Questions & answers and how I took a step towards veganism

My sister called me on Sunday: "I would like to give you some communication advice." I shut down my iPod and tried to concentrate while the three babies in front of me in the tram started all crying at once. I had an uncomfortable feeling, this didn't sound like she was prepping me to become a great orator just for fun. And indeed, my sister was thinking of me defending my vegetarian stance at my niece's 5th birthday party the day before. I had apparently justified so badly my position that she was still troubled and felt compelled to become my personal communication adviser as if I was running for some political post or was the head of the Vegan Association.

Obviously, I had myself noted that I hadn't defended my position in a very eloquent way, but, at the same time, I felt bored with a coversation about vegetarianism with people who try to accuse me of doing something at all. "But you do eat cheese and other dairy products? And what about those leather shoes???" The general prosecutor asked me when I had refused to eat some organic Swedish sausages (which, by the way, wasn't any kind of problem for me, there was plenty of delicious veggie food available).

Here we go again, and I wished I had been playing with the air balloons. This reminded me of the excellent "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer (mentioned already in this blog for a few times). He writes: "I can't count the times that upon telling someone I am vegetarian, he or she responded by pointing out the inconsistency in my lifestyle or trying to find a flaw in an argument I never made." I couldn't agree more with the author. Here I am, trying to do my best to contribute to the saving of the world and I'm accused of not going all the way to living in a forest like the radical ecologist Pentti Linkola, while the people around the table eating their little sausages can smirk at my inconsistency. People are not consistent with their life; who hasn't lied while being otherwise a morally considerate person, who hasn't said at some point in the wee hours "let's have tequilas" while knowing it's the worst idea?

So, I just got annoyed by the comment, said something about hating comments like that and went to play with the air balloons. Indeed, a PhD gives me a plethora of ways to back my opinions but when pushed in a corner by a person who doesn't seem to care what I respond, I think it's better to leave the situation. In a best case scenario this should happen a bit before I get upset and raise my voice (which might have happened before turning to the balloons).

In any case, my personal coach of PR issues suggested that I should prepare a battery of FAQs so I could give witty and persuasive answers to my harasser. I had't thought of this that much before because usually I spend my time with people who more or less agree with me on the vegetarianism issue or are at least intelligent enough to understand all the arguments presented, so they don't say: "But if we were all vegetarians, would there be enough food for everyone?" (Argh, information hasn't apparently reached every one after all; this is precisely the original reason why I even became vegetarian before the ethics kicked in.) Honestly, this misinformation reminds me of the Helsinki city hall discussion on adding one veggie day to the school weekly menus. One council member said: "If the kids eat beans, they will fart more, and we need to keep the windows open and thus lose energy by heating more - is this what the vegetarians want, to increase our energy consumption?" (Sad but true, this is a real citation!) Considering that factory farming is the biggest source of co2 emissions in the world this argument is not only ridiciulous but ill-founded, instead think of this: if all Americans had a meat-free day once a week, 1.4 billion animals would be saved annually!

So the Q & A session, I have to think of it. I should probably do something similar with my PhD thesis, what's my relationship with my ex boyfriend, why do I travel alone, why I think Christina Aguilera's video is demeaning to women and why I don't like toilet paper coming from the side of the wall.

But it's not healthy!
Vegetarians are more rarely obese or over-weight than others (look at my slender shape). In addition, I'm basically never ill. (Mum says: "But your skin looks terrible." Indeed, I think that's the combination of chocolate, stress and this conversation). And most importantly: do you think that farm factories or animals pumped full of antibiotics are healthy (remember swine flu...)?

Why do you eat cheese?
Well, first of all, we would need to go through the reasons why I am or anybody is vegetarian. There are plenty of those reasons; ethical, environmental, economic, health, political. Some of these are more important than others for me or for other vegetarians. If I think that killing animals is the problem, cheese would be ok. If I think that the food production system in general is the problem, I could probably still eat organic cheese (as I do with most food I buy in any case). Obviously, I should stop eating cheese and using other dairy products, I should be vegan. I am not, but I try to compensate this with other eco-friendly action. How about you, dear general prosecutor, why do you eat pork and beef and not dog? In Vietnam, I heard that puppy meat is really tasty. What's the difference between a puppy and a baby lamb? (JSF writes on this last issue very nicely.)

