Vietnam's appetites
Vietnam's appetites - request for comments
------------------------
From: Telise <hondadream@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 6:12 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Cc: Thuy Tranviet <tdt5@cornell.edu>
Dear list,
I received this request from a former Cornell student, Calvin Godfrey, who is now a correspondent for Vietweek. Please feel free to send your response to myself or to him at calvin godfrey<calvin@thanhniennews.com> His contact information is also listed below.
I would be very interested to hear your comments regarding this article.
Best wishes,
Thuy Tranviet
Cornell University
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Thúy Tranviet <tdt5@cornell.edu>
Vietweek is preparing a story in response to Prof. Joel Brinkley's most recent column in the Washington Post.
I'd be interested to hear your candid response to Prof. Brinkley's entire argument here. But if you must pay special attention to a single passage, I suppose it should be this one:
All of this raises an interesting question. Vietnamese have been meat eaters through the ages, while their Southeast Asian neighbors to the west -- Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar -- have largely left their wildlife alone.
In each of these other countries you see flocks of birds that are absent in Vietnam along with numerous pet dogs and cats. There, people eat rice, primarily, and for many people in most of those states their diet includes little more than that.
Vietnam has always been an aggressive country. It has fought 17 wars with China since winning independence more than 1,000 years ago and has invaded Cambodia numerous times, most recently in 1979. Meantime, the nations to its west have largely been passive in recent centuries.
Many anthropologists and historians attribute the difference to the state's origins. Vietnam was born of China, while India heavily influenced the other countries -- two nations with drastically different personalities, even today.
Well, certainly that played a part. But I would argue that because Vietnamese have regularly eaten meat through the ages, adding significant protein to their diet, that also helps explain the state's aggressive tendencies -- and the sharp contrast with its neighbors.
I'd like to know whether you feel this categorization of Vietnam and its people is either historically or culturally accurate.
My deadline is noon Friday, January 31st. Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
--
Calvin Godfrey
cell: (84-8) 09342 78429
office: (84-8) 392 55738
skype: ctsg1982
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From: dan hoang <hoangdanlieu@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 5:15 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hi Thuy,
I cannot help to be curious, why eating meat or protein makes a person or a nation become aggressive?
Lieu
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From: Fox, Diane <dnfox@holycross.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 5:27 AM
To: dan hoang <hoangdanlieu@yahoo.com>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Well, on the one hand I suppose you could point to the US to support this theory -- on the other, my standard, perhaps too flippant but perhaps not, response when I hear these theories circulate is to point out that Hitler was a vegetarian.
Diane
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam <hhtai@fas.harvard.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 5:56 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The Brinkley piece is a load of baloney.
Vietnamese may or may not be aggressive (in comparison to whom?) but they did not kill off millions of their compatriots like the Khmer Rouge.
I, for one, would wish that the Vietnamese urban rat population was greatly reduced, but I doubt that urban rats are being consumed, as opposed to field mice. As for Westerners leaving Vietnam in despair, perhaps they should visit factories where chicken or pigs are caged.
Americans really ought not to sound off on other countries' aggressiveness.
Hue Tam Ho Tai
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From: <taivanta@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 5:58 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>, dan hoang <hoangdanlieu@yahoo.com>
This kind of theory attributing aggressiveness in war to an unfounded overgeneralization on food consumption of more meat than vegetarian diet is as scientific as the medieval discussion on how many angels can dance on the tip of a needle (anyway,has prof Brinkley based his comparative conclusion,very sweeping, on Vietnamese v.Bumese,Thai, Lao and Cambodian meat and vegetarian consumption on any precise measurements in term of calories not only in their today's but also in their historical diet,yet? ). It is better to resort to the classical geopolitical explanation and attribute Viet war skills to necessary selfdefense in their unlucky geopoltitical situation next to a self-appointed sonofHeaven's big power hegemony tendency that prolongs throughout history until now--while the other countries were not invaded by China repeatedly.
How about the additional theory of Buddhist peaceful urge being more prominent in the other SEAsian countries than in Vietnam where the Confucianist doctrine of "tu than,te gia,tri quoc,binh thien ha" being the doctrinal guidance of the ruling elite?
