Jottings from the Granite Studio

I’m pissed.

From today’s Guardian:

Endangered, hunted, smuggled and now abandoned, 5,000 of the world’s rarest animals have been found drifting in a deserted boat near the coast of China.

The pangolins, Asian giant turtles and lizards were crushed inside crates on a rickety wooden vessel that had lost engine power off Qingzhou island in the southern province of Guangdong. Most were alive, though the cargo also contained 21 bear paws wrapped in newspaper.

According to conservation groups, the haul was discovered on one of the world’s most lucrative and destructive smuggling routes: from the threatened jungles of south-east Asia to the restaurant tables of southern China.

The animals were found when local fishermen noticed a strange smell emanating from the vessel, which did not have any registration plates, on Tuesday, the Guangzhou Daily reported.

When coastguard officials boarded the 25-metre craft, it was reportedly deserted and stripped of identification papers. They found more than 200 crates full of animals, many so dehydrated in the tropical sun that they were close to death.

This isn’t about some farmers in China being “too poor” to worry about conservation. This isn’t about the need for economic development in struggling areas even if it means environmental side effects. This is about some dumb-ass man-purse-swinging cognac-swilling hair-dying white-sock-wearing audi-riding noveau riche motherf—–s showing off for their friends and their er nai how much money they have by dining out on some of the world’s most endangered animals. It’s the worst form of conspicuous consumption/status marking and it’s sickening. “I can’t get it up anymore, so I’ll eat tiger fillets. They’re grrrreeaat!”

From the article:

Despite the ban on pangolins, many restaurants offer their meat. The Chaoxing restaurant in Shenzhen said yesterday that pangolin was available but was only suitable for large dining parties.

“The animal is very big - about 10kg,” said a waitress contacted by telephone. “We serve it in hotpot. That is the tastiest way.”

According to recent reports in the Chinese media, the price of 1kg of pangolin served in Guangdong or Yunnan is between 600 and 800 yuan per kilogram (between £43 and £50).

A Guangdong chef interviewed last year in the Beijing Science and Technology Daily described how to cook a pangolin.

“We keep them alive in cages until the customer makes an order. Then we hammer them unconscious, cut their throats and drain the blood. It is a slow death. We then boil them to remove the scales. We cut the meat into small pieces and use it to make a number of dishes, including braised meat and soup. Usually the customers take the blood home with them afterwards.”

Lovely.

In China you have to get used to a lower standard for the treatment of animals. “Pets” are often sold in open air bazaars and displayed crammed into tiny cages out in the sun without food or water. China’s ‘meat markets’ (especially down south) resemble zoos as interpreted by Jeffrey Dahmer. Last month in a well-publicized case, a woman in Nanjing poured gasoline on a dog and her puppies and lit a match because they were barking too much. My neighbor routinely banishes his dachshund to a tiny crate on our stairwell for hours and hours without water. The closest I have ever come to throwing down in this country was when I saw a man beating his poodle with a broom because…it was never clear why.

I’m not a vegetarian. Let’s get that out of the way. (It should be noted that the concept of vegetarianism, while having a long history in China, is one that the average person here has a hard time understanding. It’s very much a “You’re a vegetarian? Really? Okay, I’ll make chicken” culture.) I am a conscientious meat eater and there is a qualitative difference (don’t ask me what it is) between the slaughter of farm animals for food and the beating or torturing of an animal for fun or out of frustration. There’s also a quantitative difference between the number of cows, pigs, and chickens in the world and the number of pangolins.

If you’re a true animal rights activist then perhaps it’s a classic example of the Mencian phrase wǔshí bù xiào bǎi bù 五十步笑百步 (A rough equivalent of our “pot calling the kettle…”) But a true animal rights activist should be outraged at a market that encourages the killing of bears to harvest only their organs and paws and there’s nothing that can be said to diminish the senselessness of China’s “endangered gourmet” market.

A wise man once said, “If you want to know a man’s true character, watch how he treats his dog.”

Too true.