Chinese dog meat vendors cover signboards in Yulin

Restaurants in China's Guangxi Zhuang region's Yulin city have covered the Chinese character "dog" on their signboards in order to "avoid trouble" ahead of the start of a controversial dog meat festival on Tuesday.

Fearing protests from animal rights activists that have inundated past festivals, many restaurants and vendors in the city have covered their signboards. Some restaurants even changed their names entirely.

A dog meat seller named Zhou who works at the city's Dongkou market told the Global Times daily on Sunday that she just wanted to "avoid trouble".

Another dog meat seller, Li who works near Liangbin road said that the government has required vendors to cover their signboards.

"Recently, authorities have frequently asked to check the licenses of these restaurants and vendors, including their food sanitation permits and business licenses," Li said.

On Jiangbin road, dubbed "dog street" for the cluster of dog meat restaurants there, a line has formed as people wait for these restaurants to start hanging their dog meat and prepare for dinner at 6 p.m.

Before mass media coverage of the festival - held since the 1990s - began in recent years, only local people bought dog meat, whereas now many people from Northeast China or neighbouring Guangdong province also come here to taste the meat, a local resident Zhang said.