Now Meat Is Raising Red Flags in China

At 25, Yang Zhaohua knows what it is to be scorned by his fellow Chinese.

He admits to being “a laughingstock” among his acquaintances. His parents have condemned his exotic lifestyle, forcing him to move in with an uncle who can “monitor” his behavior on a daily basis. Eating in public places is difficult.

All this because Yang, an extremely thoughtful and well-spoken young man, dares to be different: He is a vegetarian.

“In China, you are lonely” if you don’t eat meat, Yang said with a sigh one day over a scrupulously meatless lunch. “They say to you, ‘You are a fool.’ ”

In the world’s most populous nation, life is no bowl of cherry tomatoes for the tiny minority of people who abstain from eating animals.

They battle restaurants that stir-fry everything, even vegetable dishes, in animal-based oils. They suffer the ridicule of family and friends, who sometimes dismiss vegetarianism as little more than superstition. They find themselves locked in a society so racked throughout history by famine and poverty that conspicuous consumption--of meat--is symbolic of both health and wealth.

But as China rapidly opens up to new ideas and trends, champions of vegetarian living are beginning to make small inroads here, especially among the more sophisticated urbanites like Yang who form the backbone of a burgeoning new middle class. Ironically, a culture in which the well-off display their prosperity by buying meat has now spawned a subgroup: those who spend money to go without it.

They dine at chic vegetarian eateries that have opened up in major cities across China, from Beijing to Guangzhou province. Shanghai alone, the country’s most cosmopolitan and forward-looking metropolis, is now home to 10 such restaurants--and could do with many more to tap the emerging vegetarian market, according to an official with the city’s Hotel Assn.

Rising incomes throughout the country have resulted in better education and a greater willingness by residents to experiment with more costly novelty items such as organically grown fruits and vegetables, which now line supermarket shelves.

And in their push for a brave new world, vegetarians in China have gained the unlikeliest of allies: the Communist government, whose relaxed controls on religion have allowed tens of millions of Buddhists to practice their faith more freely, including a vegetarian lifestyle.

Yang, a researcher at a foreign consulting company here in Beijing, sees reason to hope for the vegetarian cause. “I think it will catch on,” he said. “Although some of my friends refuse to be vegetarian, they can accept it now.”

It is a hard sell. To many in China, vegetarianism remains a strange phenomenon imported from the West, where its popularity, whether for health, moral or religious reasons, has increased in the past 20 years. In the U.S., more than 12 million people, or about 4% of the population, consider themselves vegetarians.

Comparable statistics are not available here in mainland China. But a recent survey in Hong Kong showed that less than 1% of that city’s residents refrain from eating meat of any kind, including seafood. Skeptics labeled vegetarianism “superstitious” (especially Christians and the young) and energy-deficient (especially men).

Veggie Diets Traced Back to 7th Century

Mindful of the view of vegetarianism as a Western oddity, proponents in China appeal to their own history in hopes of enlisting their fellow citizens. They contend that no-meat diets, chosen for personal reasons rather than economic necessity, are rooted in Chinese traditions dating back more than 1,000 years.

In the 7th century, the famous Tang Dynasty physician Sun Simiao extolled the virtues of vegetarianism in his 60-volume treatise, “Prescriptions Worth More Than Gold.” Records show that Sun, who studied medicine after surviving a sickly childhood, lived until he was 101.

Likewise, some Taoist philosophers, emphasizing harmony with the natural world, eschewed meat. So did followers of various sects of Buddhism, particularly those that continue to have adherents in China.

“Do not harm any sentient being,” proclaims a sign outside Green Heaven, a Beijing vegetarian restaurant with Buddhist overtones. Inside, portraits of Socrates, Shakespeare and Einstein hang in the stairwell, although no authority is cited confirming that those pictured actually avoided meat.

With its sparkling chandeliers, pink tablecloths, pastel wall paintings and piped-in Muzak, Green Heaven seems an incongruous battlefield in the war on animal products. But by some accounts, it is the modern Chinese vegetarian’s Lexington, where the first salvo for vegetarianism was fired, at least in the mass media.

When the restaurant opened three years ago off one of Beijing’s busiest shopping streets, a popular newspaper devoted nearly an entire page to the event, laying out the arguments in favor of vegetarianism. In a scathing response, another well-read daily shot back with an article scoffing at meatlessness as a way of life. The battle was joined.

