Not *a lamb.* Lamb.

Today some friends and I went to the Korean restaurant for lunch. Their specialty, according to Liu Lei, is dog, and Nina and Aijia ordered a plate of dog to share. The rest of us stuck to the tasty rice, egg, and miscellaneous dish we always have - it is served raw, in a very hot iron bowl, and you stir it around really fast to cook it and then eat it, it's very good.

When I was fifteen I stopped eating meat. I still ate fish (a "Catholic vegetarian," as my friend Elizabeth says) and I was fairly laid back about it, having the occasional bite of someone else's meal or even, once, a hamburger. But I believed, and still do, that vegetarianism was the correct choice. When I found out I was going to China, I started eating small quantities of meat in preparation. It was never my plan to be vegetarian here. I wanted to taste everything. I wanted to be a good guest. So for about the first three weeks I was in Beijing, I consumed large amounts of meat. Then, maybe two weeks ago, I stopped again. Now I'm even more laid back about it than I was before, but to all extents and purposes I am once again vegetarian.

This is why, today at lunch, I did not eat the dog. I am not at all sure how I feel about it. Intellectually, meat is meat is meat, as Nina said. And yet. It's dog. I don't even especially like dogs, and I suspect my hesitation is irrational, but there it is. I did not eat the dog.

This is not my last chance. I will be in China for another six months. If I really want to try dog just for the sake of having tried it, I will surely have another opportunity. But first I suspect I ought to think about what it means to eat a dog, what - besides novelty - makes it different from eating a chicken or even a rabbit, which I have eaten in the past without difficulty. In the meantime, please pass the kimchee.