I went to a cockfighting arena and farm owned by an acquaintance.

Cockfighting is a gambling game in which chickens are fitted with knives on their legs and made to fight.

The chickens used in cockfighting are called Shamo,

and are not the ordinary chickens we see.

Males bred and improved for cockfighting are used.

Competitions are held at three, nine, and twenty-four months of age.

Shamo has trainers who train them.

To the untrained eye, the difference between a nine-month-old and a twenty-four-month-old chicken is indistinguishable,

but there is an overwhelming difference in their strength.

Apparently, professionals can tell the thickness of the leg muscles and the strength of the kicking leg.

The competition is simple: if you die, you lose.

The game continues until one of them dies.

It is rare for the purchased chicken to be unharmed, and for a Shamo, the match is often a one-off.

Shamo is raised in a facility called a farm.

Although the facility is nothing more than a triangular hut in a field with a perch.

Here they are trained.

After that, they are sent out to fight, which is cruel.

Cockfighting has a history all over the world,

but now, due to cruelty and the fact that it is a subject for gambling,

some developed countries have banned it.

I have seen it in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

It is held daily in city squares and stadiums, and is ingrained in daily life.

The match is instantaneous.

It is over in a few to tens of seconds, so it is easy to understand.

It is a fast-paced process, with several hundred matches a day, from noon to the morning of the next day.

The bet is refunded immediately after the match.

I took a video, so please take a look if you are interested.

*The video was deleted by youtube after it was uploaded.

The purpose of this trip to the Philippines was to inspect the cockfighting business.

However, when I actually saw it, I lost interest.

When I saw the defeated cocks exhausted and blinking their eyes,

it was quite a sight. .

It's fine to watch on a screen, but I wonder how it feels to see the fighting cock you raised turn into that.

I don't mean to criticize cockfighting.

We receive life from meat, fish, vegetables, and rice,

so we can't live by denying that.

Butchering live fish.

Slaughtering pigs and cows.

Cutting vegetables that grow in the ground.

You don't really feel it unless you think about it or see it in action,

but it's definitely something that is done.

There's a different value to what's good or bad, so I can't say anything.

There's no point in thinking about things that can't be helped, and there's no point in thinking about things that can't be concluded.

Let's stop thinking about that and think about what we should do now.

I entered Macau from Manila yesterday.

For now, I'll have some egg tarts.

Next, maybe some baccarat.

But blogging is a bit strange.

Writing gives you an opportunity to think.

If you don't think about unnecessary things, you can enjoy cockfighting.

That being said, have fun.

PS

As I was finishing up this sentence, I noticed something at the very end.

By the way, there were hardly any women in the cockfighting arena.

I guess men and women have different values.