Seoulscapade

It’s six months on and I’m in the Seoul groove of being constantly busy. I’ve also moved from my tiny studio to another more permanent tiny studio on campus. The pictures here are of that. Now it only takes me about six minutes to get to work by hiking over a hill. It’s an ideal situation

I’ve still been keeping myself busy meeting up with girls. Nothing much has come of it, but it has given me some interesting if not bizarre experiences. I went out for a date with a girl a few months ago to a busy shopping district, where we had dinner. It was an average Korean restaurant and I was unfamiliar with what they had so I just let her choose. As usual the tables had an inserted round gas cooker on which pans are set for cooking. For many dishes you do it yourself.

So the side dishes were bought and a glass-covered fry pan full of uncooked vegetables was set on the cooker. The women set the cooker alight and it was only then that I noticed something was moving on the food in the pan. I looked down and was appalled to see two octopuses squirming about–presumably freshly plucked from a water tank. It didn’t take long to put two and two together.

But the situation demanded that I keep it cool. The creatures were doomed in any case. As the heat increased so did their obvious alarm, panic and no doubt pain. Soon their tentacles were becoming seared stuck on the pan surface, disabling movement. One tentacle reached out under the glass lid and clasped the outer rim of the pan seeking escape. Eventually they shook rapidly as the heat boiled their insides, their flesh turning to rubber. The waitress returned with a large pair of scissors and cut them to pieces.

It was not a quick death. And would I be wrong in saying that their tentacles are packed with nerve endings? The thing that gets to me is the suffering involved. Just because an animal doesn’t scream doesn’t mean it isn’t in pain. It’s now agreed that octopus have an advanced intelligence, some say equal to that of a dog. Such thoughts were running through my mind as I watched.

The dumb bitch I was with was oblivious. Of course, it has probably been a part of her culture for a while, which is another reason why it wasn’t my place to be getting upset. But, on the other hand, cruelty is cruelty, and to hell with tradition. I have since then exercised the option of avoiding such an unpalatable start to a meal. At that time, I ensured that absolutely nothing would be wasted.

Other foreigners seek out this mealtime spectacle, I suppose to engage with what they interpret as some kind of exotic experience. You see the same kind of pathetic indulgence in other countries, too, tourists drinking snake blood in Vietnam or watching headless chicken theatre in Bali, etc. Personally, I will never cease to be disgusted by any cheap thrill that involves the death of an animal. I also include the human animal in this proclamation—that’s how fair I am.

At this point, I would like to say a thing or two about those foreigners here, usually males, who seem to gloat about eating dog and seem disappointed if they don’t get a reaction of distaste from those they tell. For I imagine they long to launch into explaining the meat-is-meat cliche and sound so very worldly while doing it. Of course, they’re missing the point. Many dogs here have wretched lives, and cats, too (you’ll find info on the web, but be warned, some sites are graphic).

In some cases, even their deaths are what no living thing should have to go through. As far as I know most dogs are electrocuted, as pigs are. However, there is a practice of hanging them; they are also sometimes beaten and tortured prior to or during that process to raise adrenaline levels, which supposedly makes the meat taste better. Cats, it has been reported, are boiled alive so that some “medicinal” fluid can be extracted.

It’s all a shameful business, and the people involved at the dirty end of it are not really respected by anyone—even though there is a market that demands their services. When at a market recently I saw dog carcasses on display, some halved, some quartered, and a couple of whole dogs—stiff and red skinned from searing, their faces frozen in a death grimace.

Why do people eat dog? Well, it’s alleged to improve vitality or something. At office functions men traditionally go off and chow down on Fido. Given such customs, it’s amazing the extent to which dogs are otherwise loved in Korea in a way that doesn’t involving chucking them in a pot. There’s even a “Dog’s Life” magazine that can be seen everywhere. Most dogs you see are small cute ones, predominantly owned by young women.

They are more often than not carried everywhere and seem quite use to it. Sometimes their ears and tails are dyed. I saw one once with long rainbow coloured ears and tail, wearing a matching rainbow vest. Pet shops invariably have young pups in the window but you also get the street sellers, sometimes in subways with a load of pups in a box. The later flesh traders are a worry, as the pups sometimes appear too young to have been separated from their mothers.

Puppies being sold in the street. One thing I hate to see.