To spread the vegetarian gospel, Green Heaven now offers its patrons a free pamphlet titled “Why Must People Be Vegetarian.” The little blue tract overflows with references to Buddhist concepts and teachings. According to one customer, such overt references are relatively recent; previous booklets made little mention of Buddhism, perhaps for fear of inviting too much government scrutiny in a land where, for decades, religion was stamped as feudal nonsense.

Indeed, the restaurant’s manager, Wu Xiaodi, downplays any religious aspect to Green Heaven, despite the establishment’s celestial name. “Our goal is to let people know that eating vegetables is good for their health,” she said, stressing that the restaurant serves no meat, eggs or alcohol.

But she acknowledged that among the restaurant’s clientele are monks and nuns from nearby temples. Waitresses ask customers if they eat garlic or scallions, items spurned by some devout Buddhists for fear of offending others with their smell if they consume them.

Buddhist Convert Changes Eating Habits

A recent lunch crowd at Green Heaven included businesswoman Miao Qin, who converted to Buddhism four years ago, becoming one of the many new adherents won over--or won back--since the Communist regime eased restrictions on religious worship.

Miao, 32, steadfastly forgoes meat now, although her 8-year-old son still indulges. She heard of Green Heaven at her temple--which has its own vegetarian cafeteria--and intends to bring her spiritual master with her the next time she dines at the restaurant.

The restaurant is not cheap, “but there are special cooking skills here,” she said.

Curiously, those skills include dressing up vegetables to look like meat, a common practice at Chinese vegetarian restaurants, including some around Los Angeles. Using tofu, other bean products and plant extracts in ingenious ways, the chefs whip up such dishes as cold shredded vegetarian jellyfish, vegetarian pork with soy sauce, smoked vegetarian duck flavored with tea leaves, and roasted vegetarian leg of lamb.

Some of the mock meat dishes taste remarkably like the real thing--indeed, Chinese President Jiang Zemin reportedly exclaimed, “It tastes just like meat!” after a meal at a Shanghai Buddhist monastery. But the similarity doesn’t faze Miao. “Since I’m psychologically prepared and know they’re vegetables,” she said, “I don’t imagine that it’s meat.”

Such delicacies--”vegetables in drag,” as one Westerner put it--are necessary as a transitional step away from meat-eating toward vegetarianism in China, said Simon S. C. Chau, chairman of the Hong Kong Vegetarian Society.

“When you’ve been addicted to meat for 30 years, you’re so addicted to the taste, the look and feel,” Chau said. “To help you transfer over, to change, this is a kind of interim [stage].

“And,” he added, “the restaurants need to attract customers.”

Meat a Sign of Material Success

That marketing reality holds particularly true in China’s expanding economy, where buying and eating more meat remains an indicator of material success.

Although per capita meat consumption lags far behind U.S. levels--Americans devoured an average of 178 pounds of meat per person in 1995--the rate rose by 11% in urban Chinese households between 1985 and 1996, to 54 pounds, according to government figures. Rural areas, traditionally the poorest in China, recorded a 23% increase in the same period, to 33 pounds per person.

“Meat is a status symbol,” Chau said. “It’s a move away from the deprivation of earlier times. They see it as a kind of emancipation.”

For many Chinese who grew up in the 1950s and ‘60s, a vegetarian diet was enforced by poverty, not choice. They counted themselves lucky to have any food at all, because an estimated 30 million people starved to death in the famine caused by Mao Tse-tung’s disastrous Great Leap Forward collectivization campaign in the late ‘50s.

Which makes voluntary abstention from meat a bizarre concept to people like Yang Zhaohua’s parents.

Three years ago, Yang, the Beijing researcher, found himself disgusted by the animal slaughter he witnessed during a holiday festival in his hometown of Wuhan, in east-central China. So he adopted a strictly vegetarian diet.

“To be a vegetarian means a serene, nonviolent life,” said Yang, who is not religious but professes sympathy for religious principles. “You can learn from [eating] vegetarian food how to respect other people, not just other animals. All beings are equal.”

A few months ago, however, Yang’s mother--who was convinced that her son was not getting enough nourishment and who did not like vegetarianism’s association with Buddhism--forced him to start downing meat once again. His parents also insisted that he give up living on his own in Beijing and move in with his uncle, who cooks meat-based dishes for dinner.

“I’ve become a traitor of vegetarianism,” he said. “I feel very uncomfortable--a sense of guilt. And I feel uncomfortable with my health. After I take meat, I often feel very sleepy.”

But despite attitudes like those of Yang’s parents, advocates of meatless lifestyles are optimistic that their philosophy will gain more followers.

“The time will come,” Chau predicted. “Just like the environmental movement, it’s picking up.”