The Struggle is Real: Veganism (I.R.L.) vs. Digital "Drama" Demimonde

you go through things as a vegan whether
it's seeing actual animals getting slaughtered or seeing you know a bowl of ground beef seeing the abstract final product of that industry he go through things that make you want to cry but you go through things that make you want to change the world make the world a better place to and in some ways it's a beautiful thing it's a wonderful thing to have something meaningful in your life something that matters to you enough that it makes you want to cry that it makes you want to change the world for the better that it motivates you in small ways day by day change your lifestyle and maybe in big ways long term try to change the world around you I wish I could say that what we preach with veganism is that we can make the world a better place but a lot of the time all that we're preaching is that you can choose to wake up and recognize how terrible the world really is you can choose to confront and admit to yourself something horrific that's ongoing around you all the time just at a site just out of mind that's part of the fabric of the society and the culture we live in it's a fundamental aspect of the economy on going day by day at all times you can choose to see the reality of that instead of sleepwalking that's an incredibly bleak message to carry with you and try to share with others no matter how positive spin you put on it and I have this contrast in my life as a result of my micro Fame you know my fame to a few hundred for those between the bleakness that day-to-day experience that short term in that long term struggle and the weird mix of adulation just extreme emotions that people have toward me on the Internet so yesterday I had a somewhat depressing experience that will be common to a lot of vegans many of you will experience this in your home country or when traveling in foreign countries we're about to describe its you know I'm sure many of you will relate to when both the described but when I got home from that experience I turned on the internet and in a certain forum not going to on on you now I have their work maybe a hundred people talking about me I didn't check the number and you know as soon as I turned on that forum it lists that I'm present and everyone there kind of squeals with delight and says oh it's about with yell or oh it's izel they act like I'm famous the act like it's hard to find me and that doesn't give me any ego trip whatsoever you know it leaves me cold and it's especially strange especially difficult to deal with and the other context i'm alluding to that every day i'm just in a struggle to feed myself and in every day i'm dealing with the horror with the spectacle of you know what the meat dairy industry is whether or not i really see that directly or encounter it symbolically now in the form of the final product it's on offer all around you in a society like this day by day so yesterday i had already spent several hours preparing and uploading videos onto youtube and i didn't want to put more hours into it i walked i was going on route to a particular shop where my teacher told me they would have Europeans that wed they would have french bread and that this bread would therefore not have derry would not have eggs that be able to get vegan bread there it's hard to do here in China because they believe that in terms of making it worth your money and making it healthy making an appealing they should always be pumping as much the eggs and dairy into bread products as possible so I'm a way to this shop where i think i can get bread that's vegan that happens to be vegan taking a route i don't normally take passed by a shop that sells different traditional Chinese snacks bout such outs a steamed bun steamed dumplings that kind of thing I'm looking at the menu and every single item on the menu has the Chinese symbol for meet somewhere in the name so I assume there's nothing remotely vegan but of course there can be a strike up conversation with the woman behind the counter and she's not just professional to me she's really nice really friendly and she absolutely insists they do have a vegan option in the menu type of jalsa and you know she packages this up she wants to sell it to me and I ask all the right questions are you sure it doesn't have egg are you sure it doesn't have pork fat as an ingredient etc etc and I'm just walking to the other place we're going to try to buy bread it's not a big deal but if this is a vegan option in my area I'm interested nobody and she actually folds up she asked because you say oh so you know why did you decide to become vegan the soul talked about in Chinese and they give her an answer said you know when you spend money on animal products you're paying the harm animals your pain to kill animals give her this kind of answer in Chinese because bag steamed dumplings walking in the street open up one of the dumplings can't see the meat I can't smell the meat I really take the time I'm really getting my nose into it i'm really looking at it as closely as I possibly can there's no way I can see or smell any meat pneus and even then when I put it into my mouth you know I'm nowhere near swallowing it I just start to chew on it a little bit have this in my mouth I can taste the meat the texture of animal fat unmistakable even though it's been so many years since I've eaten me you know I can feel in my mouth and I spit it out I throw the rest in the garbage and you know as I'm walking the rest of the way to try to buy the bread I'm spitting and spitting because I didn't swallow any of it but still there little bits in your teeth it's that classic Chinese thing it's that absolutely standard Chinese thing of you know the whole dumpling really is made out of me but it's fine diced meat if I had to guess I would guess that it contained both pork and chicken mixed in with little bits of green vegetables you know I walk the rest of the way to the shop where I thought they might have bread that I could possibly consume uh when I get there um I look at every package bread every every whatever you wanna say bag of bread they have stickers on them and you know in Chinese I'm scanning them and I'm finding the symbol for the Chinese language so I'm finding the symbols for bread certifying the symbols for for egg milk etc on every single loaf of bread I asked one of the members of staff yeah do you think you have a single loaf of bread here that doesn't have um a Gannett that doesn't have yeah just asked building and the woman worked like on me they'll have been disappointed walking into that shop and getting to the bread session getting out again took maybe 20 minutes leave i'm coming back down the street and I know I'm gonna pass the shop again that just put meat in my mouth you know what I mean um and I'm thinking through the different possibilities maybe they're going to be nice about it maybe thing to be angry at me maybe it's gonna escalate knew this going to be confrontation I talked to a woman at the front but there was a guy in the back who was up as the boss when I paid with a big bill she had to go to that guy to the boss