Whale Day

Today's lunch was whale. That's right, the Japanese have such a big scientific need for whaling that all Japanese school children receive a lunch of whale meat once a year.

Last week when I was at this school, I informed the teacher responsible for ordering school lunches that I would not be requiring a meal for today, and that I would bring my own lunch instead. He repeatedly asked me if I had an allergy (probably not helped by the fact that for that day's lunch, I had handed him my bowl of three 8cm long whole fish for him to enjoy, and me to enjoy not eating). He was really quite confused as I simply repeated several times that no, I wasn't allergic, but I just really didn't want to eat whale, and would bring my own food, yes, my whole meal, I didn't require any part of the whale lunch.

Today at the start of lunch I pulled my salad and pasta out of the fridge, sat down at my desk, and started eating. Usually I eat at a communal table but the sight of the whale meat dished up really turned my stomach. The strength of my reaction to the sight of the whale meat actually took me by surprise, I wasn't expecting it. Anyway, I thought it best to eat at my desk and draw slightly less attention to myself, and also not have to look at all my fellow teachers excitedly gulping down questionably sourced whale meat. Nevertheless, I gained a number of surprised looks, and quite a few comments, to which I simply continued to reply that I didn't want to eat whale. I had no desire to enter into either a debate or a conversation on the ethics of whaling that I simply didn't have the vocabulary for, it was enough for them to see that I wasn't eating it. However, my vice-principal asked me what was the difference between eating cow and eating whale, to which I replied (or at least hope I replied), that the difference was that cows aren't endangered, and cows are raised locally, not taken from globally shared oceans. He didn't seem to think much of it, but left it there.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in a conflicted and agitated mood, disgusted by the whale meat and wanting to talk about it but not wanting to raise the issue, and nobody else raised it with me. Now I'm sitting at Wikipedia reading pro and con whaling arguments.