Yang Xiaoyun set an example of kindness to millions of Chinese
As Novye Izvestiya writes, the "dog meat festival" has been held since 2010 on the summer solstice. At this time, thousands of dog meat lovers from all over China come here to taste their favorite dish, seasoned with tropical lychee fruits. The victims of the "gourmands" over two June days for the sixth year in a row have been about 10,000 dogs.
This year, the number of dogs killed could have been nearly a hundred more, if not for a fragile elderly woman. 65-year-old Yang Xiaoyun came from Tianjin, having traveled 2,000 km. The former teacher walked around the huge market for a long time and selected about a hundred dogs. She paid about 7,000 yuan (approximately 1,100 dollars) for them. The elderly animal defender intends to take the rescued animals home, where she runs a shelter for dogs and cats.
Yang Xiaoyun's action attracted the attention of all Chinese, and the media in many countries wrote about it. Yang has loved animals since childhood. She became an ardent defender of "our smaller brothers" in 1995 after the sudden death of her husband. Since then, this little woman has saved more than 3,000 dogs and about the same number of cats – they too are sometimes eaten during the Yulin festival.
Despite the fact that abroad they learned about Yang Xiaoyun only now, she comes to Yulin not for the first time. For example, last year she saved 360 dogs and dozens of cats. Last year's trip to Yulin cost her 150,000 yuan, reminds the newspaper People's Daily. Yang conducts extensive advocacy work. She dreams of opening a dog breeding center and a vegetarian restaurant in Yulin.
Such cases are rare, but still not that uncommon. Publications in many countries described another amazing case that happened in Beijing in April 2010. One citizen noticed a truck on the highway that contained more than 500 dogs. The animals were clearly being taken to slaughter. He immediately sent a message over the Internet calling to stop the truck. Soon, a crowd of about 200 animal defenders blocked the truck's path. They behaved, by the way, quite decently. The Beijingers did not free the animals by force. They bought them out, collecting more than 17,000 dollars.
The tradition of eating dog meat in China goes back centuries. The Chinese began eating dog meat around 500 BC. However, historians believe that wolves in the south of the country began to be domesticated for food much earlier. During the heyday of the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), dog meat was considered a great delicacy in the Celestial Empire. But in subsequent centuries, it went out of fashion. During the Sui and Tang dynasties (581–907), eating dogs was considered a disgusting habit. In later centuries, the Chinese also treated dogs more as helpers and friends, rather than as a source of food. Nevertheless, now there are plenty of dog meat fans in the country. Every year in China, up to 20 million dogs are killed for food!
In the country, there is still a widespread belief that dog meat is beneficial for men's health, especially on the summer solstice – it supposedly increases potency. Although doctors claim that this is not the case, no one is going to close the festival in Yulin, despite the fact that a petition demanding an end to killing dogs has collected over 4 million signatures.