Two sketches by Feng Zikai, and some thoughts on Chinese dogs

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chinese art, chinese dogs, dog eating, 豐子愷, feng zikai, rescue

Two illustrations by Chinese artist FENG Zikai (豐子愷, 1898-1975):

Dutiful police 義務警察

Torture by Branding 炮烙

I want to point out the dual attitudes towards the dog as exhibited by these two pictures, illustrated by the same artist and appearing on the same page in The Young Companion illustrated magazine, the most popular general interest periodical of its kind in Shanghai (“Feng Zikai hua 豐子愷畫,” Liangyou 良友, no. 34 [1929], p. 35). The top one is a solemn praise, taking the dog as a melancholy but noble figure, steadfast in his duty to an unseen master. The bottom one veers towards the scornful, even violent treatment of dogs — but this attitude comes from the picture, not from the illustrator.

As far as I know, household dogs in China were not routinely branded. I honestly can’t be sure whether Feng Zikai is suggesting that the dog threatened with “torture by branding” is meant for the crockpots bubbling ominously in the background, or if the dog merely happened to be a wandering stray who was hoping for a handout, and fell upon the punishing end of a pair of flaming iron tongs instead.

Given what I know of Feng Zikai as a Buddhist and a Pacifist, I am sure that he imagined both scenes with the sense of tenderness and pity that lurks behind so many of his simple sketches. Feng was an artist, an observer, but also an acute theorist who was deeply invested in the power of the visual. He believed he could gently prod his readership to accept the values of compassion that many of his pictures convey. Looking at these pictures a century later and a continent removed, I can’t help but want to bring that loyal dog out of the cold, or confiscate those tongs from that vicious-looking hag — and it’s likely that’s exactly how Chinese audiences were meant to respond back at the time, as well.

I said this elsewhere, and I’m going to say it again. If there is any such thing as an “age-old tradition” of cruelty towards dogs in China, then there exists a concurrent measure of sympathy for that poor beast. Which is to say, it’s not much of a coherent “tradition” at all when you look closer and and realize that there are degrees of relative difference within any cultural category that is presumed stable and unchanging. Most “traditions” turn into rituals or practices in which some people participate while many others actively and conscientiously chose not to. The historical archives will show that this applies “way back” then, as it does now.

One difference that I would embrace, enabled by new media technologies: there are more ways to document acts of heroic compassion when they occur. No matter where you are in the world, I applaud the impulse to do right by one of the few species who would behave as if it is his “duty” to do right by you.

Chinese dogs rescued by Chinese animal lovers -- what next? (AP Photo/Capital Animals Welfare Association)

(Please click the link embedded in the above text for the AP news story on these dogs.)

FILM: Barking Dogs Never Bite [Flandersui gae] (2000)

Tags

dog eating, dog movies, korean film, miniature pinscher, shih tzu, toy poodle

Title: Barking Dogs Never Bite (Flandersui gae)
Director: BONG Joon-ho
Performers: LEE Sung-jae, BAE Doo-na, KIM Ho-jung.
Breed(s) Featured: Shih Tzu, Miniature Pinscher, Toy Poodle
Production: Cinema Service, 2000 (South Korea)

“You see the news last night? … It was about who makes the best husbands. Guess who took first and second place? Doctors and lawyers. And 48th on the list was…”

“Miners!”

“That’s right. The 49th was farmers. And 50th was… Humanities grad students.”

A struggling wannabe professor, Yoon-ju, is all too aware of how far down he ranks on the social totem pole. He is under the financial and emotional sway of his pregnant wife, desperate for advancement under a corrupt academic system, yet disgusted by the ways in which everyone around him flouts the law. Driven to madness by a neighbor’s yapping dog, he decides to take matters into his own hands, kidnapping the first toy dog he encounters in his labyrinthine apartment complex and “disposing” of the dog in the basement storage area.

However, it turns out to be the wrong dog. So Yoon-ju strikes again. Things get more complicated when a young building administration clerk, Hyeon-nam, gets involved. Driven by her twin impulses of naive, genuine compassion as well as a desire to be more than an unrecognized, marginalized nobody, Hyeon-nam resolves to uncover the mystery of the missing dogs (three in all). Along the way, she unwittingly ends up assisting and befriending one of the perpetrators.

Add an eccentric janitor with a taste for stolen dog meat, Hyeon-nam’s tough-talking girlfriend, and a homeless maniac who has long been haunting the apartment complex undetected, and you get a very bizarre, often disturbing tale of urban, working class anomie.

Like many of the films listed on this blog, this is not a dog movie for the faint-hearted. Without giving too much away, I think it’s fair to warn that not every dog makes it out of the story alive. And while we are reminded that “No animals were harmed in the making of this film” at the very beginning, I highly doubt that they managed to fly in an Certified Animal Safety Representatative™ to monitor the production. I do have to question some of the frighteningly realistic treatment of some of the dogs. You do not hear or witness the act of any dog dying, which is where I would draw the line. However, some “props” used in certain scenes manage to horrify with great success, as intended.

