But my Cantonese Chinese heritage has enriched in me with a broader sense of culture and history. The Cantonese love to eat. Dining is their art-form, their past-time, their daily pursuit. A Guangzhou resident once said to me, "we Cantonese will eat anything with four legs except the table." I say the Cantonese can turn any edible oddity into a delicacy. Five thousand years of culture with probably countless periods of famine have generated dishes that my fair skinned Canadian friends would laugh over.
In Canada, we cut off the heads of salmon and give them to the crows. In Asia, the delicacy dish would be salmon cheek. And then there are pig's feet which make a great stew, and chicken feet for dim sum ... etc etc. One has to respect this ability to eat all of what is available.
But in today's global economic reality, the Chinese have the ability to eat what they want, when they want, without realizing what is wasted or their collective effect to the world environment. This brings me to my issue over their desire to eat the fins of sharks. Any shark will do, as long as they are from real wild sharks. This delicacy dish, served at weddings and other special occasions, has its cultural belief that it is a food fit for an emperor. It is more status symbol than nutrition. Only the fins make for the status. The rest of the fish is not, and that means that 90% of the shark is wasted. This fact itself is not very Chinese, and certainly not the practical, resourceful Chinese that I know and respect.
Let's not pick on just the Cantonese. The Taiwanese are a major consumer of Shark's Fin soup as are the nouveau rich in mainland China. The western health food saying "you are what you eat" is very much in the mindset of all the Chinese. And in this mindset is a long history of tradition and culture that cannot be overcome in one generation. A law to ban the fishing of sharks will not stop demand. Nor would it stop ordinary people from heading out to international (and lawless) waters to hunt down sharks and bringing home only fins that are easy to hide and sell.
Ninety is the number. 90% of each shark is wasted. About 90 million sharks are killed each year for fins. It is estimated that 90% of some shark species are now gone. What can be done to reverse this trend?
The task at hand is to educate the Chinese young. This is already working with famous Chinese like Jackie Chan and Yao Ming speaking out to protect sharks and therefore our oceans.
The responsibility is mine too. And it is yours as well. Speak out against this dish. If you are invited to a Chinese banquet, encourage (or demand) that an alternative to shark fin be provided. The clever and resourceful Cantonese have already invented alternative dishes ... they need your help to get over the hurdles of tradition and culture and status symbols.
It is not hip to eat fins. It is not cool to eat fins. I do not appear wealthier, stronger or more respectful to my guests by serving shark fin soup.
There shall never be shark fins in my soup.
The oceans are for all. And all of us must respect its natural beauty and its health.
