Jan-chan’s Tidbits

I’ve finally started revisiting my wedding planning schedule last month and had made a timeline of the items we still need to cover. While starting the wedding planning again, I had came across resources about shark finning and how people have decided to not serve shark fin soup at weddings and banquets in order to show their concern about this issue.

So I started to research more information about shark finning, from reading articles (Vancouver Sun did a series on Sharks recently) to watching documentary films (Fins and Shark Water), to see what the big deal is. Isn’t shark fin just food? If you do not know what shark finning is like, here’s a video:

Can you imagine someone chop off your limps and throw you out on the streets to die? That’s probably how the shark feels after its fins were cut off.

But they are just food, like chickens, pigs, cows…etc, right? Why should we care?

Yes, I agree, sharks are just like the fish we eat. However, just slicing off their fins and leaving them to die in the ocean is not sustainable at all. What if we only chop off chicken feet or wings and throw away the rest of the chicken?

But there must be lots of sharks in the ocean, just like all the other fish! We don’t need to worry.

I think this is a misconception. There’s a growing list of shark species being endangered or near extinction because of finning and long-lining. Here’s a short documentary “Fin” by Claire Garner, Josefina Bergsten, Andy Limond and Alex Hofford which had won the People’s Choice Award from “I Shot Hong Kong” Film Festival 2009:

Fin from alexhofford on Vimeo.

I hope you had as much laughs as I did when I watched “Fin” because of the ridiculous comments by the Chinese shark fin vendors, like “shark sashimi” or “if we don’t eat sharks they’ll eat all the fish!” (Is he trying to imply that they are the “good guys”?)

I’ve also watched Shark Water. It’s an excellent documentary on sharks. Since I’ve learned all these information about shark finning, I’ve decided that to spread the word about this issue, it’d be a good idea to not serve shark fin soup at our wedding. I’ve talked to Al and our parents about it (read it here at my wedding notebook). Most of them are supportive but they still don’t understand why I’ve decided to not serve the soup since:

a) the restaurant will most likely not reduce the price on the menu even if you substitute it with another soup

b) since it’s already on the menu why not just eat it! the older generations probably doesn’t care about the unsustainable part of it anyway.

Well, my point is we could use our wedding banquet to spread the word about how unsustainable it is to consume shark fin. I understand that it has been in the Chinese history for many many years. But just because it is a tradition, it doesn’t mean it’s “right”. I also have to make my point clear on the fact that I’m not promoting that eating shark fin soup is a bad thing. The soup itself is fine. It is how we obtain the ingredients to make the soup that bothers me. If they didn’t fin those sharks and left them to die in the ocean; if they’d use a sustainable way to obtain the shark fins (and make use of the rest of the shark) I think it’s fine to consume shark fin soup. But the way they currently do it just doesn’t sit right with me. Wouldn’t it be sad when your children, grand children or great grand children read about sharks in books and ask you where they can see them and you can only reply “Sharks are all dead, dear. We ate them for their fins and now they are extinct, just like the dinosaurs.”

I’m still working on finding alternatives to shark fin soup for our wedding. I know both our parents still thinks I’m a little crazy for doing this but I hope they (and our guests) will understand once we explain to them the reason behind not serving shark fin soup. Wish me luck!