A llama is used to attract customers to a bar in Beijing
A llama is used as a prop to attract customers to a bar in Beijing on June 23, 2016. Competition among new bars in China's capital has seen bars try to attract customers by using wild animals, outdoor pole dancing, free manicures, Latin and African nights and live, televised international sports. Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI
A Chinese monk works at a temple during the annual Spring Festival in Beijing on February 12, 2016. This year's holiday was notably subdued, with vastly less fireworks and outdoor performances, due to China's economic slowdown and pollution concerns. Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI
An enterprising Chinese man sells a young puppy on the corner of an intersection in central Beijing, May 16, 2006. With China battling to find new jobs for millions of workers made redundant by the ailing state sector, many Chinese have taken to the streets, selling everything from animals to massages. (UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver)
Chinese men read the local and national daily newspapers, put up by the government every day on street bulletin boards, as two dogs hang out in a bicycle basket in Beijing on June 30, 2014. Despite China's efforts to gradually open up to Western culture, its newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations are tightly controlled by government censors. UPI/Stephen Shaver
An enterprising Chinese man sells a live terrapin, or soft-shell turtle, on the side of a road in Beijing on July 26, 2013. The terrapin is a much-favored dish, mainly roasted or prepared as a soup, served throughout China. UPI/Stephen Shaver
Puppies in cages (sold for food) are on sale in Lijiang
Puppies in cages (sold for food) are on sale for restaurants and customers at a market in Lijiang, northern Yunnan Province, on September 29, 2012. When food is scarce in China, dogs are eaten as an emergency food source around the country in a practice which is seen as socially acceptable. UPI/Stephen Shaver
Chinese shoppers look at various animals for sale, including a floppy-eared rabbit, at a shopping center in Beijing, on July 3, 2012. Only recently in China has the concept of pet ownership become popular, as opposed to buying animals strictly to cook. UPI/Stephen Shaver
Tibetan Chinese pilgrims and monks pray at the Labrang Monastery in a Tibetan area of China, Xiahe
A goat eats a glove worn by a worshipper at the Labrang Monastery, the largest Tibetan monastery outside of Lhasa, prior to the Tibetan Monlam Festival in Xiahe, Gansu Province on the Tibetan plateau, February 2, 2012. Tens of thousands of Tibetans are celebrating the Tibetan New Year by making their way to this town and its Labrang Monastery, whose separation from the Tibetan Autonomous Region provides a measure of protection from Han Chinese attempts to regulate their culture. UPI/Stephen Shaver
A puppys in a small wire cage at a sidewalk pet market in Beijing
A puppys in a small wire cage at a sidewalk pet market in downtown Beijing September 10, 2009. Raising and owning dogs was banned under the rule of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong as a bourgeois pastime, but with China's growing affluence and pursuit of Western trends, greater numbers of middle-class families have become avid pet owners in a booming social trend. UPI/Stephen Shaver
An enterprising Chinese man sells kittens on the corner of an intersection in central Beijing, May 16, 2006. With China battling to find new jobs for millions of workers made redundant by the ailing state sector, many Chinese have taken to the streets, selling everything from animals to massages. (UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver)
Chinese walk past an impromptu and illegal pet market in downtown Beijing on October 5, 2011. Across China, animal rights activism is flourishing with increasing numbers of people seeing animals as more as pets, not food. UPI/Stephen Shaver
A woman and her cat stop in front of Tiananmen Square's North Rostrum, featuring a giant portrait of late helmsman Mao Zedong, in central Beijing, China on March 03, 2008. Security was tightened in Beijing ahead of the annual meeting of China's National People's Congress scheduled to open Wednesday. (UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver)
Young Chinese girls feed pet rabbits for sale at a makeshift, sidewalk pet store in Beijing on February 25, 2014. The desire of Chinese to have more than one child has unexpectedly provided abundant funds to provincial and local governments - 19 provincial-level governments in China collected $2.7 billion in fines in the last year alone from parents who violated the one child per family policy. UPI/Stephen Shaver
