On a rainy July morning in Tainan, Taiwan, I sat in National Cheng Kung University’s Chinese Language Center speaking mandarin with my student language teacher. After reviewing the week’s textbook lesson and going over homework, my language teacher, 沛蓉 (Pei Rong), began asking about my favorite kinds of food, gathering data on my culinary preferences in a mission to recommend restaurants. I eventually revealed to Pei Rong that I am a vegetarian, a fact I dread disclosing in budding friendships because, inevitably, revealing this personal anecdote often prompts remarks such as “I could never be a vegetarian” or questions like “why do you not eat meat?”, responses which isolate me from future friendships, from the lunch dates and dinners that bind relationships together. Pei Rong, however, did not respond in either of these ways. Instead, she began teaching me new vocabulary to express my vegetarianism in mandarin.
In addition to learning terms that have direct English translations such as 蛋奶素 (ovo- lacto vegetarian) and 我吃素 (I am vegetarian), I also learned how to say phrases such as 方便素, which roughly translates to “convenient vegetarian.” Pei Rong explained that a “convenient vegetarian” describes someone who generally does not eat meat, with the exception of certain animal oils and fats that may be used to make other otherwise meatless dishes. I remember feeling an immense degree of awe in learning this new term, in witnessing the ways in which the Chinese language fosters a diverse understanding of vegetarianism. I learned that in addition to not eating meat or dairy products, Buddhists will not consume garlic or onions since their religion reveres these roots for having souls. The mandarin language reserves a special term for these Buddhist vegetarians, 全素, which essentially translates to “vegans who do not eat garlic or onions.” Perhaps most interestingly, Pei Rong also disclosed that in her family’s Taoist tradition, relatives of a deceased love one refuse to eat meat for the sixth month period following death. This period of vegetarianism reflects the Taoist beliefs in immortality and reincarnation. Should a deceased individual’s relatives consume meat immediately after their death, and thus disrespect the cycle of immortality, they doom the departed to reincarnation as an insect as opposed to a being more highly regarded in the reincarnation spectrum such as a human.
Discussing these concepts with Pei Rong offered insight into the cultural and religious traditions associated with vegetarianism in Taiwan, a concept which initially seemed foreign to me. Most vegetarians and vegans I know in the United States choose to restrict their diets for health or ethical reasons, often related to the environment or their own moral views towards animals. Learning about the Buddhist and Taoist traditions transformed my own relationship to vegetarianism, as I began to feel more spiritually connected to the ideas of souls and reincarnation. While I initially became vegetarian out of my love for animals, I now acknowledge that an innate part of myself cherishes all living creatures as being equal and integral parts of the universe, pieces of a Universal Being imbued with souls, emotions, and meaning.