photo credit: Sifu Renka
Motivational Keynote Speaker View On Shark Fin Soup
This particular motivational keynote speaker, yours truly, is not shy to voice opinions on controversial issues. One such issue that came into our local news here in the Toronto area lately is regarding shark fin soup, which is considered a Chinese delicacy.
What Shark Fin Soup Is
For those who don’t know about shark fin soup, it’s a type of soup that does contain actual strands of shark fins. It’s usually quite expensive and therefore often reserved for big banquets at Chinese restaurants. It’s not your usual dish that comes out of a typical weekend family visit to your local Chinese restaurant as it must be ordered in advance.
Since I’m Canadian Chinese, I kind of grew up having shark fin soup at big banquet dinners including birthdays, weddings and Chinese New Year dinners. I have to admit that it’s actually quite good.
The Controversy Behind Shark Fins
Now here’s what the hoopla is all about which causes the controversy behind shark fins. The industry that harvests shark fins do it in a rather gruesome way according to the environmentalists. You will find no shortage of videos out there showing fishermen cutting off the top dorsal fins of sharks once they are caught and brought onto the boats.
Quite often, the sharks are thrown overboard since these fishermen usually do not have any use for the rest of the big fish. So as a result, the sharks experience a gruesome death and this is what the environmentalists are complaining about. They also claim that overfishing of sharks will bring the world levels to dangerous numbers leading to extinction.
Shark Fin Soup Being Banned
As a result of the claims of making sharks moving towards extinction and the inhumane way their fins are harvested, many cities and municipalities have banned shark fin soup in restaurants. Even my own city of Mississauga has recently made shark fin soup illegal in our local Chinese restaurants.
Not surprisingly, many in the Chinese community are claiming a cultural attack by city councillors. The local TV news showed a protest of a few hundred people from the Chinese community protesting at Toronto city hall today since Toronto city counsel will also be voting on this issue as well.
[update] Toronto has since voted to ban shark fin soup as well and as expected, members the Chinese community are claiming that it is an attack on their community. Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto, hopes that such a ban will become province and nationwide. So far, comments from the provincial and federal governments responded by saying that there are more important issues such as fixing the economy at the moment.Motivational Keynote Speaker Torn
As a motivational keynote speaker of Chinese descent as well as a nature lover, I’m a bit torn on this whole issue of shark fin soup. On the one hand, I’ve had it many times and like it. On the other hand, I also don’t like the way the shark fins are harvested.
Perhaps as a compromise, what I would personally be happy is if the creative Chinese chefs can come up with a suitable substitute to using shark fins but make the overall soup just as tasty. That would be something that I would personally accept.
I think there will be some future battles between enforcement departments and Chinese restaurants. I could see shark fin soup being off the menus officially but perhaps still made available as an underground dish to Chinese diners only. It will be interesting to see what happens here.
So that’s my take on shark fin soup. What about you? What are your comments regarding this? Feel free to put your comments below. It would be particularly interesting to hear from those who have had shark fin soup in the past.
