The story begins with a conversation. As a Chinese student studying in a high school in the U.S., I am willing to share my personal experience with my American friends and answer their questions about China. But one day I ran into a question that I didn’t know the answer.

         “Do Chinese really eat dog meat?”

I know that the friend who asked this question did not have any malicious intent, he just simply wanted to know the answer to the question. But it still became one of the most embarrassing moments in my life. As a Chinese who grow up in a developed coastal area, I have a similar perspective of dogs with people from western countries — As the most loyal friends of mankind, they are part of our family, lives, and even spirits. And we treat them with respect just like we do to other people. But at the same time, I believe stereotypes or prejudices do exist for some reason. With this question, I made a phone call to my father.

“Do we really eat dog meat?”

There was a long silence on the other side of the phone. I felt that my father was racking his head trying to answer my question. “Yes. Not all but some of the Chinese people really eat dog meat,” he finally said. “ Especially the people who live in the southwest part of China. I know it is hard to accept but you have to realize that this is one of the largest countries with the largest population in the world. The differences between people from different regions may even be greater than the differences between countries. This is the only thing I know so far, if you need to know more, you have to find out yourself.”

I did. After visiting areas in China with the custom of eating dog meat and meeting many people who love eating dog meat, I realized that the world is much more complicated than I imagine. In fact, eating dog meat is indeed very popular in some areas of China, although it is rare. Restaurants that sell dog meat can often be seen there, and some places even hold festivals related to eating dog meat. I was fortunate enough to visit the back kitchen of a restaurant selling dog meat, and that is the bloodiest place I have ever seen. The dog’s corpse was hung neatly, and the divided limbs were encapsulated in different basins, dripping with blood that hadn’t dried up. “I know this scene is too bloody for you,” the restaurant owner said. “But you have to know that as a formal restaurant, we use bred meat dogs, which are dogs specifically for food. Of course, some restaurants will buy some dogs that are old or not that good-looking from the dog market at a really low price, but this is a minority after all. Think about it from another perspective, how is this different from eating pork and beef? Don’t cow and pigs have life alike?” I was speechless for a while, and I didn’t know how to respond. People in these places have been taught since childhood that dogs are edible, no different from other food, just like we’ve been taught that dogs are human friends.

This reminds me once I had lunch with a friend from Africa, and he stopped me when I tried to order a lobster. “I’m sorry but eating lobster does make me feel uncomfortable,” he said. “In fact, no one eats lobster in my hometown, because lobster uses fish carcass as the main food source, which makes us feel unacceptable.” I felt puzzled at the time, but out of respect for him, I ordered other food. But now, after I saw those scenes and heard those opinions, this puzzle has been explained.

The world is so big that many times people cannot understand each other’s culture. Misunderstandings are always occurring because we often look at other people’s lives from our own perspectives. But at the same time, different cultures are colliding with each other to form a brilliant spark of human civilization. Different cultures are like wind blowing from different directions on the sea. The sailboats representing human civilization are riding on the wind and waves.