I think the general prosecutor feels some kind of shame of eating meat, why would it otherwise be so important for him/her that I don't eat it? Why do I feel that meat eaters try to convince me to become a carnivore and not the other way around? They must acknowledge the moral superiority of my action even if it's spiced with some camembert or chevre. It's funny because I would be immensely happy if even the idea of Meatless Monday would expand to be a standard for carnivore life (see also the short Meatless Monday video). I don't believe in fundamentalism in anything, even if above-mentioned reactions push me towards it. If the general prosecutor initiates Meatless Monday in his/her life, I will take the challenge and have a vegan Sunday. In fact, all I want is that people acknowledge what they are eating and where their food comes from. Not like my other sister who hushed me when I said to her daughter that "I don't eat pigs" when she was having bacon and offered me some. That's an attitude I don't accept!

By the way, today is the international vegan day. Did you know that Bill Clinton is a vegan? I take the challenge, I'll reduce the amount of dairy products in my life and have a vegan Sunday! How about that? I'll stick to Italian leather shoes and bags but I will stop using milk products (well, the reduction of 5 dl per week is not likely to change the world, but if you'd do it as well...).

As you might notice, I am a bit annoyed while writing all this down and I'm done with the FAQs - bloody hell, can't we have some respect for the choices we make and for our principles in life if they don't harm anybody, quite the contrary. This makes me think of this video:



By the way, if you're interested in starting a life with less meat or knowing how eating/producing meat impacts on your health and nature or on the animals themselves, here's a good spot to start: PETA's vegetarian starter kit. Interesting videos, facts, etc. I just calculated my "meat footprint": during my four years of vegetarianism I have already saved more than 1120 animals!

From Brussels to Eira

Plans change. Mine for sure did! Instead of trying to learn some Flemish in Antwerp, as indicated in my last entry, I have now quit the academia for the time being and I'm living in Helsinki. Surprise, surprise!

New life, new city. Returning back to Finland after 4 and half years was bizarre but Helsinki turned out to be really fantastic - except for the outrageously priced espressos. I'm actually pretty excited about the place that seems to have changed quite a lot during the last couple of years. Moreover, I live in the most beautiful neighbourhood of the city, Eira, in the South by the sea. It is known for its foreign consulates and the Swedish-speaking elite though my friend keeps on mentioning about "the two doctors in Eira", the other one being the infamous True Finn MP Dr. Halla-aho who has shocked with his racist commentaries. (However, his dissertation was about historical nominal morphology of old church Slavonic, so does it really count?)

Yesterday I watched the obligatory reference for Eira, Aki Kaurismäki's wonderfully ironic film Calamari Union from 1985. In the film, fifteen guys named Frank and one called Pekka try to find their way from Kallio to Eira. The mental distance between Kallio, known for its social problems at the time (and still today, though it's more bohemian bourgeois nowadays), and Eira, described as the heavenly part of the city, is depicted in a great way. The taxi driver comments: "I don't drive as far as Eira". Finally, most of the guys die on this long way, some deviate from the route because of other reasons and two of them start rowing to Estonia instead. My mental and actual trip from Brussels to Eira was somewhat easier.

The first scene of the film is brilliant:

P.S. I figured out that I should update this blog before I forgot my password...

Contemplating Brussels

I've spent almost five months in Brussels now. In the heart of Europe if you will. In the beginning, my ambitions regarding my blog were high, I wanted to write about the country without government and its linguistic disputes, I planned an entry on the Europe 2020 programme and I gave my annoyance about the city a form of a column in my mind. Five months and all I managed to do was to change the background of my blog (obviously inspired by a nostalgia for a summer in Finland). No in-depth analysis of the European politics, meetings with the EU bureaucrats (among which Commissioner Olli Rehn), the working of the Commission. To be honest, I don't know if I could give one. I hardly understand what my colleagues are doing.

