Saturday, May 5, 2007

Volunteering at vegetarian society's booth at suntec

I am having some problems with posting in blogger and can't add hyerlinks and images, so I won't be making posts that require them for the time being. Hopefully it can be resolved soon, otherwise I have to switch to another blog hosting website.

Anyway, today I went to help out at the booth for vegetarian society at the health and beauty fair at suntec. We got a really large booth which we can place in all the exhibits, there were many people coming to our booth and asking for information, signing up for the electronic newsletter by VSS. Quite a number of people were concern about a healthy vegetarian diet, and some express concern about iron and calcium deficiency, as well as lack of protein. Many of them were attracted by the video on show "Eat less meat". One little boy even ask "what's that?" (pointing at the pigs) and his brother told him it's pigs. The little boy continue to ask why is the pig hanging, and the brother told him it's being killed. This again reminds me of how as young children we were not taught where meat came from, and we thought pigs were living happily on farms. On the contrary, some parents do educate their children on the animal-meat connection. One lady brought her children back to the booth and show them the exhibition panels we have. What I found interesting was that, not many teens and young adults were interested, or maybe, it's because of the time which I went to help out. Anyway, that's all for today (I am sleeping in front of the computer..zzz), the exhibition will continue again tomorrow, do come and take a look if you have time.

4 comments:

Jari (travelling-vegan) said...

Hi, good of you to volunteer! It seems there's no vegan society in Singapore, does the vegetarian one serve the vegan ideals well enough?

This blog is pretty cool as it gives a glimpse to vegan living in Singapore, thank you for that! I'm a vegan Finn living in Beijing but in all probability moving to Singapore next year, so it's good to have an idea of how veganism is doing over there.

As for the proper topic, what turned me into a vegan was when a drunken butcher came to talk to me randomly on the street, describing his work in every gory detail. Even when people know animals are killed for food, they don't really realize what happens behind the closed doors in the slaughterhouses or the modern factory farms. I think more knowledge = more vegans.

Keep up the great blogging! :-)
Jari

dreamy said...

Hi Jarl,
Thanks for dropping by. Hope u enjoyed ur stay :)

Nope there isn't a vegan society here, but the vegetarian society promotes all forms of vegetarianism, veganism included, and I think it's doing pretty ok.

It may be harder for veganism to be promoted due to a lack of cheese and egg substitutes in regular supermarts, and they are quite pricey in health food stores.

How's it like being a vegan in beijing?

An intersting way you became vegan! If only we have more talking drunken butchers here :p

Jari (travelling-vegan) said...

Well, when I turned vegan (about 11 years ago) there were no cheese and egg substitutes or even soya milk or tofu in Finland, and yet that's the time the Finnish Vegan Society was started. So I think it should be doable in Singapore. I hear they even have soya ice cream there? It's also all over the place in Finland nowadays, as are all of the above. :-)

Vegan life in Beijing is a heck of a lot easier than it was a decade ago in Finland, heheh. It's not bad, there are several vegetarian restaurants and most others will serve vegan food also when one asks in Chinese and specifies everything. And of course one can always cook himself... that works anywhere. It's just sometimes bothersome to be the first vegetarian everyone meets. I thought I was done with that years ago.

Yes, let's start a campaign for getting all the drunken butchers to talk! We should get them on TV! ;-)

dreamy said...

Cool! But I think vegetarian society here already needs more support, so I am not sure if a vegan society will have to wait a little while. Soy icecream is not very common here. The thing is ppl here are quite concern about good tasting food, and veg food is commonly perceived as unbalanced, not so tasty, and sometimes unhealthy (because mock meats are commonly used).

I didn't knew it was easy being a veg in Beijing. The last time I went China, only at Shanghai did I come across some mock products. There were only veggies, veggies and more veggies in the rural areas :) but it's a lot more healthier, though they use a lot of oil.

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