I'd say we're about 50 meters from where all those live dogs are being sold.
And just down here you've got this.
I'm just watching a bunch of people roasting their dogs.
Oh my God!
[MUSIC]
The annual dog meat festival upsets practically everyone who
isn't taking part in it.
>> [FOREIGN_LANGUAGE].
>> Animal rights activists say the dog meat trade is cruel, unhygienic, and
poorly regulated.
But stolen pets and strays make their way to the dinner table.
Despite all this, and spurred on by a fierce backlash from across China,
some Yulin locals say that this year,
they're even more set on plowing down man's best friend by the cageful.
Yulin is a town of six million, not far from China's southern border of Vietnam.
We arrived the day before summer solstice, and
everyone was getting ready to celebrate by killing some dogs.
So we're just heading down to Dongkou Shﾃｬchﾇ始g,
which is one of the main meat markets here in Yulin.
It's where a lot of people of Zei Beng buy their meat.
So I'm hoping there'll be
guys buying dogs in preparation for the festival.
Oh my god.
>> [FOREIGN].
>> The smell is just.
I don't know.
Cuz it's meaty.
It's like horribly, horribly meaty.
And it's kind of mixed with that familiar, don't eat smell.
It just really turns your stomach.
But, you know, I didn't hang out at meat markets that often.
And a lot of Chinese meat markets to be fair, are pretty explicit.
So, maybe, this is normal, maybe my stomach would be turned
anyway even if I didn't see see so many dead dogs.
>> [FOREIGN].
>> [NOISE].
>> Where do they come from?
>> [NOISE]
[FOREIGN].
>> So when I just asked the guy delivering the dogs where they came from,
he said they're from Guizhou outside of the province.
But no one seems to be able to give me an exact answer of where these dogs are from.
>> [FOREIGN]
>> Everything must go into whatever they're cooking.
Cuz there's, they're just, kind of, blindly chopping.
I'm really scared to open my mouth cuz I think that there's gonna, like,
be dog meat going, so I don't-
>> [FOREIGN].
>> It seems like people are very much aware of the bad name that they're getting
for eating dog, but they're very defensive and quite hostile towards us.
On the other hand, they say that it's their right to eat dog
because living conditions have got better in China, they're able to eat dog more and
they're not forcing anyone else to eat them.
[MUSIC]
The butchery is bleak enough, but it's the downtown market where people are buying
the freshest locally sourced produce, that really messes with your head.
>> So these, actually, to be fair,
look more like the kind of dogs I was expecting to be bred for eating.
Apart from that guy over there who looks simply like my bichon frise.
[MUSIC]
>> [FOREIGN].
>> I thought I was talking to a pet.
And then she said, yeah, someone wants to buy him, I'll sell him for food.
>> [FOREIGN].
>> It's a business, they want to sell the pets whether they're as pets or
whether they're as meat, they just want to sell them.
>> Shandai is an activist spearheading the anti dog festival movement.
I caught her wandering around the market, looking teary.
>> So what are you doing here today?
>> Well today I'm checking the markets,
checking the data about the dog cat meat trade.
According to our investigation, dogs and cats was killed in the dog meat festival.
It's over 50,000 piece.
>> Wow.
>> Yeah, very huge.
>> Over 50,000, and so that, but that's dogs and cats.
>> Yeah, it includes some cats, they are about 10,000 pieces.
>> So about 40,000 dogs killed.
>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, uh-huh.
>> So do you think the festival is bigger than it was last year?
>> I don't think it's bigger than last year.
I think the Yulin government has done something, and it worked.
We also can find some, it was controlled step-by-step.
>> Mm-hm.
>> But however, in this dog trade markets,
I just wonder because this is not a legal trade.
This volume is not so small.
>> Mm-hm.
>> Yeah, and I found some dogs was old and sick.
And you might get some sick.
So I think you could get the most strict control here.
>> Can you just explain to us?
You said they're illegal.
Can you explain that?
>> The trading here is illegal because you don't think to any supervision here.
There's no evidence showing that this is belonging to the trader.
Do you have any demonstrations planned or anything for today?
>> I think maybe later we'll do it, yeah.
[MUSIC]
>> We're just on our way over to the city government.
We've heard that there are animal rights protesters demonstrating over there.
I have to say up to now their attempts have been a little bit shambolic.
So not quite sure what to expect.
>> Facing a PR nightmare this year,
the city government has retracted its support of the festival.
Claiming the holiday barely even exists, and they clearly don't want any
fuss being made because before the protest even started,
the square was full of thugs who might well have been hired to disrupt the event.
