Even in China, a shift has begun. This spring, a lawmaker in the National People’s Congress introduced legislation that would ban shark fins, and in Hong Kong, a cadre of students has begun to advocate for sharks within both academia and social circles.
Vivian Lam, who studies marine science at the University of Hong Kong, first tried to resist eating shark’s fin soup at a cousin’s wedding more than a decade ago. Sitting with her family in Hong Kong’s Convention and Exhibition Centre, surrounded by hundreds of guests, Lam whispered to her grandmother once the waiters whisked off the silver domes covering the bowls and set them down on the table: “I don’t want to eat shark’s fin soup anymore,” she confided. “Can you eat it for me?”
Her grandmother was unrelenting. “You silly girl,” she lectured Lam. “This is such a good shark’s fin soup we have. It’s already made. People will think you’re ungrateful.”
Lam gave in that day, but now that she’s in her 20s, she, along with several of her friends, no longer eats shark’s fin soup. The most environmentally conscious students at the University of Hong Kong manage to reserve one or two “green tables” at their weddings where shark’s fin soup isn’t served. The university, in fact, has adopted an anti-shark’s fin soup policy.
Tsui Lap Chee, the university’s vice chancellor, no longer lets professors or administrative officials expense shark’s fin soup on their business meals.
But while shark’s fin soup consumption is waning in Hong Kong, the restaurateur Norman Ho says, this decline is more than outpaced by the surging demand in mainland China.
“China is at the beginning of the cycle,” he says. “In China, the market for shark fin is growing as they are getting more and more rich.”
Excerpted from “Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks” by Juliet Eilperin. Copyright © 2011 by Juliet Eilperin. Reprinted with permission by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House. All rights reserved.
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