Pet owners are afraid that the four-legged members of their family will end up in restaurant kitchens or hang somewhere on meat hooks.
North Koreans who have as a member of their family might not be ready to do so. The people of North Korea are reportedly being forced to offer up their pet dogs after the notorious leader, Kim Jong-un released an order that said all dogs in the country's capital must be confiscated.
According to NY Post, Kim Jong-un released the order in July, suggesting that the thought of keeping dogs was contaminating the culture. The directive from the supreme leader of the country claimed that pets are "a ‘tainted’ trend by bourgeois ideology," a source told the English edition of a South Korean newspaper called Chosunilbo. The move comes at a time when there's a shortage of food supplies in the country and people living in Pyongyang may need to offer up their dogs with the fear of their beloved pets completing on the menu restaurants. However, the order says that is to guard North Korea from capitalist "decadence." "Authorities have identified households with pet dogs and are forcing them to offer them up or forcefully confiscating them and putting them down," the source said.
Kim Jong Un orders pet dogs to be confiscated in North Korean capital https://t.co/mz4dQILaCK pic.twitter.com/1D5QAfi8n5
— New York Post (@nypost) August 17, 2020
While some dogs will find an area at state-run zoos, the rest could be given to restaurants that serve dog meat, revealed the source. Having a pet reception is seen as an indulgence that only the rich and elite part of society can have, whereas others stick with pigs and livestock in the capital of Pyongyang. The dog reception has always been regarded as the influence of the West in the country. However, over the past few decades, attitudes have relaxed and it's believed that lap dogs became a standing symbol for the rich to flaunt ahead of others. The hosting of the planet Festival of Youth and Students in 1989 was also said to possess helped in easing the people's attitude towards dogs, and a slow shift began from seeing pet ownership as merely a Western decadence.
Having a dog reception also began to become some kind of representation of sophistication and economic development. The sight of well-to-do families walking their dogs started becoming a usual sight and on soap operas travel by the state dogs even started making onscreen appearances, as reported by the Daily Mail. But seeing the rich parade their dogs around has reportedly caused some resentment among other classes, because the source told Chosunilbo, "Ordinary people raise pigs and livestock on their porches, but high-ranking officials and then the wealthy own pet dogs, which stoked some resentment. With strict clampdowns like this being enforced, there's not much that pet owners can do aside from "cursing Kim Jong-un behind his back," the source added. Consuming dog meat remains a practice in North Korea and so the country's capital features a number of dedicated dog restaurants, as reported by the Daily Mail. And pet owners are afraid that the four-legged members of their family will find yourself in restaurant kitchens or hang somewhere on meat hooks.
Kim Jong Un orders North Koreans to hand over pet dogs for ‘restaurant meat’ as the country is rocked by food shortages - https://t.co/Q8s4ixddFb
— Ameyaw Debrah (@ameyaw112) August 17, 2020
Given that there's a food shortage in the country at the instant, some see the clampdown on pets as a technique to mitigate this. It had been also reported that 60 percent of North Korea's population is experiencing "widespread food shortages," as acknowledged by a UN report. In both Korean countries, eating dog meat isn't unusual. In South Korea, statistics from an Associated Press report showed that 2 million dogs were consumed in one year. But on the opposite hand, the statistics for an equivalent in North Korea weren't available to the general public , as reported by ny Daily News.