Tai Van Ta
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
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From: Michael Karadjis <mkaradjis@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 6:11 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hard to know whether the article was even meant to be serious. Those aggressive meat-eating Vietnamese, aggressively doing all they could to bring good vegetarian peace-loving Chinese, French, American, Japanese, Khmer Rouge etc invaders to their soil, just so that they could aggressively refuse to bow down and surrender to them and instead to aggressively defend themselves. If only all those peaceful vegetarian invaders of Vietnam had been meat-eaters they would have been more aggressive, presumably, whatever that could have meant - nuked the place I suppose?
Michael Karadjis
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From: <tobiasrettig@smu.edu.sg>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 6:31 AM
To: dan hoang <hoangdanlieu@yahoo.com>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hi,
I think one of Graham Greene's books (The Comedians - plays in Duvalier's Haiti if not mistaken) has the answer: the American husband-wife team is on a mission there to convince the Haitians and the tonton macoute (right spelling?) that eating meat (red meat in particular?), ie animal proteins, leads to aggression and therefore needs to be abolished.
Perhaps he first got the idea while stationed in Saigon?
On a more serious note, the substantial height gains in Asia (and not just there) over the last decades appear related to access to more food, including animal proteins, on a regular basis.
Cheers,
Tobias
SMU, Singapore
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From: Tim Gorman <tmg56@cornell.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 6:42 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The Brinkley piece really doesn't merit a reply, but here goes...
Vietnam's annual meat consumption per capita - as estimated by the FAO - is about 41 kg (not including fish) That puts Vietnam in 92nd place for meat consumption globally (out of 177 countries), but it's worth noting that the Vietnamese meat consumption is actually a bit higher than what you'd expect, given the country's average income per capita (which ranks at about 130). Vietnamese, for example, consume more meat on average than do Thais or Filipinos.
The world's biggest meat consumers, by the way, are the notoriously bloodthirsty Luxembourgians, who consume a staggering 137 kg of meat per year. Americans are second at 125, and Australians third at 121.
I know that fact-based analysis is not really at the center of Brinkley's argument - which seems to hinge more on the diversity of the Vietnamese diet than the sheer consumption of meat (they eat dogs! and rats!) - but it's a bit depressing that this guy is a Pulitzer prize-winning professor of journalism at Stanford.
--
Tim Gorman
Ph.D. Student
Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University
Email: tmg56@cornell.edu | Tel: (607) 216-9845
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From: Sean Takats <stakats@gmu.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 7:08 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
There are very interesting and important things to say about the Vietnamese diet -- and Erica Peters does excellent work saying many of them in her Appetites and Aspirations in Vietnam -- but Tim's right: the Brinkley piece truly does not deserve a reply. To be perfectly honest it reads as troll bait, and I'm sure there's nothing he'd love more than a fiery rebuttal. Why give him the satisfaction?
--
Sean Takats
Director of Research Projects
Assistant Professor of History
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
George Mason University
sean@takats.org | http://quintessenceofham.org | 703.993.9271
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From: Angela Dickey <ardickey@aol.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 7:16 AM
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Cc: tdt5@cornell.edu
Dear list: I'd like to add my own incredulity to the opinions already expressed. Brinkley's arrticle doesn't deserve an answer.
Angela Dickey
US Foreign Service Officer, formerly posted to Laos and Vietnam
Interagency Professional in Residence, US Institute of Peace
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From: Geoffrey Cain <geoffrey.cain@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 7:23 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear list,
This writer, Joel Brinkley, has a long record of publishing bad articles on Southeast Asia. A couple years ago, he wrote a book called Cambodia's Curse that was almost universally criticized among the Cambodia community for its sweeping generalizations and stereotyping of locals. No surprise that he'd write a similar piece on Vietnam.
Cheers,
Geoff
--
Geoffrey Cain | Journalist
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From: Thúy Tranviet <tdt5@cornell.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 7:37 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Cc: Thuy Tranviet <tdt5@cornell.edu>, calvin@thanhniennews.com
Thank you, Tim and list, for replying. Thanks also to Xuan Pham for sending a very interesting information regarding meat consumption by type and country. See Table 1377http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1377.pdf
It's now up to Calvin Godfrey to write that article for Thanh Nien News in response. (Will you send me your article?)
