Bear Necessities

Great evening spent with the wife and these lovely folks, eating great Nepalese food and drinking fantastic Korean craft beer.
Above is my favourite, the Jiri Mountain Moon Bear IPA.

In a worrying trend, it's too late and I'm too tired for a long and detailed blip, where I'd hoped to talk in depth about the ridiculous rules that stifle craft brewers in Korea (in a country of 50 million who culturally love a booze, there are literally one or two craft breweries - even though their national ale is embarassingly poor).

I also wanted to discuss in depth the plight of the beautiful Asian moon bear - who lends his name to the beer seen above
Moon Bears are prized in many parts of Asia for their bile and its 'health' benefits. Whilst predominantly produced in China and Vietnam (where these bears spend their lives in cages, as pipes fed into permanently open wounds extract the bile), it is also totally legal here in Korea, where bears are also raised in this way - as well as being harvested for their paws and organs once bile production begins to wain.
According to the Korean Environment Ministry, there were 1,374 bears raised for bile in 74 farms across South Korea in 2009, and current figures are believed to sit around the 1600 mark. Pretty disgraceful stuff.

You can click here for an overview of the cruel absurdity of bile farming in Asia - and if you're feeling particularly frivolous, why not throw a few quid a moon bear charity's way.



It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
- Mark Twain

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