I arrived here as a pro-European, I think I will leave as one as well but with a slightly more critical attitude. Not per se about the European Union and its politics but about the efficiency of the Commission. I see so many things that need to be improved but in this huge institution with over 20 000 employees even the most modest changes have to undergo a hierarchical and bureaucratic mechanism. New ideas and daring visions are transformed into bland proposals during this long process. At the Commission, I have really started appreciating the academic freedom and the liberty academic work can offer to ambitious researchers.

When in June I defended my PhD thesis, I was happy to get the burden of the thesis from my shoulders. But in September I will be back in academia, this time in Antwerp as a post-doctoral researcher. I'm pretty sure I will miss some aspects of the European institutions there but I'm also quite excited about the new research I can start from the scratch (indeed, from a scratch, any ideas?). And Antwerp, in the Flemish part of Belgium, is not quite like the Belgium you learn to know in Brussels. It's pretty, bicycle-friendly and clean - a city that has already entered the 21st century in contrast to Brussels that feels like a place you wouldn't be surprised to find on the other side of the Mediterranean... (Ok, that's it for my daily rant about the problems of Brussels!)

My New Heroine

On Tuesday 24 May, the European Parliament's intergroup for animal welfare welcomed the famous British primatologist and researcher on animal behaviour Dr Jane Goodall to give a speech about environment, animals and humanity (sounds like a quite big theme to tackle in 2 hours...). She is most known for her studies with chimpanzees in Tanzania but she has also worked extensively on animal welfare issues and conservation.

Her talk was at the same time fascinating, starting with a story of a small girl wanting to go to Africa and thinking she would make a better 'Jane' for Tarzan, emotional, going on about similarities between human beings and chimpanzees, as well as informative, giving examples of the success stories of development aid. When she first went to Tanzania, she didn't have any university degree and her mother actually came with her for the first three months. She was surpised to see chimpanzees to kiss, hug and shake hands just like we do. During the following decades she studied chimpanzees that are so similar to human beings that it seems almost unbearable that we are destroying the living habitat of these animals. Through continous projects she has, however, gained the trust of the local communities that are getting increasingly interested in saving the rainforests.

Of course, I completely fell in love with this wonderful woman and coming back from the lecture (having finally found my way out of the labyrinths of the Parliament) I was dreaming about voluntary work in Africa. After so many years in front of the computer talking about saving the world, this seemed something that I should do before I grow too cynical about any progress in ecological or developmental affairs.

Dr Goodall has an amazing spirituality in her and despite the environmental catastrophes facing us today, she could still give us some hope for the future. Her own project Roots & Shoots with children has already shown how important it is to empower people and how small streams can eventually make up a river. One of the most important points of her speech was exactly this: it is counterproductive to preach about gloomy ecological problems that then only seem as unavoidable. Instead, what is effective, is to make people understand that their actions and choices can make a difference: "Every single one of us makes an impact." I guess I wasn't the only one in the audience thinking that maybe all that recycling, switching off the lights or vegetarianism weren't useless urban eco-hippie acts after all.

She is an inspiring person and a dedicated environmetalist, I found my heroine (and bought two of her books immediately). Let's continue with our eco-conscious behaviour because it does make a difference and we still have hope!

With this line of thinking I should also promote the petition for better animal welfare. 8 hours campaign is trying to lobby an EU directive on setting a maximum lenght of animal transportation to 8 hours. Sign it!

Monday's Reputation Revisited

I couldn't possibly care less about politics on a such a splendid long weekend. The True Finns gained amazing share of the votes last weekend but fortunately I managed to process my anger, frustration and disappointment during the 3-day work week (much of the working time was indeed spent reading blogs, following social media and trying to understand what the heck is going on in the Finns' head, and yes, I became a member of the Green party as well!) and was able to completely relax during this 5 -day weekend.