The tone of Brinkley's was mean spirited and arrogant I was quite dumbfounded upon reading it!
Thuy
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From: David Brown <nworbd@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 7:46 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Cc: tdt5@cornell.edu
This story is going viral in VN. If Westerners who actually know VN allow it to pass without comment, Vietnamese are likely to believe that Brinkley is expressing what we 'really think.'
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From: Balazs Szalontai <aoverl@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 7:50 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The long answer is that the precolonial Burmese kingdom was also an Indianized Theravada Buddhist state, just like Cambodia, Laos, and Siam (Thailand). Still, if one asks any Thai citizen if the ambitions and acts of Burmese king Bayinnaung ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayinnaung ) reflected, to any extent, the influence of such vegetarian temperance, one is as likely to tempt fate as the person who seeks to convince Vietnamese about the inherent and traditional benevolence of a certain northern state.
The short answer is that I am inclined to disagree with Professor Brinkley's observations and conclusions.
Balázs Szalontai
Kwangwoon University
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From: Anh-Minh Do <caligarn@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 7:54 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Cc: tdt5@cornell.edu
Hi list,
Just chiming in here from an unrelated religious studies perspective. It is interesting to note that in most (if not all) Buddhist circles in Vietnam it is believed that eating vegetarian reduces aggression. They also believe that spicy food, onions, and garlic also cause lustful, carnal thoughts. This is mainstream Vietnamese thinking. Thus, given David's point, I wonder how many Vietnamese folk would actually agree with Brinkley's ridiculous assertion.
Of course, not eating meat, from the Buddhist side of things is associated with cosmology and morality. I have no clue where Brinkley got his point and what eventual conclusion he wants to make with it.
Lastly, the points about Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar leaving their wildlife alone just made me laugh out loud. And India not being as much of an influence is just historically wrong. India played a huge part in early Vietnamese history. Example: early Buddhism in Vietnam was largely Theravadan as opposed to the Mahayana influence from the North.
Cheers,
Minh
----
Anh-Minh Do
Editor in Vietnam at Tech In Asia
Cheers,
Minh
----
Anh-Minh Do
Chief Master of Ceremonies at evecoo
Editor at Tech In Asia
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From: Nhung Tran <nhungtuyet.tran@utoronto.ca>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 8:09 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear List,
I read the piece with incredulity as well.
I wonder if the op-ed piece is so ignorant that it warrants a terse response from VSG members, either in a letter to the editor or as an op-ed piece. I teach a food history class and have many conversations around precisely the same topic, though my third year students have done so with more nuance than Brinkley. I can imagine assuming that Brinkley's credentials and awards validates his arguments.
Do we have a responsibility, as individuals with expertise in the country and region, to respond to such gross mischaracterizations of Vietnamese history, culture and society (to to mention Cambodian, Lao, Burmese, Chinese, etc.)?
I would be happy to work with other members of the VSG if they would like to craft a response.
Nhung
********************
Nhung Tuyet Tran
Canada Research Chair in Southeast Asian History
Associate Professor of History
Director, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies
University of Toronto
----------
From: Erica J. Peters <e-peters-9@alumni.uchicago.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 8:17 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks for the shout-out, Sean. Here's what I sent Calvin when he contacted me off-list:
I will say that Brinkley's piece claims Vietnamese people are to a significant extent scavangers, eating whatever rats and stray dogs they find. Leaving aside period of actual famine and starvation, that is completely unfounded. For someone accusing a nation of being aggressive, Brinkley certainly knows how to provoke a reaction himself. Furthermore, citizens of the United States have no standing to accuse the Vietnamese of military aggression. Consider how many overseas wars we fought against smaller countries in the twentieth century alone, compared to Vietnam's wars over a thousand years with an imperialistic China. Does the meat-based diet of Americans explain our own aggression?
