Death is All Around Me!

People ask me periodically whether I ever miss eating meat. For the first couple of years, I'll admit, I did. I'd smell a steak at a restaurant or pass the rack of roasted chicken breast at Safeway and have momentary, albeit very spirited, argument with myself as to whether my activism was really worth anything at all and whether that chicken didn't really want to be eaten in the end anyway. When your imagination is wild enough to anthropomorphize animals in the first place, it isn't hard to expand the concept to chickens willfully lining up to nobly and knowingly sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Or whatever.

But any long-term vegetarian will tell you that after those first couple of years, your mindset really begins to change. At first you simply find yourself not craving meat at all. Your friends eat it in front of you, and you are surprised to find that you are not only not jealous, but that what you see between the hamburger buns is less tasty morsel than it is quarter pound of saturated fat. Pass another year, and the very thought of meat is so nauseating that you have to cross the street when you encounter a Burger King just so you can avoid the smell.

So this morning on my jog, I was suddenly overcome by the nauseating, gut-twisting smell of MEAT. I should add that the air in Taipei at any given time is an amalgam of every kind of aroma, most of them originating in a food stand, and I like it that way. It adds to the atmosphere. But this was the most overpowering smell I have ever experienced in my life. I never knew that meat could smell so strong.

Not thinking, I turned my head to look into the restaurant, wondering what on earth they could be serving that would give off such a pungent odor.

They were butchering a cow! On the table! This chick was sawing off its leg!

My knees almost gave way underneath me. I looked away as fast as I could, but the damage was done: I was so shaken up that I had to walk the rest of the way home. It was only a block, but still...

I'm still not sure what to make of this. Just because I'm a vegetarian - and super sensitive too; I'll admit it - it doesn't mean that I don't know that death is out there or even that I'm overly offended by it. But a little advance warning would have been nice! It was such a creepy sight, and I wasn't emotionally prepared for such an upheaval. I'm an American. I don't want to know where food comes from.

Right now, I am mad at Taiwan. Every time I start to think I'm getting used to it it throws me another curve ball.