In the rich tradition of Asian accents gone mistakenly wrong, the NY Post reports about an idiot Minnesota news reporter, in his pursuit of journalistic integrity, set off a chain of events that caused a New York Chinatown meat market to get raided by food inspectors because he had thought they were selling dog meat. OK, let’s backtrack a bit….
Intrepid reporter James Schugel was investigating one of Minessota’s largest dog breeding organizations that was accused of illegally breeding puppies and selling them on the black market. One place where puppies were bringing shipped over was the Canine Culture Center, with a NY address. Schugel went to the Big Apple and to his surprise, the Dak Cheong Meat Market was at the same address! He interviewed an employee there and asked him if he knew of the Canine Culture Center. The worker replied, “they only sell dogs to eat.”
What a scoop! An illegal puppy farm was shipping little pups to some evil Orientals to have them slaughtered and sold as fake beef to unassuming consumers! Thus, Schugel, already writing out his regional Emmy acceptance speech for journalistic excellence, filed in the report last Monday. This was the kind of story that every reporter gets wet on; an investigation that could bring down a business, stop a terrible practice and get everyone involved sent to the slammer.
Only problem is, it wasn’t true at all. As mentioned earlier, the Asian meat market was raided by food inspectors, but they found no evidence. Schugel had thought the worker said “dog,” when he actually said, “duck.” Hey, these FOB accents are thick, right? Benefit of the doubt. But, in true Men in Black fashion, WCCO, the news station that broke this story, immediately scrubbed this story out of existence, taking it down from its website, including the news video.
The NY Post, who picked up on this story, went back to the Dak Cheong Meat Market and interviewed the same employee, a Chao Fang. The Post, this time, somehow correctly understood what he said and quoted him accurately. ”How could we sell dog meat? This isn’t China. This isn’t Korea,” Fang said.
As for the Canine Culture Center and Meat Market address mix-up? Well, the Post interviewed the dog breeder involved, a woman named Kathy Bauk, and she said it was a mix-up as well, owing to a mistaken address. She is quoted as saying, ”Father God, strike me down dead if I sold a dog to a meat market to eat!”
Maybe that reporter read our blog about the Marine crusader who is trying to stop Vietnam in cooking fido with a side of fish sauce. Or the news that broke from Hawaii a couple of years ago about two Filipino guys who stole a dog from a golf course and ate it. Either way, the idiot got ahead of himself and is probably the laughing stock of Minnesota. Eh, probably not.
And besides, everyone knows that Chinese meat markets deal with cat meat anyway. Wrong pet, moron.
(Via Neaato)
This story reminds me of a story from 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. I don’t know which paper published the article but this journalist interviewed some athletes from South Korean team. They were cooking up some late night snack and when the interviewer asking them what they were cooking, they responded “snack”. But the journalist heard “snake” and without clarifying exactly what he or she heard, that’s how it got published. Apparently after the article got released, the Korean Team was horrified as well as Korean-Americans. They corrected the mistake in their later paper, but who really pays attention to those fine prints days later. Besides human nature is to believe and remember the most shocking and absurd. No matter how much things get corrected, they would forget the truth. I’m pretty sure lot of people will remember the “dog meat” part not the latter corrected “duck meat”. It’s sad but that’s how things roll.
I think James Schugel and WCCO should reimburse the New York Agriculture Department for all the wasted time and money spent on investigating the meat market. Hell, Dak Cheong Meat Market should sue WCCO for slander.
Dude, you have an amazing writing style. Hilarious! And thanks for bringing this story to light. I didn’t know about this BS. Lovely…
Thanks.
send James my way. I’ve eating dog before AND I’m Chinese (though by accident…the dog eating that is).
http://youoffendmeyouoffendmyfamily.com/my-first-time-eating-a-dog/
[...] more pertinent question is—why am I blogging about this? Is it to counter the stereotype that Asians eat dogs by showing that, no, we loved them enough to make them our best friend? No, frankly I don’t give [...]
People in the poor countries eat any thing to survive. I’m sorry for them. I’m lucky that I live in the rich country.
If you live in those countries, are you sure that you do not eat dog meat?