Erica
Erica J. Peters
Director, Culinary Historians of Northern California
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From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 8:34 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Cc: tdt5@cornell.edu
To add to the above, but to take it in a different direction:
Brinkley is surprised by the lack of wildlife. Anyone who has traveled around Vietnam realizes that the the Red River delta and the Mekong delta, and the extremely long coastal strip that connects the two, is often packed with humanity. Such is the current reality. It was not the reality for much of Vietnam's history. Demographic and environmental changes can explain the decline of birds and other mammals in much of Vietnam far better than some resort to potted theories of Vietnamese aggressiveness from meat consumption.
Shawn McHale
--
Shawn McHale
Associate Professor of History
George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
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From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 8:48 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Cc: tdt5@cornell.edu
No as well has commented on this howler from Brinkley's piece. After he talks about Vietnamese aggressiveness, he writes: "Meantime, the nations to its west have largely been passive in recent centuries."
For someone who wrote a book about Cambodia, it is rather astonishing that he seems not to realize the extent of war and calamity that beset Cambodia from the 1700s onwards. Far from being passive, Cambodians were involved in these wars. Heck, they even invaded Vietnam -- reportedly in 1860, as well, of course, from 1975. There were anti-Vietnamese uprisings in the 1840s. a major uprising against the French in, what, 1884? And a journalist like Brinkley, having had written his book on Cambodia, surely realizes that there were Khmer Issarak fighting in Cambodia from the 1940s . . . not to mention, of course, the Khmer Rouge. And does he have any idea of the difficulties the Vietnamese faced from 1975-89 in Cambodia from Cambodians? The idea that Cambodians were"passive" and Vietnamese "aggressive" simply is not true. Brinkley's statement is ample proof that stereotypes endure, even in the face of plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Shawn
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From: Jo <ugg-5@spro.net>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 8:51 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear List,
“It is interesting to note that in most (if not all) Buddhist circles in Vietnam it is believed that eating vegetarian reduces aggression. They also believe that spicy food, onions, and garlic also cause lustful, carnal thoughts. This is mainstream Vietnamese thinking.”
These views are also mainstream orthodox Hindu thinking, in India and elsewhere.
Regards,
Joanna K.
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From: Thomas Jandl <thjandl@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 8:54 AM
To: dan hoang <hoangdanlieu@yahoo.com>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
There is theory about this. It's not that protein MAKES someone aggressive, but that societies in which hunters are important providers of food then give these hunters more social weight. I understand (and I am not an anthropologist) that matriarchal scoieties are virtually all isolated (no need to fight wars with neighbors) and not dependent on hunting (no need for big guys who run around and hunt dangerous animals). As a result, social norms focus less on muscles and the leaders are not picked based on their skills with spears and bow/arrow.
I also read, I believe in Jared Diamond, that better nourished societies tend to out-perform their worse sourished ones in war. And obviously, getting protein in your diet gives you a heads-up-- look at the physical built of African herders like the Masai, for example.
So there seems to be a bit more behind all this, although Brikley deserves the scorn he gets with his sloppy and misinterpreting use of all this. Clearly eating rats and doggies doesn't make you a warrior, and the Vietnamese are not the only meat eaters the region.
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From: Nhu Miller <trantnhu@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 8:56 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Brinkley's weekly column in the San Francisco Chronicle is sheer drivel,
Pulitzer prize not withstanding. For a "Professor" of Journalism, his
opinions are painfully ignorant and obtuse.
From a Bay Area reader who skips the column whenever I
see his byline.
Tim is right, the Brinkley piece doesn't merit a
reply but you should know how irrelevant he is.
T.T. Nhu
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From: Jo <ugg-5@spro.net>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 8:59 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
“As for Westerners leaving Vietnam in despair, perhaps they should visit factories where chicken or pigs are caged.
Most Americans don’t care. The CAFO people justify their procedures by claiming that they are producing food for millions. Similar to Monsanto’s assertions that their GM procedures will end famine around the world.
“Americans really ought not to sound off on other countries' aggressiveness.”
I totally agree. I hope someone on this list send a rebuttal soon to Vietweek.
Joanna K.
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam <hhtai@fas.harvard.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 9:08 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
hmmm...
There is a theory that the ancient Vietnamese were, if not a matriarchal society, at least a bilateral one; hence the ease with which the leadership of the Trung sisters was accepted, and the fact that many other participants in their uprising were women as well.
