On the environmental impact of rising Chinese wealth...

I remember one time when we were in a restaurant, my brother commented on the rising wealth of China. He was saying, Chinese would eat some of those endangered animals and species to extinction. I wholeheartedly agree with him.

There's an old saying, that Chinese would eat anything that has its back facing the sky. That would cover pretty much all reptiles and marine animals. Average Chinese, with their rush and race up the wealth ladder, are keen for outward display of their prosperity, meaning more consumptions, more meat, more seafood, more of everything that they were lack of in the past.

Not that it's entirely their fact. Consumers in the West have been doing their part in consumption craze for a very long time. Thing is, Chinese does this with blatant disregard for history and environment, akin to a bulldozer that would crush everything standing in its way.

So, we have reports of alarms from scientists about "eating tourism" and the dwindling numbers of coral reef fish like groupers, which are a favorite among Chinese.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I recall one time, when I was still living in Sydney, a couple visited my sister on a guided tour, and the four of us went to a restaurant in Chinatown late that night when we met up. It's close to mid-night. The couple had been up since dawn, sightseeing on the tour bus; and they're pretty tired too. But once we got to the restaurant, their eyes lit up when they saw the giant groupers swimming in the fish tank. We got our table, sat down, and first thing they uttered was, "we want to try the grouper congee - we heard it's very good but it's very expensive in Hong Kong". As a host, we wouldn't say no to them, but I was secretly disgusted by their eating all the way from Hong Kong to Sydney. And those groupers were big - very big, in fact - and I hate the thought of killing them, just to put some congee to satisfy their curiosity.

Another time, when we were visiting the Museum of Natural History in NYC. While we were approaching some exhibits in tanks, there was this family (parents with two grown children) in front of us. Judging from their accent, they're probably ethnical Chinese from Singapore or Malaysia (rather well-dressed, and probably of some intellect). When we got to the tank in front of us, there was this huge marble eel lurking in the murky water. Its body was thicker than my thigh. While we were marveling the eel with my young kids (they love all animals), the Chinese family was expressing their own wonder. The parents were discussing how tasty the eel must be, and they were discussing ways to cook the eel!!! I was so disgusted that I let my kids away, so as not to upset them that someone would be contemplating killing and cooking that fish.

I don't mean to sound harsh to fellow Chinese, but the way that alot of Chinese are display their disregard to the environment and the planet earth really does make me sick.