As suspected, Yulin 2017 went forward despite the various announcements stating the sale of Dog Meat had been banned,

Stall holders had told the BBC they had heard nothing about the ban from any Yulin Official.

Compared to 2016 i would say the restaurants were 50% empty, maybe this had a lot to do with the weather as thunderstorms and torrential rain hit Yulin.

The main dog meat restaurant in Yulin was closed for the duration of the festival at the order of the mayor of Yulin. Ironically, the mayor’s favorite eating place.

I believe the mayor and local government believed there would be a surge of westerners present again this year and wanted to minimize the extent of the festival, thing was, the only other westerner i saw was my colleague and friend, Nikki who was with me working for a dutch organization.

We had a young Chinese translator with us at all times, he was able to translate everything he heard, even the mud slinging from various angry traders towards us.

We went to the markets early on the 21st, (summer solstice) and was confronted by angry market traders and landlords protecting their interests.

One Chinese market trader called our translator a traitor for being with us and called him a banana. (Yellow on the outside and white inside)

The traders and landlords feared for their livelihood.

There was a heavy police presence.

We were not allowed in or welcomed at any of the two main markets. traders vigorously defended their stalls and blocked any visuals of dog meat or caracas’s.

Extra helpers held umbrellas in the line of camera lenses and others stood in front of our cameras.

Huge woks of stewing dog meat were picked up while simmering and taken out of sight

You knew what was dog meat compared to goat or beef because the people ushering us away acted differently when there was dog.

The stench was putrid and unbearable at times.

It was believed that only two dog caracas’s were allowed to hang from hooks on the many portable stalls around Yulin, we did see stalls with many more than that but there were no law enforcement officers telling traders to take them down.

Around the market areas there was hostility towards us but away from there, butchers were happy to let us film and take pictures.

Those people that were not selling dog were extremely friendly and courteous towards us, many wanting to have their photos taken by our sides. one trader selling clothing, called me over and gave me a bottle of beer to share with him.

One group of women took us into a restaurant and offered us a plate of dog stew and beer.

These people were hard, honest folk that couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about eating dog when we in the west ate everything else!

These people can’t read Facebook in china as the media and social media are heavily censored but they do use WeChat and their own version of Facebook, they do know of all the name calling and abhorrent rhetoric from many in the west, I even showed many of these comments to our translator.

They agreed that it doesn’t help, the popularity of Yulin in the west raised interest from within China and many people came to Yulin with the intension of trying dog meat.

Dog meat is the most expensive meat at the festival apart from Cat (for which i’m told is rare and less desirable)

Beef and pork are a lot cheaper, Lamb being more expensive, one Chinese lady told me in India they worship cows but i don’t see indians protesting in the USA or Europe, is it because the west likes to bully us and wish to drop atomic bombs on our heads!

Last year millions of Chinese people protested the festival, millions of signatures were gathered and handed into the government.

Many Chinese activists with very little funding, wait in the early hours of each day to head off trucks full of dogs and sometimes cats.

They take the dogs to known rescue areas and save those that are strong enough.

Yulin is working and so is China.

30 million dogs are killed annually not just the 10 thousand estimate in Yulin each year and this is the key to stopping this festival and the many not so famous ones.

The city of Yulin is not the biggest dog meat consumer in Guangxi province. It is only since the festival started around 10 years ago that the city received national and international attention.

get people to stop eating dog meat and the festivals will end.

This is something Animals Asia promotes and works on 365 days a year.

The key is education not hate.

The number of pet dogs in the country has skyrocketed in recent years with 62 million registered canine companions. This has gradually changed many people’s opinion on eating dog meat.

Start writing to the Chinese in a constructive manner, tell the positive angle of the story.

Cultures come together when they are being attacked from all sides.

Look at Taiji with the Japanese, look at the Faroe islands, calling everybody inbreds and scumbags unites people against our cause,

I connected with the Chinese people and saw another side to Yulin.

I saw poverty on the streets and I saw wealth. I saw love and i saw hate.

I see the very same as I see in my own country to be honest,

I saw dog, cat and waterfowl in horrible conditions.

In my own country I see the same, I have seen the very same torture (I have been inside western slaughterhouses) Paul McCartney once famously said “If slaughterhouses had glass walls we would all be vegetarian.

Yulin, Taiji, The Faroe islands will go on and so will our own destruction of this beautiful planet until one day there will be nothing to abuse.

Yulin is a place for Westerners to make money and make stories that they dream up dramatically.

These stories are melodramatic with the intent of driving your emotions high to elicit money from your pockets.

All these stories have a donate link at the side.

“My heart felt the jolt of this act of cruelty like the moon’s tears washed over the blood the earth where God never walked”

The real heroes are still there and will be there until they are sapped of energy.

They ask for nothing and all i’m asking is for their support from you…

Praise goes a long way, how do you feel when someone gives you a hug for what you are doing or a pat on the back.

I hate Yulin, I hate seeing the dogs, cats and other animals this way.

I despise my own culture, the cruel hunting of animals, the cruelty that i see day to day of sentient beings.

Nobody stands up against what we do in the West, we always seem to pick on others first, it is a form of bullying.

I understand frustration, we all want this to go away, I get it!

The honest answer is to stop eating animals.

Dog, cow, pig, horse, chicken, fish, turkey, veal, venison, lamb, goat, bear……………

Is placing dog as man’s best friend a mantle so that you can eat farm animals?

Is a dog more intelligent than a goat?

Is this really just an excuse so you can tuck into your steak?

Why were you disgusted when you found that there was horse in your burger at McDonalds recently, did you not realize that there was a cow there too?

Many of you that will have read this will be disappointed that it doesn’t cut the jugular of those that kill and abuse the dogs and cats of Yulin.

Will I go back to Yulin next year, I’m fairly sure I will, animals have no borders to me and it is unfortunate some are born under the wrong sky.

I feel it is always my duty to create awareness wherever animals suffer on this planet.

I want Yulin to also expose our own cruelty.

I want everyone who reads this to look in the mirror before criticizing others.

There is no humane way to take a life, the word humane doesn’t belong in the same sentence as killing.

I never went to Yulin to get the most dramatic shot to put in National Geographic, i went to see the impact.

I can report that many dogs were killed, probably in the most barbaric way.

There will be others that go back because Yulin is about them and NOT the dogs.

Those people know who they are.

To the ducks, geese, turtles, dogs and cats that lost their lives this year, you lost your lives meaninglessly until every black, pink, white, green, yellow person stops using animals for food.

Martyn Stewart