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Westerners often seem to be surprised to hear that there are millions of vegetarians, indeed vegans, in China, but this is nothing new. Way back in the 1880s the British and French Vegetarian Societies printed reports from Christian missionaries who were not themselves vegetarian. However found they had to stop eating meat while they were in China, because the Buddhists they met regarded the Christians as barbaric for eating animals. They also reported on the habit of eating soy beans, unknown in the west at that time, and how they made bean-curd which the French report called 'too-foo'.
Not all Buddhists are vegetarian, and both Buddhism and vegetarianism were suppressed in the more extreme communist era. Today China has become much more open and tolerant (though not completely so of course), with the result that we are now able to meet with vegetarians there.
IVU has had contacts for many years with ethnic Chinese vegetarians in Hong Kong and Singapore, due to the British connections. But somehow we missed the significance of Taiwan until fairly recently - and that country has the second highest concentration of vegetarians of any country, after India, with more than 1,000 veg restaurants.
That lapse was corrected in 2007 when the Asian Vegetarian Union held its 3rd Asian Veg Congress near Kaohsiung, in the south of Taiwan. The event was attended by 7,500 vegetarians, many from across Asia, but most from Taiwan - some of them are in the photo below.
Vegetarians in mainland China have always been more difficult to contact, but there too we have made major progress in recent years. Our main contact for many years has been our Chinese IVU webmaster in Beijing. He has been working on the site for about 12 years whilst local groups have come and gone. We had a group of 20 from China at the 2006 IVU World Veg Congress, but then lost contact again, however it is now much more stable and the 2007 veg congress in Taiwan helped with that.
Shortly after the Taiwan Congress the President of the Asian Vegetarian Union, Jashu Shah from India, passed away, and the resulting re-shuffle saw the election of Prof. Duo Li from Hangzhou, China, as Deputy-President.
Prof. Li is now organizing the 5th Asian Veg Congress in his home city of Hangzhou, to be held November 8 and 9, 2011 – this will be the first ever Veg Congress to be held in China. The photo below is from a press conference held in Malaysia a couple of weeks ago to promote the congress – Prof. Li is 2nd left, with representatives from Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia:
After the 4th Asian Veg Congress in Indonesia, November 2009, three of us made the first ever official visit by IVU to mainland China. We were invited to speak at a half-day International Vegetarian Forum in Xiamen (on the coast opposite Taiwan), part of a huge vegetarian trade fair and Buddhist Craft Fair. I was given the honour of being the first speaker at the first ever international veg event in China. The photo below is from that event, with Dr. Susianto, IVU Asia-Pacific Coordinator, from Indonesia on the left, SongMau from the Singapore VegSoc on the right, and our local host ‘Sandra’ from Xiamen:
The 2nd Xiamen Veg Fair was held in November 2010. I was able to put the organizers in contact with Prof. Duo Li from Hangzhou, who went there as the principal speaker along with others from Taiwan and Singapore. Below is Prof. Li addressing the 2010 Forum:
Since the first Xiamen forum we have been in contact with more veg trade fairs, possible forums, and local groups in several of the major cities. Wherever possible IVU will be represented at these events in order to continue to promote East-West dialogue and mutual support.
[this blog originally ended with a link to the website of the 5th Asian Veg Union Congress in Hnagzhou, China, November 8-9, 2011]
Added later:
The First Ever Veg Congress in China (posted Nov. 8, 2011, during the congress):
www.vegsource.com/john-davis/the-first-ever-veg-congress-in-china.html
The China Congress - with pictures (the following week):
www.vegsource.com/john-davis/the-china-congress---with-pictures.html
IVU on Facebook: www.facebook.com/InternationalVegUnion
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Exciting news about the upcoming Congress! The high amount of vegetarians in China is why the China Study was able to happen, which is a study that is becoming an invaluable example to the rest of the world. Wow, so many restaurants, that's great!
One question...in the Taiwan photo...why is everyone in white shirts & black pants?
the white t-shirts had the congress name and logo on them, we have close up photos of people in them. I wasn't there so I don't know how many were bought or given out. Some down the side are in yellow, probably the volunteer ushers etc.
The pants are not quite all black, presumbaly they were just asked to wear black for the photo.