Hello from Kyoto

[rachelmanija]

Hello, everyone. I am writing this email from Shunko-in, a Zen temple in Kyoto. I am staying there for ten days with thirteen students and three professors on a school trip from the Antioch clinical psychology program, studying meditation, mindfulness, and Japanese psychotherapy

Comments

[marzipan_pig]

people often don't think of ham and sausage as "meat"

Wow!

Have fun, it sounds great so far :)

[telophase]

I've run into people here in the States who don't think of fish and chicken as meat - a former boss once blithely claimed to be vegetarian while tucking into tuna salad.

Rachel: a piece of advice I read in comments somewhere a few years back suggested to a vegan considering traveling to Japan that he tell people he eats like a Buddhist monk, because more people would understand that. Might be worth a try!

[marzipan_pig]

'No red meat' fits into my preexisting cultural world view :)

Do you think maybe it gets transformed into 'no cuts of meat' somehow? And ham/sausage is something like preserved or processed meat?

[telophase]

That might be the case. Or they consider the toppings to be more like garnishes and not part of the recipe -- I once knew a nut-allergic woman who was assured in France that there were no nuts in the green beans she ordered. Well, yeah, there were no nuts in the beans, the beans were just served on top of a bed of almonds...

[sartorias]

I was hoping to find a message when I logged on. Now that the trip stuff is over, I hope everything will be great!

[patty1943]

Sounds like it will be a wonderful experience and something to laugh about later... The best kind. Have fun!

[swan_tower]

I was under the impression that temple food is vegetarian? I think there might have been egg in the bento I got at Enryaku-ji, but nothing else seemed animal-derived.

[rachelmanija]

It is, but that's part of an entire lifestyle package. Non-monks who simply don't eat meat products are not really a thing in Japan.

[swan_tower]

Oh, true -- I was just wondering whether that would make it easier to communicate the concept to somebody who doesn't get what you mean by "vegetarian." (No sausage!)