Asturian-American Migration Forum

WARNING: This video is hard core:

http://vimeo.com/4896617

Do Asturians support/enjoy bullfighting? I never saw a corrida while living in Oviedo, but I have been to several in Toledo, Cordoba, and Sevilla. By non-Spanish standards, it's pretty barbaric. But you have to weigh that against the billions of cows routinely slaughtered to make hamburgers and ask yourself which is the real problem, I guess. I'm ambivalent about bullfighting, FWIW.

I attended one corrida in Mexico many years ago, and came away convinced that bullfighting was not something I could be interested in.

I know some Asturians that can shoot the bull

Your message was screaming for a poll, Xose, so I added one. Hope you don't mind!

Let me know if we need other options.

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Tu mensaje estaba suplicando para una encuesta, Xose, entonces lo pegué. ¡Espero que no te molesta!

Dime si se precisan otras opciones.

I think it's a spectacle with a full panoply of cultural expressions and traditions surrounding it. But it is certainly not a tradition in or of Asturias, nor do I agree when municipalities like Xixon organize a bullfight.

Who goes to these things in Asturias? I don't know a single person within my parents' circle of acquaintances. Although I recognize the artfulness, that does not manage to elevate it into the realm of anything other than a sanctioned form of animal brutality.

I see bullfighting as a relic from a very different world, in which humans may have viewed nature as overwhelmingly dangerous. Perhaps we now see bullfighting differently because we can control so much of the natural world.

Auto racing might be a modern version of bullfighting in the sense that we enjoy watching people put themselves in dangerous situations for a chance at glory and wealth.

I suppose a lot of sports involve physical danger.

All the same, I don't appreciate the poking and slaughtering of the bulls.

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Veo la tauromaquia como una reliquia de un mundo muy distinto, en lo que los seres humanos pueden haber visto la naturaleza como un peligro abrumador. Tal vez ahora vemos el toreo distintamente, ya que podemos controlar tanto del mundo natural.

Carreras de autos puede ser una versión moderna de los toros en el sentido de que nos gusta ver gente ponerse en situaciones peligrosas para la oportunidad de gloria y riqueza.

Supongo que muchos de los deportes implican peligro físico.

De todas formas, no aprecio el clavar y sacrificar de los toros.

There may also be a remnant of the Mithraic religion in bull fighting but I've never had time to dig into the literature.

Personally, I just don't like to see animals suffer needlessly.

Yeah, it bothers me to see a kid pull off an insect's wings.

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Sí, me molesta ver a un niño arrancando las alas de un insecto.

You all forget it's BIG BUSINESS - an industry in itself, wild bull breeding included. The only wild bulls left in the world are Spain's fighting bulls.

As to the city of Gijon organizing bull fights, that's not quite right. There are bullfight promoters who organize them and the City only lets them rent the bull fighting ring in August for the Feria de Begoña.
The city was going to let the building go to rot and ruin, until they realized that they could make money out of it. The man who had it built over 100 years ago (theater promotor Dindurra) specified in his will that the plot where the arena stands would revert to his heirs the very moment the building was torn down. So, the city of Gijon decided to keep the property and use it for other events, too.

And having said this, I'm obviously dead set against bull fighting.

I'm curious. How popular would bullfighting be in Asturias if it were not for the influx of people from other areas?

One big misconception of it here in the States is that it's a sport. It's not a sport. It's a cultural experience that's more akin to ritual than anything else I can think of in modern times.

I also think that we are overly squeamish about these things and it shows our collective hypocrisy. Hence, my comment about nobody in America giving two thoughts to having burgers farmed in factory farms and abysmal slaughterhouses. Yet when it happens right in front of us, we get all weepy about it.

We do not buy factory farmed meats, only organic grass-fed beef (no hormones, no antibiotics) from local small farms and ranches. It's a little more expensive, but it is worth it for the taste alone. Our fishmonger can usually tell us when and where our fish was caught and sometimes even the name of the boat and the captain.

Xose is right about the ritual aspect. As such it is a spectacle which reinforces some piece of the social fabric. (It's not something I resonate with.) I wasn't aware of its big business aspect, but that's not surprising.

Maybe it's not be a big deal for Asturians, given the low level of interest in discussing it.

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Xose tiene razón sobre el aspecto ritual. Como tal, es un espectáculo que refuerza alguna pieza del "tejido" (estructura) social. (No es un detalle que me encanta.) No era consciente de su aspecto empresarial, pero no me sorprende.

Tal vez no tenga mucha importancia para los asturianos, dando el nivel bajo de interés en discutirlo.

Bob wrote:We do not buy factory farmed meats, only organic grass-fed beef (no hormones, no antibiotics) from local small farms and ranches. It's a little more expensive, but it is worth it for the taste alone. Our fishmonger can usually tell us when and where our fish was caught and sometimes even the name of the boat and the captain.

I'm down with that approach too, Bob. That's what we do although we do it by buying at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, etc.

We are in the vast minority in this country, though. Most people don't give a crap as long as it's cheap.

In fact, the newspapers publish anything related to bull fights in the Arts Section.
I can't stand to see the way bulls are killed in the arena, but neither can I stand the way "industrial"livestock of any kind is kept and transported.

If I had to choose between being a European or American bull, force fed with hormone enriched feed, castrated to become an ox, kept in a box too narrow to move or lie down for a whole year until he's the right size for the slaughterhouse, and the Spanish wild bull, roaming freely and grazing in the meadows and open pastures for 5 years until he weighs half a ton, to then die within one hour in a bull fighting ring with pomp and circumstance, hey, I'd take the life of the Spanish bull anytime!