No intention to turn this
thread into a "meaningful" one, but I'm deeply sorry for the sharks...
It was popular for upper class people in Southeast Asia (including Hongkong, Taiwan, Malaysia...) to eat shark fin before 1980's; but later, as the Chinese people got financially better off, shark fin gradually become popular in China. I had it myself, IMHO the flavour of shark fin is not too difficult to get from other sea food. And, scientifically, there's no special nutrition one can get from shark fin. I believe many people eat it just for vanity. Earlier this year I went back home for summer break, I read the old issues of Chinese National Geographics of this year my mother subscribed for me. On the cover of the Jan, 2004 issue, there was a huge shark, his mouth open, his body is struggling and his eyes look desparate. This "new year" issue is really miserable to me. The articles in the magazine says, tens of thousands sharks were killed merely for their fins during year 2003. To save the room in fishing boat, the shark hunters only took their fins and throw their wounded bodies back into sea. Most of the sharks die for being not able to control their bodies without the fins, they couldn't get up to get oxygen, and finally die in pain. Many of the shark fins are from Africa, although killing shark is illegal in many countries, there are too many merchants from Asia who pays a lot to the shark hunters, hence many fishing people are still hunting shark secretly. The magazine asks people not to eat shark fin any more, it's not only emotionally unacceptable but we are actually ruining our environment like crazy, we will eventually get punishment from the nature, and this "eventual" is really not too far away, according to the analysis in the magazine (I cannot remember the concrete data now). In the following issues I saw some readers' letter to the magazine, they said they are sorry for people's sheer selfishness and swear they would never eat shark fin again. That's good news but sadly there are still more and more restaurants advertise their shark fins as I saw...."Chinese National Geographics" is an excellent magazine with maximum honesty within our government's tolerance. Every issue discusses some serious environmental problems we are having, which will cause huge disasters very soon if we do not stop being stupid. It's still a long way for China to go to get really modernized, I have to say. More and more huge buildings in big cities are in fact superficial and I doubt things like those only
boost people's vanity.
If any moderator thinks what I said is too sensitive, please delete it, I won't complain.