in the back he handled the money change maybe he's going to come down and get my face or something go up to her I explained in Chinese you lied to me maybe you didn't know that you lied to me but already when I say that to her I can see in her face she did know but this is made of meat Chinese I said this is made of me this uses me this has me this is meat maybe you didn't know but if you did know you lied to me and he's going to lie to vegan people this way and say that this doesn't contain me when it does you know you're gonna have a problem and it's telling you what Chinese culture that I didn't raise my voice at all I was speaking in a very calm low voice but very other civil it was saying was very serious and not only could she tell it was serious treated seriously but her boss who was in the office in the back I assume he was the manager or some of that he came out of his office and came down and just by the expression on his face um I didn't think he was going to gain me he seemed he just seemed like he wanted to be helpful he could tell there was a problem but I remember thinking I'm gonna leave now because even it's just a possibility this is going to get aggravated I don't wanna I don't want to get into a fistfight in this restaurant over meat dumplings you know and again just physically the sense of revulsion universe I spat and spat out there trying to clean out your teeth any traces of it but it lingers on a long walk home and I remember because I you know taking out of my mouth so quickly also i had some of the feeling of my fingers and obviously i said the texture of animal fat in your mouth it's very different from vegetable fat but I said it's the first time I left when I really felt the difference all my fingers when it felt different the remnants of it on my hand on the walk home and you know just today so that was yesterday's today I had to yell at the director of this school on the telephone because I actually couldn't get any food today I didn't have any lunch and my dinner was a joke and the director of the school is vegan she's an ethical vegan she's an ethical and religious vegan she's a Buddhist vegan so I know she sympathized me I know I've talked to her before it's not you know the feeling of the fat in your fingers it's not the taste of the fat my mouth it's the way this connects to being part of a whole society and whole civilization that just doesn't care it's what it represents it's the thousands of unseen animals that every day are getting killed and that are going to be replaced tomorrow day after day after day because that one stand is going to keep on selling meat dumplings and the shop next to is going to keep selling barbecue and what have you and in this society in kunming the fact that there is no alternative the fact that I do actually have to go hungry the fact that I do have to show that the director of the school the fact that I have to take it that far again both are kind of conflict it's just hard it's hard and it's disheartening and like I say I wish I was delivering a positive message to people the way religious figures do or what have you but the main message you have to share with people isn't that we can make the world a better place it's just that we can wake up and recognize how terrible place the world already is and then I have to come home and turn on the internet and I contrast that to the strange Glee of these people who are manufacturing drama out of my life who are making up lies and stories about me and we seem to be so entertained seem to be so delighted to lie about my divorce about my career about my education about my private life with myself to make up lies and defamation with me they're getting so much joy to that and you know like I said at the beginning it's wonderful to have something so meaningful in your life that can make you cry that it can make you laugh that can motivate you day after day but the main way I experience veganism is exactly this terrible burden and you know even in that moment even when someone asked me you know his woman selling me these meat dumplings and lying to my face and saying that they're vegan when she asked me you know why are you vegan me she on the level of language she understood exactly what i said when i gave her the answer but of course there's also a level on which she'll never understand and she'll never understand the gulf between me and her and the the really nvidia sense of separation between me and the other people in this little society in this school you know and I guess I mean I guess that said thing I do value the Chi value the fact that I'm not alone I said to another vegan on the internet just a few days ago he was lamenting how terrible the situation was within the vegan seen within the vegans so-called community did shield econtent lon and I said back to him look man I know what it's like to be loved I know what it's like to be hated I know what it's like to be alone I'm not alone and I am grateful to the Internet despite the fact that I live in these strange circumstances I had to move from Canada to China I moved from Taiwan to Canada to China I used to live in Cambodia I've had to move again and again it's really helped me live a life where I'm much less alone I am grateful for that i really appreciate that i do but when I look to the internet for people who can sympathize with that struggle yes the political struggle the aspiration made the world a better place the aspiration to actually make progress on these issues politically just getting organized activism advocacy lobbying government for change or even public education outreach dietary advice etc etc etc it's really strange to have people leering back at you laughing and treating you as for treating me as famous not because of what I have to say about about the message you put a gizmo but because of these lies be told of my sex life my private life because of the so-called drama you know in history it's weird so we are contrast and just when I sat down yesterday coming right back in from that experience of having someone lied to me and it would meet being in my mouth briefly spitting it out some and then seeing that seeing those people delighted to see my name pop up on the internet and treating me as his famous some of us are actually motivated but wanting to address the underlying issues here some of us are not trying to get famous or not trying to make money are not trying to get laid some of us in some small way actually want to change the world even if it's just so that we have the satisfaction of knowing that we're not suffering for nothing you know gotta say in all those ways like big and small you know even just yesterday and today struggle to eat stroll to live without making those compromises stroll to communicate with other people live in a society that society that despises you despises me and my values it makes no place for you the Chumphon you know it's hard it's hard and it's lonesome and not in a shell away and I know that's that's why I come on the internet I guess at least I can say that I know what it's like to be loved I know what it's like to be hated I know what it's like to be alone