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Loading...Yes, Chinese Culture Will Survive Without Shark Fin Soup
A few weeks ago, California lawmakers Paul Fong (D-Cupertino) and Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) introduced Assembly Bill (AB) 376, which proposes to ban the sale and distribution of shark fins in California. The bill has set off a passionate debate, as shark fin’s soup is seen as a thousand-year-plus tradition in Chinese culture. State Senator Leland Yee, who is running for mayor of San Francisco, has even declared the proposed ban an ‘”attack on Asian culture,”‘according to SfGate.com.
I have to say, the way one gets shark fins for shark fin soup is a pretty terrible attack on the sharks. Shark finning is a brutal and violent practice in which fins are hacked off a live shark, which is then left to die as it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Marine biologists say there has been a 99 percent decline in oceanic whitetip sharks in the Gulf of Mexico over the last 15 years and a 89 percent decline in hammerhead sharks in the northwest Atlantic. Overall, scientists say that as many as 90 percent of sharks in the world’s open oceans have disappeared.
Currently, dried shark fin in San Francisco’s Chinatown sales for between $178 and $500 a pound in San Francisco. Shark fin’s soup costs between $250 and $500 for ten people. SfGate.com notes that the soup
……has been a traditional dish at banquets going back as far as the Han Dynasty, 1,800 years ago, when emperors and royals began consuming it. It is considered one of the four “treasures” of Chinese cuisine, along with abalone; fish maw, or bladder; and sea cucumber.
With the growth of the Chinese middle and upper classes, demand for the soup has increased, as one way to show that a family has ‘arrived’ and attained often hard-won economic success.
Opponents of the bill argue that an ‘existing federal ban against shark finning by U.S. registered vessels is adequate protection’: Sharks cannot be imported into the US unless the entire shark is captured and used:
Michael Kwong, a local seafood processor whose family has been in the business since 1905, said sharks are not even targeted by fishermen.
“It’s usually a bycatch, but when they do catch a shark, they are going to use it. The entire carcass gets used,” said Kwong, one of several restaurateurs and business owners who accompanied [State Senator] Yee at a news conference opposing AB376. “If this bill passes, there will be a lot of collateral damage.”
However, as SfGate.com notes, the federal law ‘does not apply to foreign-registered vessels, and it does not ban the sale of shark fins’ and is, in the words of Assembly Huffman, ‘”toothless.”‘
As a third-generation Chinese-American who still remembers my aunts whispering to me that I needed to drink each drop of my bowl of shark fin’s soup—only something we saw at fancy banquets—with care, I’m with Assemblyman Huffman, and I’m also with Assemblyman Paul Fong, the Silicon Valley Democrat who co-sponsored the bill. As the New York Times quotes him in an article about this ‘tempest in a soup pot’:
“It’s a horrific scene,” he said of finning. “Being environmentally conscious, I took the scientists’ side.”
Though I kind of want to ask Assemblyman Fong, was he expecting the bill to cause such a, um, souphaha when he decided to co=sponsor it?
The New York Times also quotes 27-year-old Jennifer Cheung, who said no to the soup at a Chinese New year celebration:
“I come from a culture where food is very important….But I think this is a very hefty price to pay just for a bowl of soup.”
Leaving aside such not-really-Chinese-Chinese-food items like fortune cookies and chop suey, certainly there are plenty of other traditional foods that one can make, and certainly many other ways of celebrating and carrying on Chinese traditions and cultures than shark fin soup. Somehow, I think Chinese culture will survive without shark fin soup.I for one can live without it
(I’m a vegetarian, as it is.)
To take more action, sign the petition to Ban The Sale of Shark Fins In California.
Previous Care2 Coverage
California Lawmakers Propose Shark Fin Ban
Read more: ab376, chinese culture, chinese restaurant, real food, shark, shark fin
Photo by dfb.
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Thank you for the article.
The cruel practice has got to stop!
Los chinos son ignorantes y crueles. Y sólo se excusan porque según es "tradición"... ahora por tradición o por creencias estúpidas van a acabar con esos pobres tiburones martillo. ¡Odio a los chinos! X(
eating shark fin does not mean life or death, we can definitely survive without it! culturally, there have been many changes - foot binding was once part of the chinese culture but that was stopped! this is cruelty to the sharks and disrupting the flow of the eco-system as sharks play an extremely important part!
An addition to my previous comment.
Us Canadians also have a huge impact on the Environment by way of the Tar Sands project and we are only 30 some million people of the 7 billion. The destruction caused to Ecosystems, Wildlife and People is horrendous and its effect reaches far beyond the US and Canada.
But, yes back to shark fining, it must stop everywhere. Introduce a new tradition to China like say, vegetable Matzo ball soup!
Lemmings come to mind. We now have 7 billion people on our Planet, and the largest populations are in China and India. By their sheer numbers they can and do a lot of damage to the Environment. Unfortunately a lot of ancient and barbaric customs exist all over the World, not only in South East Asia. However, because of their huge populations, and newly found wealth which gives rise to consumerism, the resulting negative impact is felt by ALL on the Planet.
Back to lemmings!
p.s. I think that the Indian people, many of whom are vegetarian, in general show a lot more respect to animals than the Chinese. Mind you not necessarily to one another.
Chinese people have to stop breeding and stop eating everything on this earth. Leave the sharks alone and come up with another meal they want to pay over priced so they can look wealthy. Think about everything else on this planet instead of yourselves for once.
For people who say shark fin soup is so important for their culture- what about birds' nest soup? You never hear about people eating that anymore. Huh, soup from a bird's nest, made out of bird saliva and mud, doesn't seem too tasty to you anymore? Then let's apply that same logic to shark fin's soup- a flap of cartilage hacked off a live fish- sounds gross, really- maybe you can decide that you don't want that part of your culture anymore either...
It's long past due that the Chinese stop eating everything that breathes. The only thing they don't eat is other people.
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