This leads me to the one brief point I want to make about the film, situating the theme of dog-eating in its Asian context. No doubt that Barking Dogs Never Bite, for all its poignant and acerbic truths, does not translate well to Western audiences — rather ironic, given that the Korean title is “Dog of Flanders” in a nod to the old English story and, in a sense, the unidirectionality of canine cultural tropes. Despite its smart script, strong cast, and clean cinematography, this film will be condemned to limited distribution due to the repulsive nature of one central plot device, the consumption of pet dogs.

To put it clearly, coexisting amongst members of any group that have eaten dogs are those who find the very idea abhorrent and morally degenerate. This film would not work if dog-eating was considered an ethical norm in the country, which is something to keep in mind before regarding this story as emblematic of Korean practices. I feel like this needs to be said in order to check the impulse to essentialize on the basis of either superficial cultural relativism (i.e. “They’re merely ‘telling it like it is,’ because they eat dogs there,” as if there was a singular “they” or a homogeneous “there” to speak of!) or recoiling into the safety of one’s own ethnic superiority (“Oh how dreadful I can’t even imagine because we could never be so cruel.”)

The larger truth, as this film ultimately points out, is that there is room for all of us to strive to become “a higher animal” (to borrow from the film’s alternate English title). The philosophical measure of this certainly includes, but is greater than one’s epicurean choices.

LINK: Once Banned, Dogs Reflect China’s Rise

Tags

beijing, china, dog eating, new york times

Here’s a story from the New York Times [online Sunday edition, print Monday edition] “Once Banned, Dogs Reflect China’s Rise.”

Xiangzi — Lucky, in English — is aptly named. A trim Siberian husky, his owner, a sports marketer named Qiu Hong, pampers him with two daily walks, a brace of imported American toys and grooming tools, $300 worth of monthly food and treats and his own sofa in her high-rise apartment.

[...]

Metaphorically speaking, Xiangzi is not just a dog, but a social phenomenon — and, perhaps, a marker of how quickly this nation is hurtling through its transformation from impoverished peasant to first-world citizen.

Twenty years ago, there were hardly any dogs in Beijing, and the few that were here stood a chance of landing on a dinner plate. It remains possible even today to find dog-meat dishes here. But it is far easier to find dog-treat stores, dog Web sites, dog social networks, dog swimming pools — even, for a time recently, a bring-your-dog cinema and a bring-your-dog bar on Beijing’s downtown nightclub row.

There’s a lot about this article that bugs me. For starters they appear to misidentify a bunch of puppymill Shiba Inu as “Akita” puppies, with no comment on their “caretaker” or the deplorable breeding practices this woman undoubtedly stands for (euphemistically described as “industries”). Make no mistake that when a social phenomenon is framed largely in terms of dollars, revenue, and status points, just as this article begins, it is being driven not by those with humane agendas in mind, but by profiteers more interested in a quick financial turnaround. This article might as well have appeared in the Business section, for all I know.

Secondly, don’t even get me started on my rant about dog-eating in China. I’m going to bracket that thought for now. Suffice to say, that whole line about dogs going from the wok to walks is typical boilerplate text that’s all too easy to slip into superficial reports on contemporary China. I hate how often dog-eating is recycled as shorthand for the persistent “primitivism” or “anachronism” of so-called “modern” Chinese society, even as I recognize that Chinese dog-eaters exist and they disturb me on some deep, unspeakable level.

Nevertheless the article doesn’t get to what I find to be most interesting about dogs in Beijing until halfway through: “Mostly, though, it appears that Beijing dogs have, as in the West, become objects of affection — even devotion — by their owners.” Even then, the article tries so damn hard to keep Chinese pet owners at arm’s length from the rest of the world, specifically the Western world, by emphasizing all the extremes and seemingly arbitrary legislation that converges on dog owners in China.

– Or rather, Beijing, as a city unto its own. If there’s one thing the article is clear about, despite its title, it’s that the phenomenon described is specifically a Beijing thing. One cannot generalize from the densely-populated, monied, well-trafficked and internationally-spotlit urban capitol to the rest of China. I don’t think the author is trying to overreach the geographic limits of his research, even if he gestures somewhat halfassedly towards historical breadth with those perfunctory factoids about imperial Chinese dogs. The few details offered from more contemporary times are more germane to the discussion, but still tantalizingly sparse.

As long as dog ownership in China continues to be framed as a “novel,” “curious” fad, driven largely by economic growth and market factors, writers will never get to the more interesting and enriching stories that explain the human-canine bond on a more genuine, significant, and enduring level.

Photo taken 11 July 2006. Puppy on a doorstep in Yunnan province, China.