The Cat's in the Kettle

Used to be an old China Expat Urban Legend about the expat wife shopping in the fresh markets in Guangzhou.  She comes across a vendor selling live cats destined to be someone's dinner later in the day.  This particular vendor's practice was to pick out the cat, break it's neck and plunge into boiling water to remove the hair.

Expat wife is horrified at the process, and takes it upon herself to at least save a couple of the cute little kittens from their inevitable culinary destiny.  She offers to purchase 2 of the more "cute'" kittens, but requested the stall owner to not boil them.

Stall owner complies and pulls the cats out of the cage, wrings their little necks and holds the now dead cats out to the expat wife.  Rumor has it she fainted.

Courtesy of Danwei, we received news that cats have now again become a popular dining staple,  Seems that stray cats from Nanjing province are rounded up by "cat fishermen" and shipped to a market in Dongguan, where they are sold to smaller vendors, and eventually wind up in Cantonese restaurants in the area:

According to Southern Metropolis Daily (Chinese Language):

At 3:37 on December 10th, the K25 train arrived at Dongguan East Station. About 1,500 cats had been sent on the train from Nanjing. Eight men wearing camouflage got on the train and started to move off the cages crammed with cats. Every time a cage landed on the ground, cats screeched in pain.

The invoice showed that this shipment contained 1,500 cats, and included a sterilization certificate and an animal quarantine certificate issued by official veterinerians.

The cats were loaded to trucks and sent to the Guijiang Three Birds Market, which is the biggest wholesale poultry market in southern China. Every day, more than 100,000 animals are sold here. From that market, the cats were distributed to other cities in Guangdong.

Around ten wholesale vendors are involved in the dog and cat trade. One of them, known as "Big Boss," spoke Mandarin with a Cantonese accent, while the others spoke different dialects.

Cats here are sold in cages to smaller vendors for 4 yuan per kilogram, which includes the weight of the cages and any dead animals. For smaller-volume trading, the prices are 9 yuan per kilo for medium-sized cats and 14 yuan per kilo for the bigger ones.

Following a man who bought some cats, the reporter arrived at a Cantonese food restaurant where cat is priced for 36 yuan per kilo. In the restaurant, customers ordered a dish called "braised cat," which cost 147 yuan. Describing the dish, the waitress said that cat meat has the medicinal property of "nourishing yin and boosting yang." The customers said that they wanted to try it because they were curious.

Cats are packed in cages (from Nalan Jingmeng's blog)

The reporter traced the source of the cats to suburban counties of Nanjing, where some people make a living catching cats and selling them for about 10 to 20 yuan each to wholesalers. These cat thieves are called "cat fishermen." A fisherman can catch about 20 cats in one night. A Nanjing-based organization which is committed to helping stray cats confirmed to the newspaper that there are far fewer stray cats in the city this year than normal.

In Nanjing, there is also a market specializing in the cat trade. Local police said that the market has been around for over ten years and that it doesn't violate the law.

Of course the Netizens in China are responding, with no small amount of anger, as China.org reports. In part:

Many people have condemned the eating of cats, claiming they are human beings' friends.

According to an online survey conducted by the website of Southern Metropolis Daily yesterday, 661 out of the 886 netizens who voted considered dining on cats "ruthless", while 207 said it was okay.

Almost 400 said they have never eaten cats, while 170 said they have or want to try.

"Tears cannot help welling up whenever the scene occurs to me that a pitiful cat is drowned in boiling water and torn apart as delicacy for someone. I just can't imagine how brutal people can be," Tang Xiyuan, a volunteer for an organization for stray animals in Guangzhou, told China Daily yesterday.

"Don't those who dine on cats remember that they used to play with cats in their childhood, and don't they remember how cute and friendly the cats are!" she said.

However, many other citizens seem to be more tolerant.

"I myself don't eat cats; but I don't think eating cats should be forbidden or condemned as long as the behavior is legal and does not cause diseases," Lin Jiaqian, a high school teacher in Guangzhou's Tianhe district, said yesterday.

"All the poultry and livestock are lovely when they are small; and it's equally cruel to kill them," Lin said.

The article goes on to mention:

An official with the animal hygiene supervision institute under the provincial health department, who preferred not to be named, told China Daily yesterday that his institution supervises chickens, geese, ducks, horses, cattle, sheep, donkeys, mules, pigs and dogs, but not cats.

"Unless they (the cats) are suspected to have caused an epidemic, I don't think we are in a good position to interrupt the business," he said.

Both the police and industrial and commercial administrators said they will not interrupt the business as long as the businesspeople can produce all the permits and licenses required.

"Eating or trading cats does not violate China's law," Zhang Yuanlong, a lawyer with Guangdong Fucheng Law Firm, said.

China Fubar wonders, with the lack of hygiene supervision of cats as food, will we be subject to the same sort of disease outbreak similar to SARS, which, if you remember, was caused by infected Civet Cats out of Guangzhou.

China Fubar can't also help but recall the parody of Harry Chapin's tune, "Cat's in the Cradle"