I’m sure you already know that Asians have a reputation/penchant for so-called “exotic” foods. This is much like the French with their taste for fine food, esp things like foie gras, or the italians with their taste for veal. To me, there’s no difference in the human obsession with food, whatever their race or nationality. It just seems funny to me that the highlight is skewed on Asian eating when every country where this sort of thing goes on, whether it is dogs, cats, geese, or cows and calves that suffer the brutality, should be censured.
As for Asians, I will try to tell you more about the Chinese gastronomical philosophy. The Chinese, and to a very large extent, the east asian cultures of Japan, Korea too, have very elaborate systems and schools of thought about food. They are also very very proud of their gastro-cultural heritage.
East Asians believe in the therapeutic values of certain foods, for the Chinese esp, and they even have a whole thing about nourishment according to shape/similarity in function of a specific part. EG rhino horn, tiger penis, deer penis for aphrodisiacs, pig brains for boosting brain power, bear bile for fever, etc. There is also a culture of appreciation for “fine/exotic food” – sharksfin, abalone, live monkey brain, live bear paws. In addition, there is another, yes, another, thing about eating food according to seasons. For the Chinese, “cooling food” like fruits or maybe cold meat dishes, deer antler shavings in summer, and “warming food” in winter, like dogmeat, wildgame etc. (I confess that I do not understand where catmeat figure in this, but I susepct in the warming food category.)
In particular, the Cantonese dialect group – the province of Guangdong/Canton, next to Hong Kong – who are the emperors of Chinese gastro-culture, like the French for the Western world, are the ones with their heads in gastronomical “heaven”, which means bleeding hell for animals, is the most fervent about food. (Guangdong is also where most of the exotic food culture exists, and extends out from there to other parts of China. This is also where most of the videos of the dog and cat meat markets are shot.)
Of course, this gastro-culture has been condemned worldwide. But so? To date, it still goes on. It has also led to and encouraged poaching of exotics – like tigers, leopards, bears, rhinos, sharks. If it’s something edible, you can bet that someone in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and maybe even Japan, and Korea will pay for it. In addition, don’t forget that the Chinese have a presence in almost every other country as immigrants. The extent of the damage of this gastroculture, is, imho, nightmarish.
In 2003, SARS started from Guangdong, spread to Hong Kong, and was carried into Singapore by a stewardess. The cause in Guangdong was believed to be the Cantonese penchant for wild game, and it was narrowed down to civet cats. Thus began an extermination drive of civet cats already in the market place – inhumane methods like boiling, electrocution, drowning in chemicals (some live drowning footage was shown on the local news so this is not hearsay)… civet cat meat was banned, and so was exotic meat trapping, and the exotic meat markets quietened down considerably… but that lasted about as long as a droplet of sneeze stays airborne. By late 2003, the meat markets were back in full blossom. And in Singapore, the government jumped at the mere mention of a possibility of SARS transmission by cats, and ordered an end to our national TnRM programme, which was just barely 5 yrs old, and began culling cats in earnest. That year, the official stray culling bill was SGD$600,000, SGD$100,000 more than the yearly average. Like many cat-caregivers, my sister and I lost a few cats we cared for, all on the whim of a fear.