On one website today (teamblind.com) there is a question:” Do Chinese people hate cats 🐈?” It is not a good question because it is too generalised. What he means is do some Chinese citizens in China hate cats? The person who asked the question said that when he was a kid a neighbour’s son brought a cat back home and his parents tried to kill ‘it’. There was a fight and the cat escaped. The boy was traumatised.
Ai Weiwei, the great Chinese contemporary artist who now lives in Portugal but was raised in China said something which explains the parents’ violent reaction. He said that in his day in China people regarded domestic cats as functional. Either they were productive or eaten. And an emotional connection with a domestic cat was questionable as was compassion towards animals as they were meant to be productive. Also, they were seen as unclean physically and spiritually. Even shedding fur was a problem.
Touching on Covid
All of these thoughts seem to be rooted in communism. And this attitude is bound to lead to domestic animal abuse, and it does. And also, it has led to wild animal abuse in wet markets. The Chinese in China became too physically close to wild animals in terms of killing them for food in unregulated ways in wet markets where zoonotic diseases can be transmitted to people. Covid is the paradigm example. It is now pretty clear that it started in the Wuhan wet market at: Huanan Seafood Market, 207 Fa Zhan Da Dao, Jianghan District, Wuhan, Hubei, China, 430032.
Covid started because of a careless and cruel relationship with wild animals in which humans became exposed to diseases carried by wild animals that were able to infect humans. Abuse nature for too long and you get karma. When is China going to compensate the rest of world for their negligence by the way?
Communism
China is still a sort of communist dictatorship. Certainly, a dictatorship but is it truly communist? However, the attitude towards domestic cats is changing for the better.
Internet?
It seems that the internet has played a big part as it has opened China’s eyes to a more modern relationship with companion animals in which a mutually beneficial relationship is acceptable based on emotions and companionship.
Signs are good
China Daily reported on a cat celebrity called Soobin, meaning “crispy cookie” in English in an article titled: “Love of cats is big business”. That sounds like the West. Here is a picture of Soobin:
Five signs that things are changing – Animals Asia
Animals Asia summarises the advancements nicely in five ways that attitudes have changed in part due to their efforts.
Animal welfare is reported in Chinese news media far more than in the past. They report on animal abuse and how to be a responsible companion animal caregiver.
Importantly, too, the news media report on the ongoing cat and dog meat industry in the south which is so objectionable to most Westerners. It has started a debate in China they say. As soon as people in China start to think about the culture of brutally killing and eating cats based on unsupported superstition (that cat meat cures arthritis and so on), you begin to see the potential for progress and a change.
The say that China’s youth are more frequently speaking out about animal abuses and doing something about it. You may have heard about the rescue of huge numbers of cats and dogs from rusty cages on lorries taking them to the cat and dog meat markets.
It seems that an effective number of animal advocates within China have had enough of reading and talking about animal abuse and are taking physical action to save the animals.
Also, there are a growing number of home-grown animal welfare groups. In 2006 there were 50 groups. Today there are 150. With the help of Animals Asia, an NGO, they’ve become increasingly sophisticated. They rescue and educate.
Dog and cat ownership is growing in China indicating a growing number of animal lovers. Educated animal lovers living with cats and dogs are a great foundation for positive change towards standards of animal welfare matching that of countries like Sweden and the UK. The downside of increased cat and dog owners is that unscrupulous breeders come into the market and start up puppy and kitten mills. More animal abuse I’m afraid. There are reports of horrendous kitten/puppy mills in China.
Veterinary practices have expanded in number to service the increased number of cat owners. And importantly Animals Asia reports that “At the end of 2014 the veterinary authorities voted to include the teaching of animal welfare concepts within the national veterinary curriculum.” More positive education on animal welfare of the young can only make us hopeful that one day the obnoxious trade in cat and dog meat and cat and dog fur will end for good. It will be a long journey of change that will take decades I am afraid and in the many millions of cats and dogs will die. But let’s try and be optimistic.
Ten million cats are killed annually for cat meat. It must stop.
Brilliant, compassionate Ai Weiwei loves cats and finds them more interesting than humans