In China, unsanctioned protests are still illegal, and
animal rights activists are risking arrest simply for demonstrating.
[MUSIC]
>> [FOREIGN_LANGUAGE].
>> So it's a very nervous atmosphere at the moment.
>> [FOREIGN].
With no government officials showing up, and
little progress in the heated shouting match, the protest is dissolved.
[MUSIC]
Ultimately, I wanted to see if a dog meat festival is really as
heartbreaking as it sounds.
We've been invited to celebrate the festival with a local family,
who were probably a little weirded out that their traditional party had drawn
such deep condemnation from across China and abroad.
So we've come to a village just outside of Yulin.
It feels very relaxed compared to the city.
I feel I could just step back in time a bit.
[MUSIC]
This guy here belongs to the neighbors.
They brought it along just in case there wasn't enough meat to feed the 100 guests.
[NOISE].
>> [FOREIGN_LANGUAGE].
>> The dogs been in this guy's family for the last five or six years, so
he doesn't want it to die because he quite likes the dog.
But when I asked him if he was gonna eat dog today he's like, yep.
[LAUGH].
>> [FOREIGN_LANGUAGE].
>> I'm seeing four dead dogs inside boxes.
[NOISE]
[FOREIGN]
Aw, sorry.
Aw.
[NOISE] It's really hard cause there's a lot
of family watching, so don't want to wanna look too rude but
basically they're cleaning the head.
They're cutting the head open and taking the meat out of the like,
cheeks of the dog's head.
[NOISE]
Quite clear that nothing is going to waste here, which I guess is a good thing.
I mean if you're gonna kill a dog you may as well eat the entirety of it and
it definitely seems like that's happening.
[NOISE] [NOISE]
Oh my god, they're even saving the tongue.
So we've got three different types of dog coming along.
One of them is being deep fried, this one is being stewed.
And we can go and take a look at this one.
[FOREIGN]
So we've got to
add a bit of ginger.
[FOREIGN]
These are the spices that they use,
it's a dog spice, so specifically designed for cooking dog meat.
Inside we've got like dried tangerine pill, we've got some bay leaf,
a bit of anise and a bit of cloves.
So, oh, and some spice as well.
So, yeah, all sorts of flavors go in there.
Quite strong flavors, actually.
They said that's partly to disguise the smell of like the slightly fishy fragrance
that comes out of it, so for some reason I'm not so freaked out anymore.
I feel like, okay, the dogs are dead.
It's just piles and piles of meat, which I can handle.
[MUSIC]
The vibe was actually nicer than you'd imagine.
Everyone was getting pissed on lychee liquor and crates of beer.
Well, thankfully, the neighbors' dog is spared from going in the pot.
[MUSIC]
Looks like maybe a quarter of the dog, I'm just psyching myself up.
I've got every single person's eyes looking at me here I feel like
I'd be incredibly rude if I refused, and, what the hell, when in Rome.
>> [FOREIGN].
>> Okay one at a time.
[LAUGH]. >> [FOREIGN_LANGUAGE].
>> yeah, I mean.
>> [FOREIGN_LANGUAGE].
>> Okay, oh my god, fuck it.
>> [FOREIGN_LANGUAGE].
>> It's kinda, a little bit like, beef or lamb, that kind of texture.
Oh, but I have to say, it's kind of that,.
>> [FOREIGN].
>> Distinct smell that is, kind of, lurking in my mouth still.
>> Alarm bells are going off in my head saying, I just ate a dog,
I just ate a dog, I just
[LAUGH]
ate a dog. >> [FOREIGN].
>> Obviously, squeamishness aside, eating dog isn't really that
different from eating any other animal with four legs and two eyes.
But frankly, the idea of slaughtering dogs that spent their last days in
cages still bums me out.
Which is why I'm happy that there are some people out here who will do
anything to save them.
The next morning,
we caught up with an activist who's just saved a whole bunch of them.
She's kind of the Oskar Schindler of the dog trade.
>> [FOREIGN].
>> Oh my God!
Do you recognize that dog?
That was the dog that I saw yesterday that was supposed to go for the chop.
[FOREIGN].
[MUSIC]
It's come as no surprise that the dogs sold in Yulin are often kept in
cramped conditions and treated no better than any other animal raised for meat.
I really don't think I'll be eating dog again, but it's easy to see why
the people who celebrate the festival don't want to give up their tradition.
The thing is though, dogs are dogs.
They're Lassie and they're Snowy, and they're both Lady and the Tramp.
Which is why frustratingly for the dog traders,
I really can't see the planet ever letting this festival pass without an outrage.
[MUSIC]