Dogs, Taiwan style

It's been a while since i had a relaxing weekend. Finally, I managed to pull off one, where no more than one day was devoted to school work. On Sunday, Blanka (a Czech girl doing an internship at the Czech cultural office in Taipei) and i went to Danshui (淡水). Danshui is a town just north of Taipei, noted as one of the oldest European settlement in Taiwan (settled and fought over by the Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese and British, not necessarily in this order), nowadays a popular place for the residents of Taipei to hang out during the weekends, stroll alongside the river, eat, shop, and watch the local celebrity - Turkish ice-cream man.

While nowadays 淡水 is a modern place with 50-floor high apartment buildings, scenes like this can also be found:



However, this picture is in no way representative of what Taiwan really looks like.

One thing that struck me during this trip are the Taiwanese dogs. First of all to clarify, the Taiwanese people do not eat dogs, or at least it is not common. Dogs are said to be a sought-after delicacy in Korea, as well as some parts of mainland China - mainly the south. I did see dishes like 'Dog stew' (česky asi psí guláš) on the menu in restaurants in Guangdong and Guangxi.

Dogs in Taiwan appear to fall into one of two categories. First, the stray dogs, mongrels, who seemingly don't belong to anyone, and are all over the place. Some of them look fine, some have been severely affected by the life on the street. There is about 5-10 dogs like that on the university campus - hanging around, sometimes running in circles on the track, but most of the time found sleeping by the library, seeking wisdom perhaps. Also one particular dog always comes to my guitar class, every Thursday. Not sure why, as the playing really isn't very nice to listen to.

Then there is the other kind, the dog princes and princesses. I got used to people putting clothes on dogs even back home. Here, clothes seem to be a bare minimum, even for the large dogs who certainly don't seem to be suffering from the cold. However, the Taiwanese dogs get to wear shoes. All kinds - slippers, fluffy ones, but preferably pink. I wouldn't be surprised to find the Hello Kitty logo on them. Many dogs wear a hat. And can you tell what is the purpose of this item?



Yeah, this is a dog pram. Like a baby pram, except dogs are put inside. Sometimes can be seen on the MRT, maybe to make sure that noone steps on the dog?? (i've never been quick enough to take a picture myself, so this one i kindly borrowed from a fellow blogger.)