In Phnom Penh in the late 1960's when I was an early teenager I heard that the Vietnamese in Vietnam ate dogs, openly. Although I was still young I immediately believed that this practice was a result of a lengthy war. War makes lives of all ordinary people a very difficult struggle. People need to eat. If they have nothing to eat & they have dogs or can afford to get them, they'll inevitably eat them.
Surely enough, in Cambodia, starting from 1972, only 2 years after the war started, the eating of dogs began. A story. In Phnom Penh, 1 day in 1974, about 6 pm, I was with a group of people in an open-air market, which was already almost empty, just east of the Soriya cinema (not my cinema!! d'ohh!! ha haaaaaaaaa!!). Then we heard the painful scream of a dog. We looked in the direction of the scream. We saw a man, about 50 years old, sitting on his bed in his tiny home on an edge of & inside the market, at a distance of approximately 30 metres from us, holding the top of a closed big bag containing something in it in his left hand, the bottom of the bag resting on the ground, & a big stick on his right hand. There were a few other people in his home, who we believed were members of his family. We knew right away that that something in the bag was a dog & that he was killing it for food. Realizing that we looked at him, he appeared to be a little ashamed, & stopped beating the dog, which was probably already unconscious because there was scream no more. Realizing his emotion, understanding his miserable conditions, & having compassion for him & his family, we turned our eyes away from him & pretended to see & hear nothing. He & his family must have been a few of the 100s of 1,000s of war refugees in Phnom Penh. I believed that he felt a little ashamed because at that time the eating of dogs was still a new routine & as yet not very many people did it. That's a personal story. As of now I still have compassion for him whenever I recall that story, even though I never knew him. In general, it was well known that more & more people ate dogs, in Phnom Penh or elsewhere in Cambodia. Before 1970, there were also people in Cambodia who ate dogs & even cats. But there were so few of them that practically their number could be & was considered as negligible. People who're against eating dogs should consider these: - If you can eat cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, fish, etc, then why can't other people eat dogs?? - If dogs are your pets, then cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, fish, etc, are other people's pets. Cows are even more than pets: they've been helping man in his agriculture all over the world & throughout history, & still so even today in many countries. They're so important to man that Hinduism even "promoted" them to the status of a "god", clearly to frighten people into respecting & not eating them!! - If you love dogs, then other people love cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, fish, etc. - If you're a vegetarian, you shouldn't try to impose your beliefs & values on other people, as you have no right to do so. - Some people shed their tears for the freedom of whales & dolphins but when they come home they eat cows or pigs or even fish like tunas or salmons or mackerels. They're hypocrites. - Some people even demand that fishermen on the high seas who catch tunas must avoid touching whales & dolphins, which now are no longer endangered species!! How hypocrite that is!! As if the life of a whale or a dolphin were more precious than that of a tuna or a cow!! That's a discriminatory attitude!! Which is a part of the root of racism. I don't eat dogs. However I don't try to impose my habit of not eating dogs on other people. Soriya --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cambodia Discussion (CAMDISC) - www.cambodia.org" group. This is an unmoderated forum. Please refrain from using foul language. Thank you for your understanding. Peace among us and in Cambodia. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/camdisc Learn more - http://www.cambodia.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
