog and Chicken Hearts

One of the punchlines I constantly heard over the summer in response to hearing of my impending trip to China was "So, are you going to eat dog?" As some people know, I have been begging a certain someone for a puppy for a long time, so the thought of taking a precious animal out back, killing it, slicing it up and serving it to people barbeque-style was, and still is, stomach turning. Just a point to make, they usually cook the big, ugly dogs that look almost like small bears (puppies or other dogs don't have enough meat on them to make it worth the kill). But it's still like taking the-cute-dog-with-floppy-ears' uncle out back and shooting him, hence it all traces back to the cute ones, making it a sick, sick idea.

But how does this trace back to me eating a dog? A week ago I took a trip to Yagou (see post below) and since they weren't going to provide lunch so a couple of us decided to get baozi (big balls of bread with meat and vegetables inside). My friend Jarrett and I decided to get the second one on the list. I asked him what was in it and he said he thought it was pork (the standard answer in China if you don't actually know what it is as it is most likely pork). The name was something like "香菇...包子". The first two characters mean something like fragrant mushroom. However, what made me nervous hours later and stopped me from eating any more after the one in the morning before the bus ride to the mountains was the fact that the Chinese like to shorten names of things a lot, meaning 香菇 would be lengthened to 香肉蘑菇 meaning fragrant meat (the unsuspecting and unassuming codeword for dog meat) and mushroom. (I won't even get into the implications of calling dog meat fragrant meat.) After making my case to several friends I, unfortunately, got several responses. Jarrett seemed unsure and was just glad that he ended up not eating any. Laura told me I didn't eat dog meat and to stop worrying. Andrew told me he thought it was a type of mushroom and to now worry. Charlie seemed to think it was sadly funny and that I had eaten dog.

But then later that night, after a long hike up the mountains, they took us to a German-themed, Brazilian steakhouse-style Chinese restaurant (As weird as it sounds). One of the guys with spears of meat came around and pulled off 3 small pieces of I didn't know what but looked like very small, burnt sausage. My roommate leaned over and asked if I knew it was chicken hearts. I gave her one of my over-the-top of my glasses looks and thanked her and let her know that if she hadn't told me I would have eaten it. "They make you healthy since it's a heart," she told me. And then I did what I didn't expect. I covered it with some Chinese barbeque sauce and ate one. And then I ate another. And then I told her I couldn't eat the third. But I felt something change at that moment. I'd spent so much time fearing what I had eaten to even care about the fact that for them this is life. They eat dog, they eat chicken hearts and they don't care. So why should I? I don't have to like it but I should at least respect it and not feel so disgusted when I'm put in a situation where there is simply the possibility of something a little less than kosher could end up on my plate.

Since I've been here I've spent more time complaining about this place than embracing it. And it's not that I want to be bitter. The Chinese, in their prideful arrogance, malice laced with a lack of proper education, and ridiculously impolite and frankly disgusting habits make it very easy for a person to become disillusioned with this whole environment and want to jump the next plane back to the West. And all of these bad habits combined with simple ignorance diminishes their ability to accept and understand other cultures. And that is the reason why people stare. That is the reason why when you are speaking perfectly understandable Chinese they will turned glassy-eyed and pretend that they don't comprehend. That is why you will innocently be walking down the street and if the one old lady walking in the opposite direction doesn't cross the street to avoid passing you, the two walking behind you will burst into laughter at the thought of foreigners casually walking in front of them. It seems that it will take a while for the 老百姓, regular Chinese people, to learn to do their part in any genuine sense of a cultural exchange/dialogue. But that doesn't mean I can't do mine, because, while the people of China may not be invested in the world beyond copying all the other products made in every other part of the world, the people of the world are invested in China. Even if it means they have to eat the occasional dog and chicken heart.