On not eating dog anytime soon

      This morning, on a jalan-jalan (a perambulation) around the alleyways of Salatiga, we came across a man taking the fur off a teeth-baring charred dog corpse with a blow torch, while his counterpart butchered another dog nearby. It was a chance encounter, in an alley we hadn't walked before, my first sight of a dog butcher. There was something amazing for me about those bared teeth, so doglike and so grotesque. He was casually lifting one of the dog's legs, perhaps to get at an errant piece of fur on the underbelly.
        I can't pin down why I won't eat dog, or what it is that so repulses me from the concept. One of our friends invited me the other day to a restaurant where they serve dog, here in Salatiga. "Enak sekali," she said (very delicious), even smacking her lips at the idea. I was non-committal, imagining at the moment that perhaps I would eat dog, and I imagined that for about 48 hours, enough even to mention the idea in my last entry, until I saw the dog butcher this morning, slicing up canine cutlets and taking off fur with a blow torch. Laura says our utter distaste is because we anthropomorphize our pets in the United States, and maybe that's right, but I eat bunny sate after all, and I don't reckon I'd be as put off by grilled cat for that matter.
       Part of me thinks I should go eat dog, as part of a statement about how culturally accepting I am, about how open I am to experiencing normal things in a place I have grown to love a great deal. Why not? I eat meat anyway, and I'm not a great lover of dogs. Part of me thinks I should eat dog because to not eat dog, to feel so repelled by the idea, feels like making a culturally negative judgement about my friend, who sometimes eats dog on special occasions and wanted to share the culinary delight with the American visitors. I tried to think of something equivalent if she came to the United States ("yeah, well I bet you wouldn't eat...") but I couldn't really. Bull testicle soup is a potluck dish here, not a western restaurant novelty item.
      It triggers some reflections on those cultural Waterloos, which are not rational moments, really, but a deeper corporal sensation. I've watched my children work through these all year long, move from a kind of disdain for cultural difference, and sometimes disgust, to acceptance and sometimes even to an embrace. My reaction to a meal of dog reminds me, in sharp and vivid ways, of who I am. It's a strange experience.