Food and cultures in South Korea: animal welfare and food traditions in conflict

By Giancarlo Anello

The recent legislative ban on the consumption of dog meat

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SEOUL-After years of domestic and international political debate, South Korea's parliament has passed a law banning the breeding of dogs, their slaughter and the sale of their meat for food. Under the new measures, banned activities will be punishable by penalties of up to three years in prison or fines of up to $23,000. The law will take effect after a three-year transitional phase, during which producers and restaurateurs will be eligible for economic subsidies and find other employment. According to a survey last year, only 8% of Koreans had eaten dog meat in the past 12 months, down 27% from 2015. Less than one-fifth of respondents had said they were in favor of eating this kind of food. Nevertheless, to date, government statistics attest to the existence of about 1,150 dog farms, 34 butcher shops, 219 distributors and about 1,600 restaurants selling dog meat foods. The law was approved by majority and opposition and thus resolved a querelle that had lasted since the 1980s, which originated at the time of the Seoul Olympic Games. Similar protest campaigns had characterized other Korean international events, such as the 2002 World Cup (co-hosted with Japan) and the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

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Dog meat in the traditional Korean diet

In Korea, the consumption of dog meat dates back to 1300, with the Choson Dynasty. This type of meat is used as food and was used in the past as medicine. Such consumption is culturally based on the belief that pet dogs and meat dogs belong to different species of dogs. Dog meat can be found year-round and throughout the country, but it is traditionally consumed during the summer months, especially during the sultriest days of the year, called “boknal” (dog days). Dog meat is considered a “hot food” and, according to a popular saying, it is possible to “fight fire with fire”. Some recipes are “bosintang” (invigorating soup) and “gaesoju” (dog liquor).
However, the practice of eating dog meat is common to many other Asian countries. In the past, such food helped to cope with severe food shortages and famines. With globalization and the recent economic development of the South Korean country, the contradiction between the preservation of this culinary tradition and the international reputation as a “civilized” country became jarring.

Former regulation and the international animal welfare movement

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As mentioned, the recent legislation is the result of a process of reform having both domestic and external reasons. Domestically, since the 1960s, the promotion of policies to ensure greater animal welfare has taken the form of sanitary and local measures that have been implemented intermittently. Under an old livestock law of 1963, dogs in Korea were legally defined as “domestic animals” and were not considered “livestock” and farm animals. By 1984, dog meat had been banned by local regulations from Seoul and classified as “disgusting food”, but these measures had been largely disapplied. Internationally, numerous criticisms of “barbarism” and "incivility" have targeted South Korea and since the 1980s.
In the period leading up to the 1988 Olympics, many local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) had mounted campaigns to pressure the Korean government against the dog meat trade and selling. In fact, such campaigns were the result of a broad international movement that, beginning in the late 1970s, had begun to protect animal welfare in various ways. In 1978, for example, UNESCO approved a Universal Declaration of Animal Rights in which it denounced “vicious treatment or cruel acts”, calling for instantaneous and painless killing of animals where necessary. Since 1980, international NGOs such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have promoted campaigns to raise awareness and protect animal welfare, based on the simple principle that animals are not created to be eaten, worn, experimented on, or used for human entertainment. European institutions have also taken several steps to protect animal welfare since 1974. In addition, the 30-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), including South Korea since 1996, established a working group dealing with food safety in 1999, addressing, among other things, the issue of common standards for animal welfare.
In South Korea, the Korea Animal Protection Society (KAPS) has been operating since 1991, first for the purpose of assisting injured animals, then for the purpose of promoting legal initiatives for animal protection, including a blanket ban on dog meat. In 2002, other activist groups founded the Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth (CARE), which is dedicated to solving animal problems in Korea, such as straying, cruelty to pets and, indeed, the slaughter and trade in dog meat.

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“Animal rights” and “cultural rights”: legal labels in conflict

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The term “taboo” when it is applied to food is often used by anthropologists and nutritionists to classify the wide range of instances where potentially consumable substances (and those with potential nutritional value) are avoided or classified as inedible for cultural reasons. In the three campaigns mentioned above, this expression was never used by the animalists, who preferred to use legal language related to “animal rights”, addressing their protection and welfare. Nonetheless, the international debate over the consumption of dog meat in Korea has been perceived as a cultural conflict rather than a legal issue.
On the one hand, the associations that supported the law-initiative adopted the view promoted by international animal rights activists. Like them, they described the consumption of dogs as an “atrocious act”, comparable to slavery and cannibalism, and argued that such practices were incompatible with the parameters of civilization proper to the contemporary international community; they emphasized that this type of feeding was “backward” or “archaic”, especially in a context, such as South Korea, which, in recent decades, has been the protagonist of an extraordinary process of technological and economic innovation.
On the other hand, part of the Korean public opinion assessed that the critical remarks came especially from foreign countries and were the result of a lack of knowledge and understanding of Korean history, Korea’s “unique culinary customs” interpreting them as an insult toward all Koreans. Within this faction were conservative politicians and nationalist groups who promoted online petitions in defense of traditional culinary culture, arguing that national and cultural integrity was threatened or violated by the activists. They focused on the fact that the consumption of dog meat does not necessarily involve mistreatment or injustice to animals (with the application of ethical slaughter methods) and, secondly, that the killing of dogs is not morally worse than the slaughter of cows in Europe and the United States. These positions emphasized the “cultural” nature of South Korea traditional eating habits, even if considered aberrant by other Western cultures. In fact, when the Korean government faced protests as co-host of the 2002 World Cup, it did not give in to the protests. Rather, government officials and ordinary citizens accused the protesters of cultural imperialism for their attempt to impose Western values at the expense of national ones.

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Law, foods and cultures. An international field of study

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Food is certainly an extraordinarily powerful means of expressing group, religious, political and social identity. Food taboos are extraordinarily effective tools for establishing boundaries between self and others. With the recent legislative measure, a kind of middle ground aimed at defending South Korea’s respectability as a modern and progressive international power, capable of abandoning past practices – related to food shortages – and promoting animal welfare in an affluent and globalized society seemed to prevail among the polarized positions of the past.
Certainly, the global discourse on “animal rights” advocated by international organizations and NGOs is relatively new, especially when compared to other types of “cultural” claims, such as, for example, linguistic rights. Some instances are becoming more established, as in the case of ethical slaughter demands; others remain blurred, as with the definition of “livestock” itself. For this reason, the recent legislatation (and the broad cultural debate that has aroused) seems particularly significant for the study of these cross-cultural and transnational issues.