A Chinese woman walks her dogs near the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on April 28, 2012. Chen Guangcheng, a blind legal activist and inspirational figure in China's human rights movement, fled house arrest that he has lived under for over four years, and made it to a safe house in Beijing on Friday, setting off a frantic police search for him and those who helped him. Why activists assisted Chen to China's capital was not immediately known. It is rumored that Beijing, China's most policed city and home to foreign embassies, is where Chen could seek asylum. UPI/Stephen Shaver
A pet bird, pierced with a metal hook and attached to a leash, perches on a stick as it waits to play a game in which it retrieves nuts shot into the air via blowgun in central Beijing November 24, 2008. (UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver)
Chinese man carries dog in designer purse in Beijing
A Chinese shopper texts on his smart phone as his dog sits in a large designer purse at an upscale, international shopping mall in Beijing on June 21, 2015. The explosive growth of China's middle class, a group which has mushroomed from just 4 percent in 2000 to 68 percent in 2012, is luring more and more foreign companies to establish bases, partnerships and joint-ventures in China. Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI
A senior Chinese man pushes a baby carriage loaded with two small dogs in Beijing on November 6, 2015. Only until last week Chinese families were only allowed one child, which prompted a lot of older Chinese to take up dog ownership years ago. Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI
A Chinese woman holds her dog in Beijing on May 29, 2014. Petco and PetSmart are the latest retailers to say that they will stop selling dog and cat treats made in China by the end of this year due to ongoing fears that the imported treats are making pets sick. UPI/Stephen Shaver
A truck packed with crates of dogs stops to get gas in Fujin
A truck packed with crates of dogs enroute to a slaughter house stops to refuel at a gas station in Fujin, a frontier town in China's northern Heilongjiang Province on July 31, 2013. Animal welfare organizations from across China have agreed to work together against what they term the "criminal and cruel" dog and cat meat industry. At least 10 million dogs are believed to be killed for waiting diners in China annually. Dog meat production has evolved from small-scale household businesses to a multi-million dollar industry of illicit dog traders. UPI/Stephen Shaver
WOMEN WALK THEIR DOG PAST A TEMPLE DECORATED FOR THE SPRING FESTIVAL
Two women walk their dog past the Baiyunguan Taoist Temple, decorated for the New Year's spring festival, in central Beijing, China on February 17, 2007. The Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, starts Sunday to usher in the Year of the Pig, but the Chinese have been boarding trains and planes for the last several weeks to go home for family reunions. (UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver)
Chickens feed on trash outside a low-income housing area on the outskirts of Beijing on April 19, 2013. Health officials from the World Health Organization raised further questions on Friday about the source of a new strain of bird flu H7N9 infecting humans in China after the data indicated that more than half of patients had no contact with poultry. UPI/Stephen shaver
Chinese farmers hope to sell their chickens in Dengfeng
Chinese farmers hope to sell their chickens and roosters at a food market in Denfeng City, Henan Province November 19, 2011. Although poultry is growing rapidly in popularity in China (KFC is the market leader of fast food in China, expanding by more than a store a day), pork is still the overwhelming meat of choice. Chinese consume three times as much pork as chicken at nearly 100 pounds per capita each year. UPI/Stephen Shaver
A Chinese woman walks past a horse pulling a wagon of fruit for sale in central Beijing, China on June 22, 2006 Beijing, like many of China's major cities, is a vibrant tale of two cities a city aggressively pushing towards a future, high-tech megalopolis but still very much a city chained to much of its low-tech past. (UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver)
Chinese workers groom and trim a dog at a new boutique 'animal stylist' geared to the needs of Beijing's nouveau riche November 7, 2011. Dog meat has long been a popular dish across China, but over the last few years changing cultural and culinary traditions are making dog meat less popular. UPI/Stephen Shaver
Chinese shoppers walk through a food market past a tank of fish for sale in central Beijing, China, on December 8, 2006. As the Chinese government pushes towards modernization and globalization, some parts of the country still cling to rural markets and traditions. (UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver)