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| Landon Lauder Class of 2017 |
Vegetables are the same all over the world. Or so I thought.
Around the first of this year (2016), I decided to become a complete vegetarian (no, that does not include fish) for environmental and personal health reasons. Ever since, finding vegetarian food in the United States has been incredibly easy at just about every restaurant. Knowing I would be traveling to the People’s Republic of China this summer, I asked our professor if I could maintain being a vegetarian in China; he said yes, and that it would be fairly easy.
I unfortunately did not last more than two full days before having to eat meat. I did not start to eat meat again out of peer pressure or even because I did not like the vegetables. Instead, I ate meat in order to basically survive. I realized that not only is it impossible to eat strictly vegetables and tofu in China (every veggie and tofu dish is cooked with meat of some sort), but it is also disrespectful.
The food culture here is quite different than the United States. Instead of usually ordering for yourself, the typical way to order in China is to do so for the entire table—a few dishes shared by all, which typically includes large meat dishes. This certainly reflects upon the difference in hospitality and general cultural mores in China than the U.S. The servers and guides want to provide the best meat dishes for visitors and they prefer to share food, an iteration of the collective ideology of the Chinese, which extends even to their holistic medicine approach. Instead of ordering for the individual, you order for everyone and share with everyone.
Interestingly, no one here knows what a vegetarian is in China. When I mentioned it to our guides, they looked confused and pointed to the lettuce that had layers of ham on top and declared that we did indeed have vegetables and not to worry. On the very few occasions where I would try to explain I could not eat meat, I received very mixed responses. The person would either laugh, look even more confused, or struggle to find something, like bean curd, that did not explicitly have meat. Having received the message, I decided it would be best for me to start eating meat again for the time I am in China.
Life as a temporarily converted omnivore has been interesting to say the least. Little by little, I have had to incorporate each group of meat, starting with seafood. Thankfully, it has been relatively easy without much rejection from my body. I am glad I made the transition, however. I have since been able to not only survive, but also experience the wide array of Chinese cooking that I would have never been exposed to by participating in a culture that shares food.
Landon Lauder is a senior McConnell Scholar studying political science and psychology at the University of Louisville.