The Cham have also been described as matriarchal, though this is subject to debate. Whatever the case, and despite their ultimate defeat by the Vietnamese, they were not passive.
Historically Buddhist monks have also been warriors in Vietnam and Japan.
Hue Tam Ho Tai
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From: Jo <ugg-5@spro.net>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 9:29 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
On Jared Diamond, please see: http://tinyurl.com/akxruh3 , a review of Diamond’s latest by Stephen Corry, director of Survival International .
Joanna K.
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From: Thomas Jandl <thjandl@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 10:26 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
It's not from that book, but nonetheless, the argument, whether Diamond is is right or not, makes sense. The herders tend to be more aggressive and successful in war IF their eating habits give them a nutritional advantage. That would seem to make sense (historically, of course, when muscle power was the crucial thing). There is much more one can say, such as nomadic herders and hunters conquering, then settling down and losing their edge -- Mongols, Berbers etc. But that goes way beyond this discussion.
I think Brinkley is a great journalist. How much mileage he gets out of such a simple, low-input article is remarkable.
_________________________________
Thomas Jandl, Ph.D.
School of International Service
American University
---------
From: Tai, Hue-Tam <hhtai@fas.harvard.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 10:51 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I have no quarrel with the idea that more protein make individuals stronger and thus more fighting fit. But does it make them more inclined to belligerence? The fallacy is in thinking that whole nations are more or less aggressive as a result of their diets (see the Luxembourgeois) and in the failure to distinguish between different types of war (aggression vs. defense in particular). Pacifism is great if you've never feared being invaded.
Hue Tam Ho Tai
Sent from my iPad
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From: Thomas Jandl <thjandl@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 12:47 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I agree with you: eating more protein probably does't make you more aggressive. That sounds pretty bogus. Nonethless, using Luxemburg as an example isn't useful. Even an aggressive person realizes that in some situations, one better not fight. And tiny Luxembourg would only have fought ONE war.
_________________________________
Thomas Jandl, Ph.D.
School of International Service
American University
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From: Bill Hayton <bill.hayton@bbc.co.uk>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 1:17 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Is Brinkley really a professor of journalism? Perhaps it’s that new kind of journalism in which an editor deliberately commissions ignorant, inflammatory articles precisely to provoke a response from the readership in social media and the letters column. It’s really a PR strategy than journalism. Parallels with Samantha Brick in the Daily Mail et al…
What does one do – ignore and allow the writer’s own ignorance to filter into his readership or engage and fall into the editor’s trap?
One element of his ridiculous argument that does merit more investigation is the line about the absence of bird life in many areas of VN. Rather than having been eaten by voracious peasants I would wager that this is more of a ‘Silent Spring’ situation. I heard talk among conservationists that overuse of pesticides has killed off the insects which the birds require for survival. I could turn this into a newspaper column but perhaps it would be better to actually check the facts first…
Bill
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam <hhtai@fas.harvard.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 1:17 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Precisely. There's more to fighting wars than the amount of protein one consumes. Thinking about costs and consequences of fighting does play a role.
As a matter of fact, throughout most of their history, Vietnamese have seldom had access to meat except on rare ceremonial occasions. Sumptuary laws made it clear that meat was reserved for officials of a certain rank. Lowly peasants were allowed to consume various kinds of insects. In the 1950s, according to a friend of mine from Bac Ninh, one got to eat meat in winter months because old people and buffaloes died of the cold. So buffalo meat was served at funerary banquets at his village. T
hat was the only time he saw meat. And during the Vietnam War and immediate postwar period, one was lucky to get a small piece of fat after queuing for hours. The current level of meat consumption is all a result of the prolonged peace.
Hue Tam
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From: Daniel C. Tsang <dtsang@uci.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 1:33 PM
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
I agree that these purported national characteristics are dubious but in terms of the question about diet and aggression, most recent research just publicized suggest that wolves became domesticated dogs after changing from apparently a hunter-gathering diet to one of carbs:
Carbs were key in wolves' evolution into dogs
Comparing the DNA of dogs and wolves shows that dogs' ability to easily digest carbohydrates, originally from starch in scraps left behind by humans, helped enable their domestication, a study finds.
