An Old Man, a little Boy, and a Donkey
When we posted a glimpse of the menu on our restaurant website, there were people posting their concerns about our vegan-friendly dishes. When we announced that there will be grilled chicken and shrimp available to go with the dishes, we got comments from some local vegans posting their concerns about us offering meat.
There's a story I'd like to share, for those who don't know it. Here's my short version of it. It's about an old man, a little boy, and a donkey. An old man, a little boy, and a donkey were heading towards a faraway city. As they started off on their journey, after awhile, both the old man and the little boy got tired. So they both rode on the donkey at the same time.
As they passed the first village, people were looking at them with consternation, whispering to each other, "Look at how cruel that man and boy is, both riding the poor donkey, how tired that donkey must be". The old man felt ashamed, so he got down from the donkey and let the little boy ride on the donkey.
As they passed the second village, people were looking at them angrily, whispering to each other, "Look how disrespectful that boy is, riding on the donkey while the poor old man walked all this way on his own tired feet". Not wanting people to think ill of the little boy, the old man trade places, so that he rode on the donkey while the little boy walked on foot.
As they passed the third village, people were looking at them and frowned, whispering to each other, "Look how irresponsible that old man is, riding on the donkey while the poor little boy walked all this way on his tired little feet". Having gotten enough of the villagers' criticisms, both the old man and the little boy walked on their own, with their donkey following behind them.
Their walk was long, their shoes became torn and worn, their clothes dusty and dirty. Both looked very tired and are about to pass out at any moment. When they finally reached the city, people were looking and laughing at them and smirking, whispering to each other, "Look at the two foolish beggars, they have a donkey and yet do not ride it..instead of riding the donkey to save themselves some energy, they are suffering because of their foolishness."
So who is right and who is wrong?
posted by Dennis @ 10:50 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
...and then when they finished their journey, they took the donkey to the local butcher, and had it killed. The donkey was a little concerned about this development, but hey...it was only a donkey. And besides, it was cooked on a seperate grill.
An Old Man, a little Boy, and a negro slave
An old man, a little boy, and a negro slave were heading towards a faraway city. As they started off on their journey, after awhile, both the old man and the little boy got tired. So they both rode on the negro slave at the same time.
As they passed the first village, people were looking at them with consternation, whispering to each other, "Look at how cruel that man and boy is, both riding the poor negro slave, how tired that negro slave must be". The old man felt ashamed, so he got down from the negro slave and let the little boy ride on the negro slave.
As they passed the second village, people were looking at them angrily, whispering to each other, "Look how disrespectful that boy is, riding on the negro slave while the poor old man walked all this way on his own tired feet". Not wanting people to think ill of the little boy, the old man trade places, so that he rode on the negro slave while the little boy walked on foot.
As they passed the third village, people were looking at them and frowned, whispering to each other, "Look how irresponsible that old man is, riding on the negro slave while the poor little boy walked all this way on his tired little feet". Having gotten enough of the villagers' criticisms, both the old man and the little boy walked on their own, with their negro slave following behind them.
Their walk was long, their shoes became torn and worn, their clothes dusty and dirty. Both looked very tired and are about to pass out at any moment. When they finally reached the city, people were looking and laughing at them and smirking, whispering to each other, "Look at the two foolish beggars, they have a negro slave and yet do not ride it..instead of riding the negro slave to save themselves some energy, they are suffering because of their foolishness."
So who is right and who is wrong?
So let me get this straight...I should base my ethics on the whisperings and opinions of other people, and not upon my own innate understanding of what is right and wrong?
If you have no moral center, you have nothing!
To anonymous,
The story of the donkey, old man and grandson is a beautiful story told by the Asian folks to their children to tell their children to look at things from all angles. That is, not to accuse others when they are only stating a fact that is also the truth. The truth is we have a lot of vegan friends and we respect their compassionate nature. We also have a lot of non vegan friends and we respect their freedom of choices. Based on what you are trying to say, your message feels more like harrassment than a message of any value. We are all humans no matter how we live. Hence neither should deceive any feelings like the ones you intend to create.
Myself is a vegetarian and I have been persuading people to adopt a more high fiber vegetable diet so that they can be healthy. It is tough to influence people to eat vegetables because there is not a lot of vegetable meals versus the many varieties of meat dishes. However, we are reading up the nutritions of all vegetables and doing research on how to make the best vegetables dishes so that we can come up with menus that we can entice our friends to switch to a high fiber diet. Most people cannot be vegans or vegetarians. However, they can always learn how vegetables can help to improve their health. Therefore, we are compiling information and methods to reinstate the fact that vegetables do keep ones healthy and happy the most.
On the side, if everyone wants to provide information about vegetarian and vegan diet, it is always best to provide the positive sides of these diets than to share the negative views. The negative views just make more people angry than happy to read them.
Happy CNY Dennis & Phan!
Thank you for the story. I was surprised by the negative comments that arose. I admire you sticking to your plan to provide food for everyone and being conscious of individual tastes.
It's hard enough finding a good restaurant that cooks healthy food so I respect that you are focusing on the health issue first and foremost, without discriminating against any specific diet. Claiming to have a moral center merely because of one's diet is what a self-righteous (anonymous) person relies on to feel good about him/herself.
In the end, what you and Phan believe in (eating healthy) is a philosophy that should be respected in itself, especially with the extensive research data that you also try to provide. =)
umm, maybe some vegans/vegetarians consider vegetarian as "clean", hence they do not consider a restaurant serving meat too as vegetarian, as they are ocncerned of cross contamination.
I am ok with eating say, fries at macs or cucumber rolls at a sushi place, but to my another veg friend, he thinks it's "unpure".
Bochup,
Yup, that's what we want to do. We want to introduce more vegetables meals to the community by not emphasizing any particular diet so that non-vegetarians and non-vegans will enjoy eating more vegetables. Moreover, we realize that vegans who are already on a strict non meat diet will not need any encouragement to adapt a more vegetable based meals. So it will be unnecessary for us to tell them how good vegetables are. They will know where to get their vegetables and some of them have already angrily pointed to us that they will go to those vegetarian places and not ours. So i am not sure why those people are so aggressive towards us when we are promoting mostly vegetable based meals with chicken slices (grilled on a separate grill) as side order to meet our target market's needs. Strange enough is that that same group who is strongly against us is also promoting vegan friendly restaurants who serve meat more than vegetables. We still do not understand how we ended up in the firing range.
Becca,
You got a good point there. We are taking extreme care to avoid cross contamination by having the meat cooked separately from the vegetables. But this might not be comfortable for some folks who want to avoid meat. We understand that. However, our mission is to encourage non vegetarians and non vegans to enjoy more high fiber meals. Those folks who have avoided meat at all costs, will know how to keep eating high fiber meals elsewhere. So they don't really need us as much as those people who are not vegetarians.
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