Police in Seoul’s Guro-gu busted a man for stealing his neighbor’s dog and eating it, reported the Chosun Ilbo. The episode began at 7:00 a.m. on May 3 when 57-year-old restaurant owner Ms. Kim noticed her dog, which was usually tied up outside her restaurant, was missing. She searched the neighborhood for the dog, which had a market value of 300,000-won, but at 11:00 a.m., she discovered in front of the greenhouse inhabited by her neighbor, the 44-year-old Mr. Song, an object with which she was quite familiar—her missing dog’s collar.
She called the police, who brought in Song for questioning five days later. A police official said Song, who like yours regularly enjoyed dogmeat, admitted that he stole the dog, which apparently got his taste buds moving, and turned him into boshintang, or dogmeat soup. The cop also said Song probably didn’t expect to get busted because of the collar.
UPDATE: Dang, it appears the Chosun Ilbo had already translated the piece (Hat tip to Lost Nomad)
22 Comments
‘After eating your neighbor’s dog, be careful with the collar’ big mouth
I recommend that Jay Leno not touch this one.
Robert, your next boshintang’s on me.
You know… I’m actually kind of curious now as to whether a 300,000 won dog tastes any better or worse than one of the cheaper dogs that are actually meant to be used for soup. It also begs the question… if you have a pedigreed dog, why would you just leave it tied up outside your restaurant? In almost any country, that would just be asking for the dog to be stolen (maybe not turned into soup, but still…)
Hey, any recommendations for a boshintang place near Yonsei- I’m somewhat curious. I should probably post this on some expat/teacher forum but since I don’t know of any….
There used to be a very good one near Yonsei, close to 장미여관 for the old-timers — think it closed around, oh, 1992. There’s a good one off 도산대로, near 영동대교 남단, and ok, while it’s quite far from Yonsei, it’s still closer than my favourite place, in 대전…
Also, note that the emphasis was put on the street value of the dog, not the affection the owner had for it — and images of dogs attached with a one-foot lanyard to the side of a building come to mind…
This past weekend, a took some pictures of boshintang dogs being transported.
You can see them here: http://static.flickr.com/48/14.....5177_o.jpg
Doesn’t Korea offer implantable chips into their pets, like in the U.S.? Some friends of mine mentioned to me that the veterinarian charges $7 to do the implant of the chip and get it programmed. So, in case it’s ever lost, err, runs away from its abusive owner for dyeing its ears a flourescent color, it can be recovered quickly & easily. Surely, someone has had to come up with a life insurance coverage for pets by now… you’d think they’d offer a discounted premium if they have the locator chips implanted into their pets.
I’m surprised North Korea doesn’t do this to its citizens. It’s got to be cheaper than keeping its large standing military in place, which is in effect prevents its people from leaving. You leave North Korea, and we’ll round up the remainder of your family and take care of the situation. It’d probably be some sort of human-rights violation if we Americans did this to Canadians to keep them out.
I view this as a class warfare.
Mr. Song who obviously did not have money to buy a bowl of boshintang saw the dog. He was hungry. The dog looked too good. Mr. Song looked at the dog as if a man who just got released from a prison would look at a buxom lass with a mini-skirt on.
He untied the dog’s leash and took the dog. He took the dog to a specialized boshintang restaurant. It is not easy job to make the soup.
First, you have to beat the dog to death.
Then, you clean the insides.
Add vegetables and deep stew for several hours.
Mr. Song should be pitied. He was so hungry and weak. He knew the dog soup (boshintang) would bring his strength back. So, he ate the dog. Is that a crime?
You bet it is!
everyone who eats dog will go to hell. Koreans may tout themselves eating it with pride, but we all know why you eat it. You’re impotent. You have troubles between the bedsheets. Take viagra. Stop betraying the trusting gaze of a dog and beat it to death and eat it up. Let Bovine Academy deal with that.
your dog might nibble on your dead body after you die, but while it’s alive, it makes you happy, if you have a normal relationship with the dog. If this was a loving relationship, money is not enough to compensate. Offer up your child. Because that’s how close some people are with their pets. At least draw a line. People who steal pets to eat them will be made an example out of, and this will not happen again without serious consequences.
nerdieboy, a Vietnamese girl from Vietnam said it was
“sweet”.
Whatever that means. Sweet meat?
I never had any.
The moral of this story is…leave the dog alone. Eat your neighbor instead. That way she cant report you to the police.
I’ve heard it tastes amazing, but I doubt I’ll be trying any; On the other hand, I’ll be with someone who thinks it’s just one of those “while in Korea…” things.
My dad has tried boshintang before, but he claims he liked dogs too much to enjoy it. My mom can’t even digest any meat “heavier” than fresh, lean steak, so she looked fairly disgusted when I just asked her.
I agree that there is something culturally considered masculine about eating dog, even if those who eat it don’t really believe that it will literally enhance male virility (though some probably do believe that).
i came to the understanding that they eat dog in Vietnam and China as well.
I’ve had poochmeat in the PI as well (found out AFTER the fact).
I wanted to try it while I was in Seoul, but none of the people I was hanging out with were really down… and they were Korean. It’s not like I knew where to go and find a place that serves it anyway.
Sweet meat? I don’t think so.
I have had it twice. The first time I ate it in the soup form and it was on a date with a guy who did his military service as one of Kim Dae Jung’s bodyguards. (Yep, saw evidence…he wasn’t just talking big.)
He claimed all his military buddies and seniors (co-body guards I assume) used to chow on that stuff during their service.
(Guess that says a lot about the sexual performance of presidential body guards here, huh?)
Second time I ate it as the sliced meat form.
Personally I don’t know what the big deal is. If I hadn’t known it was dog meat, it would have been just another piece of meat to me and not all that memorable to say the least.
Now that I’ve tried it (and can knock it) I feel I can say that I’ll never consciously eat that stuff again. It’s a cruel form of animal abuse and seriously, it’s not all that delicious in the first place. Not even just a little.
In the alley behind Korea First Bank on Chongno (exit one of Jonggak Station) is a mung-mungtang restaurant with a sign that has a story about it by the guy who writes for the Korea Times. I have no idea if it’s a good place. If you go up the alley from there and turn left, then immediately right after the dry cleaner, there’s another place on the right. Haven’t been there either. I’ve had poshingtang straight up like kalbi and in a stew, and it’s just OK, reminds me of mutton, which I don’t really care for. Funny thing is how the Korean guys sweat profusely when they eat it, at least the ones I was with. It wasn’t particularly spicy to me.
the Vietnamese person said it was sweet meat. I don’t know what they do in Vietnam, and I’ve never ate the Korean version.
i’ve heard that “sweating profusely” part is one of the reasons they eat it for health benefits. It has some sort of tie in to the fact that dogs don’t sweat. They pant. Supposed to be good for your health in eastern chinese medicine to sweat profusely, under certain conditions.
WJK there’s some genetic thing going on because Korean people have warned me that nakji bokum or poshintang will make me sweat, which it never did.
Death to dog eaters!