A few months ago, Brigitte Bardot, a French animal liberationist, blamed the Koreans for their eating dog meat. She insisted that eating dog meat is not culture, but barbarism. Her statement brought about violent controversies in many other countries as well as Korea. In addition, Jay Leno, a famous American talk show host, cracked an insulting joke about the Koreans’ eating dog meat during his “Tonight show”. Many Koreans think that he insulted themselves and their culture. Now, in order to sue Jay Leno for libel, the signature-collecting campaign against Leno has been in process. I’ve already signed up for it. I think that some people from western countries have very wrong and dangerous opinions about the other part of the world, such as Asia and Africa.
All of us live in different circumstances. Our contemporaries have inherited various kinds of legacies from our ancestors. These legacies constitute a unique life style of a given country, which is called “culture”. In the past, there were rare opportunities for one culture to contact the others. Nowadays, however, it occurs very often, by virtue of the advances in communications and transportations. Unfortunately, some of us are lack of an ability to understand and respect for the other culture. In some cases, they even don’t try to do and they force their culture on the other countries. So, the conflicts between cultures become more and more severe than before.
I think the controversy on Korean’s consumption of dog meat is due to the lack of the ability to understand the other cultures. It came from a kind of cultural shock. The Koreans have eaten dog meat for a long time. The censure on eating dog meat was brought up in 1988, for the first time, when the 24th Olympic games were held in Korea. Before then, there hadn’t been any blame on it. In Korea, it is not strange but natural to eat dog meat on the three dog days. For the Koreans, it is one of the cultural traditions, which have lasted for thousands of years. So, no one can blame on it. It’s just a cultural difference.
We have to keep in mind that there is nothing absolutely right and there is nothing absolutely wrong, especially, in cultural viewpoint. There is just something proper to a specific situation. So, the controversy on eating dog meat is meaningless. Apparently, however, it is impolite and unfair for a foreigner, such as Bardot and Leno, to forbid the Koreans to eating dong meat. Westerns who blame the Koreans have to apologize to the Koreans.