January 23, 2013|By Rosie Mestel, Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/23/science/la-sci-how-dogs-evolved-20130124
dan
--
Daniel C. Tsang, Distinguished Librarian
Data Librarian and Bibliographer for Asian American Studies,
Economics, Political Science, Film Studies (interim),
California and Orange County documents (interim).
468 Langson Library, University of California, Irvine
----------
From: Erica J. Peters <e-peters-9@alumni.uchicago.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 2:26 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Just wanted to note that there's a back-and-forth with Joel Brinkley about his provocative piece, posted at:
http://jimromenesko.com/2013/01/31/joel-brinkley-defends-his-vietnam-op-ed/
Erica
Erica J. Peters
Director, Culinary Historians of Northern California
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From: Tim Gorman <tmg56@cornell.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 3:13 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks for the link, Erica, and to the list for their assorted comments on Brinkley's piece.
What irritates me most about Brinkley's nonsensical, disparaging observations on meat consumption and Vietnamese "aggression" is that he missed a real story - the environmental costs of dietary change in developing nations such as Vietnam. As incomes rise, Vietnamese are consuming more and more animal protein, and we're not talking about rats or dogs or exotic bushmeats, but industrially farmed livestock and unsustainably sourced seafood. I'm particularly familiar with commercial aquaculture in the Mekong Delta, where the cultivation of catfish and shrimp (for both domestic consumption and export) generates substantial water pollution, and I'd imagine that large-scale, CAFO-type operations are already beginning to displace household production of chicken and pork (but I'd appreciate more information on that if anyone has it).
To me, the real question is - how is meat consumption tied into notions of modernity and development in Vietnam, and will Vietnamese consumption of meat begin to approach western levels over the coming decades? And if so, at what cost - in terms of the environment, in terms of animal welfare, and in terms of human health?
--
Tim Gorman
Ph.D. Student
Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University
Email: tmg56@cornell.edu | Tel: (607) 216-9845
----------
From: <sdenney@library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 3:29 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
His theory about the link between protein and national aggression (Hitler
was a vegetarian BTW) should be separated from his observations of food
consumption while in Vietnam.
Steve Denney
library asst.
UC Berkeley
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From: Jo <ugg-5@spro.net>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 4:04 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Tim's points about a rising middle class and the consequences of mega-meat
production are well taken.
As China advances its CAFO meat production, the local consequences are
noted:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/01/china-taste-pork-pollution-probl
em
China's taste for pork serves up a pollution problem
No one asked the villagers of Houtonglong before the pig farm was built near
their homes and their health began to suffer
Nicola Davison in Houtonglong
The Guardian, Tuesday 1 January 2013
Excerpts:
"Pork is China's favourite meat: last year the country produced 50m tonnes –
more than half the world's total – and as the disposable incomes of China's
1.3 billion people rise, their appetite is growing. "Pork is wrapped up in
ideas of progress and modernity," said Mindi Schneider, a sociologist at
Cornell University. Until the 1990s typical families only ate meat at
Chinese new year."
"In Houtonglong village, other forms of environmental degradation are
evident. Beyond the sludge lapping the lake edge, a bloom of russet algae
covers the water. A 2010 investigation by the Chinese government found that
agriculture is a bigger source of water pollution than industry. "The fast
development of livestock breeding and aquaculture has produced a lot of food
but they are also major sources of pollution in our lives," said Wang
Yangliang, of the ministry of agriculture.
But the government is doing little to enforce the protection laws it has put
in place."
Joanna K.
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From: Pam McElwee <pdmcelwee@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 7:49 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear all -
Apropos of the recent discussion, Thanh Nien has a response up to the Brinkley piece, in which those of us who do actual work on conservation/wildlife are quoted, and in which we reference actual data and evidence. Unfortunately the author is also quoted and refers to his piece as 'reporting' rather than opinion, which is to my mind a very questionable definition of the former.
Best,
Pam McElwee
Dr. Pamela McElwee
Assistant Professor , Department of Human Ecology
School of Environmental and Biological Sciences
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
ph: 480-252-0999
Co-editor, Journal of Vietnamese Studies
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From: Jo <ugg-5@spro.net>
Date: Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 9:04 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
This article provides official confirmation of what I previously wrote here.
