BEIJING - Many Chinese have seen their
lives transformed by rocketing incomes, greater
personal freedom and changes in family structure.
But the people of China are not the only ones in
the country affected by progress. The various
contradictions resulting from China's struggle to
balance centuries-old traditions with rapid
modernization are shown by the unprecedented rise
in the popularity of dogs as pets.
Dogs
are at present caught somewhere in an awkward
middle ground between man's best friend and a
comforting soup. It's a
common sight to see pampered,
manicured pooches frolicking with their doting
owners just a few meters away from a restaurant
where diners chow down on stewed dog meat.
Despite these ambiguities,
the social status of dogs in the country is
certainly improving. In a society where, not so
long ago, raising pets was banned as a bourgeois,
capitalist tendency, it is now chic to own one.
"Pet fashion designer" was among a list
of new professions
published last year by the Ministry of Labor and
Social Security.
According to the market
research firm Euromonitor International, the
percentage of dog owners in China increased from
5% in 1999 to 15% in 2004. The company estimates
that dog- and cat-food sales in 2004 reached 1.6
billion yuan (US$198.5 million), a hefty increase
of some 13% over the previous year. While small in
scale compared with the market in developed
countries, Euromonitor is bullish on the
mainland's growth potential for pet-care products,
predicting that the pet population will continue
to increase strongly over the next five years.
Beijing alone currently
has some 300-odd pet care and products shops. At
the sybaritic Royal Canine store next to the
city's Worker's Stadium, customers patiently wait
in long lines to give their pets a full dog beauty
treatment, including shampoo and blow-dry,
manicure and gum cleaning. The cost is anywhere
from $12-$25, depending on the size of the dog, in
a country where the average monthly wage is still
only around $120. While waiting, the customers can
peruse an astonishing variety of pet products
including natural oatmeal shampoo, tea-tree oil
perfume, lace-trimmed couches, and
cheddar-cheese-flavored cookies.
Olivia
Ma, a Beijinger who works for the oil company
Royal Dutch Shell, says expense is not a concern
when it comes to her cherished pup, Ma Lin, a
golden cocker spaniel. Explaining why she has
brought in her dog for beauty treatment, she said,
"It's soon going to be Chinese New Year, and Ma
Lin is part of the family, so he should look as
beautiful for the festival as we do."
Across the mainland, a wide array of
pet-care products and services are mushrooming,
including specialist pet clothing stores,
dentists, traditional Chinese medicines developed
specially for pets and pet burial services.
However, given that these come with a weighty
price tag, Euromonitor's research revealed that
pet food remains the primary purchase of most pet
owners. When packaged dog food first made an
appearance in Chinese supermarkets in the early
1990s, many people were not quite clear on what it
was, with some consumers reportedly purchasing it
to eat themselves, mistaking it for canned dog
meat.
Chinese dogs have until recently had
a rather unhappy lot in life. Throughout the
heyday of communism from the 1950s to the late
1970s, regular dog-extermination programs were
carried out on the mainland. Canines were seen as
a threat to public hygiene and were routinely
executed by mobs. Even the new China of glittering
malls and Starbucks coffee shops hasn't completely
rid itself of such tendencies. During the SARS
(severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic of
mid-2003, for example, unfounded fears that dogs
might be carriers of the virus led to hundreds of
animals being rounded up off the streets and put
to death.
Li Huan Lan, 47, recalled, eyes
wide with terror, how during the SARS scare she
had to keep her beloved Pekinese Bao Ber indoors
at all times, fearing that were he to be caught
outside, she would be forced to give him up. "I
used to let him out for just a few minutes so he
could go to the bathroom, and sometimes even if he
hadn't had time to do his business, I had to rush
him back into the house," she said.
Attitudes to dogs are further complicated
by their traditional role as a warming food,
ostensibly beneficial to circulation and perfect
for the cold winter months. Juliana Liu, a
journalist with Reuters in Beijing, looked back 15
years and remembered how her childhood pet dog
mysteriously disappeared, only to reappear later
as dinner. The dog had been given to the family as
a present and was considered too expensive to
maintain. Eating it was just more practical.
There are still more than 100 restaurants
in Beijing that serve dog meat, but three-quarters
of the city's more than 460,000 registered pooches
now happily feed on packaged dog foods. According
to Euromonitor, US-based pet-food giant Mars
dominates the dog- and cat-food market in the
mainland, with its popular brands Whiskas and
Pedigree accounting for 58% of retail sales in
2004. Recently, domestic producers have been
making efforts to boost their product quality and
are now vying for sales opportunities in the
medium price segment, but because of low brand
awareness continue to cater mainly to the low end
of the market.
However, the low end of the
market is in fact the largest. The growing
popularity of pet dogs is not simply an urban
luxury that accompanies increasing affluence in
the context of a booming economy. Increasingly,
dogs are the companions of choice for the retired
elderly, whose proportional numbers are growing
rapidly because of the one-child policy.
In the drive to give the city a facelift
before the 2008 Summer Olympics, most of the
capital city's historic, community-oriented
neighborhoods have been torn down, and families
who have lived next to one another for generations
have abruptly been separated and relocated in
anonymous highrises on the city's outskirts. Far
away from their increasingly mobile and busy
children, China's elderly are turning to dogs for
comfort and love in their old age.
Zhang
Gui Lan, 60, fussed after her frisky Pug, Xiang
Pi, as he frolicked down a winding street. "Be
careful, Xiang Pi, avoid the bicycles, keep to the
side," she anxiously yelled out. Xiang Pi was a
gift from her son. "Earlier, I was bored and
alone. I rarely saw my children. Now Xiang Pi is
like my new child," she beamed.
Nonetheless, owning a dog is no stroll in
the park in urban China, particularly for the less
well-off. And pets still fall victim to communist
bureaucracy: all dogs must have a license. In
Beijing for example, the fee for this license was
originally $600, followed by an additional yearly
registration fee of $250. Since late 2003, the
initial registration has been reduced to $120 and
the annual fee to $8. More than 40 categories of
dogs including Dalmatians, terriers, collies and
Labradors remain illegal to own, as they are
deemed "dangerous" by city authorities because of
their size. Moreover, in a manner similar to the
one-child policy, Beijing imposes a one-dog policy
whereby each family is restricted to ownership of
a single canine.
Elene Locke of Hong Kong recently opened
Beijing's first "dog cafe" where, rather than
being served up as food, pooches are placed at the
table alongside their owners. Her four-footed
customers can choose from a variety of home-made
doggie cookies, including cheddar cheese, garlic
chicken and corn-flake flavors. Other than
nibbles, scarves, raincoats and even necklaces are
available for furry fashionistas.
Locke
said, "In China it's still not easy being a dog.
Even people who own pets sometimes see no problem
with eating them." She added, however, that
attitudes are gradually changing, as evidenced by
the bounding, panting customers that fill her
cafe. Moreover, even diehard dog-meat fans in
China tend to distinguish between dogs (usually
large mongrels) that are meant to be eaten and
fall under the generic category of "food dog"
(cai gou) and such dogs as the ubiquitous
Pekinese, which are definitely pets.
Growing disparities frame a lot of the
analysis surrounding contemporary China. It's no
surprise, then, that for canines as well, there is
an increasing distinction between the haves and
the have-nots: for some dogs, life is one long spa
treatment - but for others, it's nasty and short.
Pallavi Aiyar is the Beijing
correspondent for the Indian Express
newspaper.
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of new professions
published last year by the Ministry of Labor and
Social Security. 