These sunny Mondays spent on the terrace of Le Pain Quotidien (love it!) with bio-croissant, Le Monde and International Herald Tribune (and actually enough time to read them thoroughly instead of reading the old news throughout the following week) and then on my own terrace are really good for the usual reputation of Monday (I'm afraid, Tuesday will have a drop in popularity though) and for my tan as well.


I have to say that although the Easter weekend doesn't usually make me search for my inner spirituality, this weekend has taken me to the religious world through the reading of Confessions d'un Cardinal, our Bookclub's next read and 'the book that the whole Church is talking about' according to the cover (the book also has a Facebook fan page with 3 people liking it, I guess they don't facebook that much in Vatican...). I've been mostly suffering due to my daily dose of 50 pages of an anonymous cardinal's confessions as I've become to learn that the Catholic religion nor its Vatican leaders do not interest me. By the way, I would really wish the editor of the book to reconsider the title as after 400 pages I'm still waiting impatiently some scandalous scoops...

Nevertheless, one interesting idea comes through the reading of the confessions and if I understand it correctly (to be honest, I haven't been reading that carefully) it would mean that in order to still be appealing to people, the Church should be in service of the poor and counterbalance the nefarious effects of the capitalist globalisation directed by money and business only. Indeed, who could better defend the disadvantaged of the world than the Church that doesn't need to worry about the electoral results or economic cycles?

Hmm, I didn't really mean to write about religion, rather about sunny Mondays and how we should only work 4 days a week and have 3-day weekends...

Election Fever

The Finns are electing a new parliament on Sunday. I've got pretty excited about the elections even if I haven't really been following the political debates in Finland. Actually, I believe it's better for my nerves considering the rise in popularity of the True Finns, the anti-immigration, anti-EU party that has nothing else to propose than negative attitude and nationalist (I'm not sure if the tone is more Soviet or fascist) art programme. I couldn't handle elegantly the stupidity of the opinions of the candidates (nor of the citizens voting). Well, the minor problem of democracy is that we get a parliament that we deserve, nothing more.

I went to vote in Brussels last week (and got to buy some Finnish delicacies, like our Easter dessert mämmi, at the same time). I had prepared myself with a few election surveys even though I was already pretty sure of whom I wanted to vote. The choice of a political party was easy as my principal concern in the world is environment (only in the second position is my professional concern: inequality). Later, I tried to counsel my Mother on the good candidates in her preferred party (in order to minimize the chances of some non-educated ice hockey player's wife...). To my great surprise, she finally voted for 'my' candidate as well. Talking about swing-voters... I guess my Father has been rolling his eyes and voted instead for someone who wants to build a nuclear plant in our backyard.

I couldn't vote in the last parlimentary elections as I was traveling in South America and I also missed European elections and some other elections of smaller importance. In fact, the last time I voted was in 2006 in the presidential elections. But as before, the whole election thing makes me want to get more involved in politics or even to become a politician myself. I think I'd be a good one in theory, but I would hate to give up my principles in order to make compromises and to win in some other issues. I would also be too honest and get too frustrated about the slow changes, stupidity and the way politics work in general. Thus, I should congratulate all those politiciens who do their work sincerely not betraying their own beliefs or moral and actually achieving something for the benefit of the society and the citizens (i.e. someone who isn't there only to vote for higher salaries for the MP's).

I've learnt a great deal about politics lately, not because I'm working in the heart of the European Union but because I've been intensely watching the American tv-series West Wing (what a great series it is!). Yesterday, I actually had a moment when I thought of the character of Martin Sheen being the real president of the USA before the image of Obama popped up from the back of my mind. It's a cruel game sometimes and not much is getting done because the incumbent politicians are constantly thinking of the next elections and pleasing lobbies and their constituencies.

