"You're a kind person - how can you eat animals?" My friend was completely earnest with his question.
I was stumped. I check all the boxes to be a Vegetarian:
- Yes I believe that industrial meat production is cruel (and I care about animals)
- I believe that a vegetarian diet is better for my body (and I care about my body)
- I believe that a vegetarian diet is better for the environment (and I give a damn about the environment)
- I can cook vegetarian and I know where to buy vegetarian food I like
- My mother is a vegetarian and a hippie (and well, I care about my mom)
So at the start of 2014, I declared to myself I was going to be a Vegetarian on Wednesdays. I realised that even though I eat vegetarian food regularly, I didn't quite understand what the experience of being identified as a Vegetarian.
It turns out that once you tell people that you're a Vegetarian, you lose all other characteristics - they see you as if you tattooed VEGETARIAN on your forehead. The conversations around you, especially near or during meal times, suddenly revolve solely around vegetarianism. The good is that people are curious, sensitive and increasingly aware. And the discussions increase the awareness further.
The bad is - don't we have anything else to talk about? Why is it such a big deal?
How does it feel like to be a Vegetarian? I guess I don't have the full answer as I'm still really struggling - it is way more convenient (and socially accepted in Singapore) to eat "everything / anything". I still like eating meat. The best I'm doing so far is to consciously reduce the amount of meat I eat, veto going for meat buffets - or at least opt out.
I guess being a Vegetarian feels like being part of any other group that is not the default, the mainstream or the dominant. As a tall, young, "free thinker", Chinese, straight, omnivorous, white-collar male in Singapore, being a Vegetarian, even for a day, reminds me that life is often so easy for me.
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