A dog's life in Korea

[김수만]

먼저 koreaherald의 금일 기사임을 알려 드립니다.
읽어 보고 어느정도 공감이 가서 퍼왔읍니다.

I am a dog. I have no name. My previous owner used to call me Lucky, and treated me like a member of his family, but I had to leave his home because, as I got older, I became more and more like one of those dogs that are being bred to be slaughtered and eaten by humans.
You see, in this country, there are two kinds of dogs: one for pets and others for human consumption.

My mother, I understand, was a cute, little spaniel, and was loved as a pet in a wealthy family in Gangnam, southern Seoul. But one day three years ago, under some unexplained circumstances, she lost her reason and came into contact with a stray outside her house without her owner's knowledge and begot and produced me. So, I am what you might call a mixed-blood male dog, half pet and half edible dog.

Thus, my precarious and ambivalent life began. When I was very young, the spaniel features that I inherited from my mother's side were prominent so that I passed as a pet. I was adopted by that rich family, which called me Lucky. I led a happy life for the next three years, loved by every member of the family. In particular, the lady of the house was so fond of me that I lived the kind of life that all neighborhood dogs envied.

I was taken to the bathroom and scrubbed every three or four days by a maid, fed only delicious imported canned food and clothed with a warm jacket during the winter. I also had plenty of exercise as my owner took me for a walk through the park every morning. There was absolutely nothing more I could ask for.

Then, as I told you, the features of an edible dog, obviously those of my father, started appearing in my face and body. My status as a pet thus became more and more threatened as the days passed by.

There were some neighbors who began to cast a questioning eye at me while others actually swallowed their saliva as they looked at my succulent body that got fatter almost every month because of my rich diet and carefree, comfortable life.

In the end, I became an unmistakably edible dog, losing all my lovable pet features. One day a few months ago, a neighbor said to my owner, "That dog is getting so ugly, you should sell him to a dog-meat dealer." That really scared me and at the first chance, I ran away from my beloved home.

That was when my life as a dog on the run began. I roamed the Seoul streets, scavenging food out of garbage dumps and sleeping in dark corners of underground passages, fearing all the time that I might be caught by dogcatchers and sold to a slaughterhouse.

I have heard that animal lovers in foreign countries, especially in Europe, had luckily started to pay attention to the plight of edible dogs in Korea with the World Cup soccer finals approaching.

More and more of them, they say, are now writing protest letters to what they call FIFA, urging the world soccer governing body to demand that people in this country stop beating edible dogs to death before eating their meat.

That's good news for dogs like me. Some of my friends tell me, though, that the human authorities like the mayor of this city are brushing aside the international demands while the owners of dog-meat eateries are determined to keep their stores open throughout the event.

But I know that Koreans dearly want to become a first-class people. They will at least try and pretend to be civilized in the eyes of foreign visitors by abstaining from eating dog and by relocating the dog-meat restaurants to inconspicuous places in the countryside while the international sporting events are held in this country as they did, I hear, during the 1988 Olympic Games.

That means if I can avoid being captured for the rest of this year, my chances of living next year will be bright with the World Cup and the Asian Games coming up. I only hope that this country keeps hosting international sporting events every year after 2002.

Meanwhile, I should watch my diet and eat less and less, if possible, in the hope that maybe I will regain the features of my younger days as a pet. You never know, I may be able to live a fearless life once again by being adopted by a family, or, maybe, Koreans will wean themselves from the habit of eating "man's best friend" someday.



For most of his career, the writer was a reporter working in Tokyo, New York and elsewhere for an American news agency. He returned to his native Korea in the early 1990s. His e-mail address is choseh@yahoo.com. - Ed.



By Cho Se-hyon