Folk Remedies: Animal Torture
Boiled Cats in South Korea

REALITY CHECK

"The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition or surrounded by a halo. . . . We need a boundless ethic which will include the animals also."

— Dr. Albert Schweitzer,  Nobel Peace Prize laureate

The following information and photograph are from the Korea Animal Protection Society.

These large pressure cookers are used to liquify cats to produce goyangi soju, a tonic believed to cure rheumatism as well as a variety of other ailments. These same cookers are used to make gae soju, made from dog, and heuk yomsoh, a tonic made from black goats.

The following incident was recently related to the Korea Animal Protection Society by one of its members, Miss Mun Juyoung. Miss Mun lives near the Taegu Summon Market:

"While passing by the Kyoung-il Health Food Restaurant, I looked in through the window and saw a middle-aged women walking slowly among the rows of hissing and boiling cauldrons. In her arms she held a cat, who seemed undisturbed by the water on the floor or the stream so thick in the air. Stopping at one of the hot kettles, the women sniffed once and dropped the cat in to the boiling water. Hideously scalded by the boiling water, the cat screamed and clawed his way out, but the blank-faced woman pushed him back in the water with a stick over and over again until the cat finally lost consciousness. The woman fished him out once more, the cat mewing and whimpering in pain, whereupon the woman pushed him back in for the final time."