Protesting Yulin, China – 2017
This Festival Must Be Banned
Protesting Yulin, China – 2017 – Sadly another Yulin dog and cat eating festival is just about to begin. Animals will be systematically tortured, boiled, skinned and cooked alive. We do not live in a civilized world and China is not the only culprit in the global holocaust against animals. As you protest against Yulin you may want to question your own contribution to animal exploitation and cruelty.
Yulin, China 2017
The world stands in condemnation
But the great, gaping, ugly maw that is China
Yawns with boredom because it doesn’t care
Instead it sucks the life out of a corrupt, poor country
Poaches another elephant for its ivory tusks
And butchers an endangered rhino for its horn.
China points an accusing finger and cries out
In self-righteous indignation against the global hypocrites
Japan slaughters dolphins at Taiji
The Faroe Islands massacre pilot whales
Canada needlessly kills seals and polar bears
The USA decimates wild horses, buffalo and wolves
Spain celebrates the methodical torture of El Toro
Even as France butchers horses for fine dining
And everywhere, every day people consume
Cows and calves, sheep and lambs, chickens, ducks
Turkeys and pigs at dinner tables decorated with
White linen, silver knives and forks and sparkling candles.
“Where is your outrage,” screams China
We are no different than you – it’s just that
We eat dogs and cats, puppies and kittens
Because of our culture and our traditions
And above all – our deeply revered honour
So we will butcher thousands of dogs and cats
To satisfy the appetites of our culture-bound citizens
As we celebrate another year of good luck
At the Yulin dog and cat meat festival.
On the roads leading to Yulin the trucks carry wire cages
Stuffed with brutalized, terrified animals who are destined
To die in filthy, slaughterhouse hell holes behind the restaurants
Where eager patrons sit at plastic covered round tables
Piling the bones in bowls, licking greasy fingers
Belching loudly and anticipating a course of tasty dog paws.
The cages are finally emptied of struggling, twisting animals
Who have been methodically tortured in the ugly, false belief
That a painful death makes the dog and cat meat tastier
With their mouths taped shut to silence their screams
The animals are beaten, boiled, skinned and grilled alive or
Hanging by their necks they die slowly under the blow torch.
Cigarette ashes, paws, tails, tongues, ears, urine, blood and shit
Are part of the celebratory good luck festival of Yulin, China
This yearly rite of passage, this orgy of torture and pain
Satisfies the great, gaping, ugly maw of China who
Yawns in boredom because it doesn’t care, except
For the bit about “honour” – that is the sticking point.
In one last cage, a little dog wearing a bright, red collar
Cringes in a corner alone – maybe he won’t be noticed
But the butcher reaches in to grab him by the neck
Sadly his back leg is mangled in the wire mesh
So the butcher, who is an enterprising fellow
Cuts off the offending paw with garden shears
The dog can’t scream because his mouth is taped shut
So the pain simply explodes in his brain
He is dunked in a pot of boiling water and flayed
Somewhere between being skinned and pressed
Onto a flaming grill – the little dog dies
The butcher wishes he had been bigger because
The patrons in his restaurant are pounding on the
Plastic covered round tables demanding more dog and cat meat
Sadly there won’t be any until tomorrow when the trucks roll in.
China still does not care – but, annoyingly the world is watching
As Yulin 2017 opens its great, gaping, ugly maw
To consume 10,000 more innocent, tortured souls
In the happy-go-lucky festival of the summer solstice.
But in a nearby village, seven brave Chinese animal activists
Sit around a table planning to intercept the smugglers’ trucks
They will publically protest Yulin 2017 and 2018 and beyond
Until this vulgar festival is banned forever
Because they say – “This is not our China”.
And in the same village a heartbroken little girl goes
Door to door with a photograph of her dog Yin Boo and asks
“Have you seen my little dog – he’s wearing a bright, red collar”.
Protesting Yulin, China – 2017
Rosemary Wright,
Canada
