Eating dog dumplings

Please don’t hate me because I eat dog dumplings.  I hope by saving three puppies from a burning home that makes up for what I did... but in my defense I was confused by the Chinese characters and ordered dog instead of pork.  I should have known something was amiss when the waiter looked at me with a cocked eyebrow and said, “really?”  But what kind of restaurant puts dog dumplings on the menu anyways?!  Never in a million years did that cross my mind.  So, how did I know I was eating dog and not pork?  Because there’s a real difference.  Pork tastes like pork and dog tastes like dog.  Simple as that.

On a related note, one time I was walking through the main drag of Changchun with a student of mine and we were talking about cultural differences between the US and China.  That’s not at all uncommon for expats to do, so don’t be judgmental.  As we were walking down the street we came across a North Korean restaurant.  Outside the restaurant was a slaughtered dog on the sidewalk.  Next to the slaughtered dog was a North Korean, in a smock, smoking a cigarette with a look of satisfaction on his face.  “I just did that to this dog, it’s fresh, can’t you see?  Come to my restaurant and enjoy some fresh dog meat”, he seemed to say.  It was pure culture shock 101.  I turned to my student and told her so.  Her response? Culture shock for her too.

At a famous dumpling restaurant in Xian, where the dumplings look like what's inside: order chicken and they look like chicken, beef dumplings look like a cow etc... dog dumplings are mostly found in NE China, but wouldn't it be morbidly cool if they were served in the shape of a dog?

Now that I’m comfortably back home in the US, where I’m as far away from dog meat as possible, I can reflect on those good times.  With my golden retriever next to me.  She’s fattened up over the last few months.  Mwuhaha!!