I suspect that India should be up there with “the worst” on wildlife crime. They have various agencies and laws that apparently led to India getting more of a pass, but enforcement is a serious problem there.
The most recent WWF scorecard focuses on big animals, tigers, elephants etc. The countries/data on the latest scorecard can be seen at this link: http://worldwildlife.org/publications/wildlife-crime-scorecard
Apparently, Vietnam has also entered the competition over poaching elephant tusk ivory.
Joanna Kirkpatrick
Anthropologist
From: vsg-bounces@mailman1.u.washington.edu [mailto:vsg-bounces@mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Pam McElwee
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2013 8:49 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Vietnam's appetites - request for comments
Dear all -
Apropos of the recent discussion, Thanh Nien has a response up to the Brinkley piece, in which those of us who do actual work on conservation/wildlife are quoted, and in which we reference actual data and evidence. Unfortunately the author is also quoted and refers to his piece as 'reporting' rather than opinion, which is to my mind a very questionable definition of the former.
Best,
Pam McElwee
Dr. Pamela McElwee
Assistant Professor , Department of Human Ecology
School of Environmental and Biological Sciences
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
ph: 480-252-0999
Co-editor, Journal of Vietnamese Studies
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From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Date: Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 11:22 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Individuals have a chance, when they make mistakes, to accept responsibility for mistakes. Unfortunately, Brinkley compounds the problem when he says that he "stands by" what he has written. Why stand by shoddy journalism? Why pretend that he has more authority than those who actually know something about these issues? Why accuse critics of hysteria? Putting aside the sexism of the comment, Pam McElwee's excellent comments in the Thanh nien article were measured and clear. Too bad Brinkley was too emotional to react to her criticisms, and those of others, with a measured response.
Shawn McHale
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From: Thúy Tranviet <tdt5@cornell.edu>
Date: Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 4:15 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear list -- Here's the column from Calvin Godfrey. Thanks for all your comments!
Thuy Tranviet
--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Calvin Godfrey <calvintgodfrey@gmail.com>
It was long delayed due to the fact that the paper took a week of for tet. Thanks, again, for all your help!
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From: Jo <ugg-5@spro.net>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 9:31 AM
Subject: [Vsg] RE: My 2cents : Vietnam's appetites
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
What I sent Calvin,
I visited Vietnam in 08. One thing that caught my attention then, and since, is how they struggle to keep that turtle in Hanoi’s fabled lake alive. He’s a national symbol.
I’ve been in Thailand twice. I got the impression from foods on offer in their street markets that the Thai will eat almost anything. Birds of all sorts, water creatures, worms and insects, plus domesticated animals. (I don’t know if they eat dog.) Their middle class is also growing richer, so no doubt that class will soon be eating a lot more chicken and beef. I don’t know how large mammalian wild game fares in Thailand, if they are wiping it out or not.
However, all over south Asia and parts of SE Asia and E. Asia, rhinos, tigers, and certain kinds of rare deer species are being wiped out. One cause is the dominance of supersititions about animal body parts and how they will affect health, especially, male sexual vitality. The other linked cause is aggressive demand from Chinese commerce. This is what the rhino horns (and tiger penises) are for.
Here’s a story from my college course in the 70’s. I once remarked in class on how beautiful the Korean folk art paintings of tigers are, and asked my Korean male student if Korea still has tigers. He replied that unfortunately they had been wiped out of Korea by killing them off for medicinal body parts.
Seems to be that this ‘medical’ fantasy and fad for supposedly aphrodisiac body parts, especially of large animals, is mainly responsible for wiping them out all over Asia, not just in Vietnam. If nothing is done about it, this planet will be minus most of its large Asian game.
Cultural relativism is irrelevant if addressed to these human practices. A massive education campaign is needed, so far as Asian wild game goes, against the popular notions that these animal parts will do the job for men with exhausted or feeble virility. Recently, a fungus (some sort of lichen) growing on the ground has been found in parts of Nepal that locals claim is better than Viagra.
Now there’s a remedy. Grow more fungus.
Joanna K.