The idea of keeping pets ” naughty or otherwise ” had long been taboo in the People’s Republic of China. During the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao’s Red Guards killed pet dogs by the tens of thousands, seeing them as symbols of the pampered bourgeoisie his Communist regime was out to eradicate. Even dogs being bred for their meat in southern China were exterminated, and gourmets dissuaded from tasting the rich flesh lest they become infected by class depravity.
But China’s booming free market experiment has brought the bewhiskered icons of capitalist decadence back to the nation’s cities, tails held high.