is it so wrong to eat meat?

I haven't written here in a looong time, and so much happened while I was away that I'm not sure why I'm here to write about whether it's right to eat meat, but that's what I'm going to write about anyway.  The subject has been bothering me since a couple of days ago when a good friend of mine sent me a link to a video titled "Best Speech You Will Ever Hear" by Gary something.  I had been in Boston for two months (first time being outside of Japan in fifteen years!) and was surprised to find the vegan version of everything!  I never thought so much about it while I was there; I just felt like consumer autonomy was much stronger in America with so many choices (compared to Japan where I guess would be difficult to lead a completely vegan lifestyle).  But now that I've watched a couple of videos and read a couple of articles made and written by vegans, I couldn't help the urge to write down the stuff I personally found kind of odd, just to get it off my chest.

Firstly, it really bothers me that some vegans make it sound like there is a strong link between how a human treats animals and how he would treat other humans.  Gary makes it sound like animal lovers are peaceful loving beings while meat eaters are baby Nazis (if not full grown Nazis).  If that's true, I'd like to ask why Western countries that consume more meat are generally more concerned about human rights, compared to Asian "vegan" countries.

And I don't think it's totally wrong to say that we eat meat because we're part of the food chain.  Every creature on this planet is part of the chain, right?  Given our intelligence, we found a way to farm animals (which might seem upsetting because no other animal does it), but any species with the same intelligence would have done the same, because it's an easier (if not better) way to survive.  Of course, we should make sure that animals are treated well until they are slaughtered, and I agree that there is no "humane" way to kill an animal, but we have the technology to make sure that the suffering of a cow being killed by a human is at least better than that of a gazelle being killed by a lion.

As for the health aspect, I haven't looked into enough studies to say whether meat increases or decreases human life span, but it's a famous fact that the Japanese average life span increased and became #1 in the world only after WWII when American style cuisine came into Japan and the consumption of meat rose dramatically among the Japanese population.  Also, it's commonly said in Japan that eating meat is the easiest way to make sure you're taking in certain amino acids that you'd otherwise lack if you were to only eat plants.

I realize there are farmers that mistreat animals, and this is a huge problem that needs to be addressed.  As consumers, we should always remember that our lives stand upon the sacrifice of other lives that we do not necessarily see.  But becoming a vegan?  I need to find more data before deciding on that.  It's really a shame that so many vegans put emphasis on the emotional aspect and keep showing videos of animals treated badly.  I wonder what they think about all the animals killed in labs.  I agree humans are not "superior" or "special", but does that mean we're supposed to sit on our hands and watch our fellow sick humans die because we're not superior and we're not supposed to experiment with mice to save human lives?

If animal protein is necessary to pursue better survival, the sacrifice is necessary to some extent.  Or is it human ego to pursue a longer life?  Should we simply accept a shorter life if that saves animals?  It surprises me that so many people found Gary's speech convincing.  If I had been shown the proof that becoming a vegan guaranteed better survival, I would've turned a vegan overnight.  Without solid data though, his speech was just emotionally controlling in my opinion.

italians

"You don't iron your jeans?  That's an international problem."

Apparently, Italians iron EVERYTHING.  Even their Tshirt, socks and sometimes underwear.

They clean their house until everything is shining.  Especially their doorknobs.  They go to doorknob stores to get the perfect doorknob with the perfect design, color, shine, and grip.

When they go to the market, they take hours to buy what they eat for dinner.  Because they have a preference for EVERYTHING.  Herbs, cheese, wine, tomatoes...

I almost gaped as I saw all this on TV while having dinner.  A Japanese woman who had married an Italian taxi driver showed us how 'obssessed' Italians were about certain things.   Her husband Marco was no exception; there was a 'Marco-check' for EVERYTHING.  "Honey, come here.  Look at this dust."  "Honey, look.  The doorknob has some fingerprints."  "Honey, smell this.  I think this herb is too mild."

During dinner, he comments how the risotto is a bit dry.  "You see, Parmesan is a liaison.  If you look at this dish as an architecture, it's like cement between bricks."  His son looked back at his father and asked if he wasn't hungry.  "Yes, I actually am hungry.  Let's eat."



It seemed to me like Italians had too much time.  I wonder how their economy can still be working...

language

I never watch movies that are dubbed.  I also don't like it when Japanese characters speak in English to each other like in Hollywood films (which I think often fail to distinguish between Japan and China).

I mean, obviously, it's impossible to express the fragility, gracefulness, politeness etc. of the Japanese language in English.  A Japanese cannot be quite Japanese without speaking in Japanese.

I think when you speak fluently in a foreign language, you lose something of your own culture that is embedded in your mother tongue.  When the foreign language takes over your thoughts, it kills all the cultural and non-cultural concepts that are reliant to your native language.  At least, that's the only way I can explain how my personality slightly changes when I express myself in English.

Zwick, when talking about DiCaprio's accent in Blood Diamond, said dialect had an effect over a creation of a character. It apparently allows an actor to be as different from himself as he could be based on the fact that he sounds utterly different. It's a freedom someone often gets from speaking in a foreign language. There's a French expression that says"to possess another language is to possess another soul (複数の言語を所有するものは複数の魂を所有する)".  Zwick thought that happened to actors acting in dialect.

So if you can't possess two souls at the same time, you lose a soul while your other soul takes over.  That's what I used to think.  But Woody Allen makes one of his characters in Vicky Christina Barcelona explain that his father refuses to speak any other language than Spanish.  He's a poet and he writes the most beautiful sentences in the Spanish language but doesn't believe that a poet should pollute his words by any other tongue.  I never thought my Japanese soul and English soul polluted each other, but maybe they do.  My English character probably does show sometimes when I'm speaking in Japanese and vice versa.

As a related topic, works by Haruki Murakami sound great to me when translated, not because it still sounds Japanese but because the western flavor of English goes well with his works.  Murakami's quirky humor is not quite Japanese in the first place, and his characters' speeches sometimes even sound like they're translated from English when I read the original piece in Japanese.  They're simple, witty, and sarcastic - the impression I get from the English language.

It intrigues me how languages can effect or even define a character.  In the end, we're made of our thoughts and our thoughts are made of our language.

learning a foreign language

The other day, a friend told me that in the future, people wouldn't have to study foreign languages anymore because there would be translator robots.

I felt sad when I thought about that kind of future.  I think you can never say you know a culture without learning its language.  When you learn a language, you learn a new culture; you learn to look at the world in a different light - you find another side of yourself.

One of my favorite Japanese words is お疲れ様(otsukaresama).  疲れ(tsukare) means exhausation/tiredness; お(o) and 様(sama) are used to show respect.  So the literal translation might be "I respect your exhaustion" which translates to "I respect your hard work".

We use it in various situations - not only after a long day's work but also during the day.  I think it shows how the Japanese culture values hard work and how people appreciate/respect it.

On the other hand, a couple of months ago when I was asked what my favorite English phrase was, what came up first in my mind was "I hope life has been treating you well."

The literal translation in Japanese would sound really awkward - in Japanese, life doesn't treat you in any way; you always have to 頑張る(gambaru=work hard) to live a better life.  I think I like this English phrase because it sort of sounds like no matter what's happening now in your life, it's not your fault - it's just that "life" has been treating you badly.

I actually find it interesting that my favorites kind of have the opposite approach towards life - well, at least according to my interpretation.

It's pretty nice to be able to think about life in two different ways through two different languages.