Maybe it is after all more efficient to work behind the scenes, to have the powerful role of giving advices to politicians or reporting on what's actually happening in the world. Provide them with the infomation needed to decide wisely on policies, which they possibly cannot understand fully. I've probably been brainwashed during the 4 years of doctoral education, but I honestly think that research (+ a bit of idealism, a hinch of realism, and great deal of vision) should be the beginning of all policies. I just wish that researchers and academics would connect their work more closely to the current happenings and changes of our societies and make some strong political conclusions based on the empirical evidence they have objectively gathered. To follow this idea, I finished my thesis with a chapter titled 'Dear Member of the Parliament'. Not only 'why' question, not only 'how' or 'what' questions, but also the 'so what' question should be included more forcefully in all research conducted in social and political science!

It does matter!

Was I obsessed about coffee already before living in Italy? Not to the extent I am nowadays, that's for sure. In fact, I started drinking coffee in Brussels as a 19 year-old au pair. A decade ago you didn't find all these fancy Italian types of coffee in Finland, so when I tried the Belgian version of caffe latte, lait russe, in Brussels, I got into coffee drinking (I also learnt to drink beer here) and eventually was happy with the Finnish filter coffee as well.

But after the Italian coffee there is no going back to filter coffees or such. I have to say that I really liked the American way of having a half a litre of coffee in the morning with a muffin but when I returned back to Florence I realised what I had been missing. The Italian coffee culture never stopped delighting me. Still after 2 years in Florence, I learnt new ways of ordering coffee: cappuccino chiaro, macchiato freddo, orzo, ristretto in vetro… It was usual to order a different coffee for each person when a group of us was having the after-lunch coffee at our terrace in the hill of Fiesole (but summer-time favourite was always caffe con ghiaccio, coffee with ice). And though people back home just think that I've become a snob, it does matter!

Now I'm back in Brussels where my coffee history started. However, I'm a different person than back then - at least when it comes to coffee drinking. The often tepid lait russe comes with big chunks of sugar that won't melt into the coffee and the Belgian baristas (if they could even deserve this nomination) don't know what a cappuccino is (it's not a lungo with milk foam!). And they then serve it with cocoa powder, obligatorily. I miss those old guys working in the Italian bars, the hard-working man who creates a rose in the milk foam of your coffee without even thinking of it. There you are sipping your delicious coffee in a random bar in a backstreet of Florence, or any other city in Italy, the neighbouring customers in their dusty overalls holding a tiny espresso cup with their little finger up and tasting some miniature pastry (only an Italian worker can do something like this without losing his masculinity in the eyes of his colleagues).

Bialetti's little man ordering a coffee the Italian way, a finger up in the air.

In the cantine of my workplace in Brussels, you can order 'espresso Illy', I guess otherwise the espresso is made out of some shitty coffee. I pay the extra 13 cents. There are no Italian style bars around, no place to have a quick coffee, but well, would I pay 2,50 euros for an espresso that I got for 80 cents in Italy? I've started to be fastidious in Finland as well when it comes to coffee (or ice cream, or pasta, pizza, mozzarella, wine or anything related to cucina Italiana), but the Belgian coffee is of the worst kind. It's hard to believe of a city as international as Brussels, but even the Italian places here are serving their Belgian customers the local way.

To end with a positive note, the service in Brussels is very friendly. It might be slow, inefficient and not even very professional, but the people are indeed very nice and polite. This is harder to say about Florence where I had to work my way to be a respected customer worth a smile in my local coffee bar. On my next trip to Italy, I will finally buy myself a Bialetti moka pot (even though it will never replace the feeling of shouting the order in an Italian bar on a busy weekday morning).

Nature Overtaking Civilisation

As I wrote in my previous entry, what made Angkor temples interesting and exceptional was the tight connection they had to the surrounding nature. While archaeologists have tried to cut back the jungle in most locations of the Angkor complex, Ta Prohm temple is unusual in the way that the roots and huge trees are growing from the ruins making it a magical place to visit.



This special character has of course made it a favourite stop for tourists but despite the crowds attracted by the afternoon sun I was amazed by the beautiful golden shades in the stones and bare trees. Some tourists might have been more interested in the exact location where Angelina Jolie was playing Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider film a few years back (see above).



Also the less visited Preah Khan temple has this magical feeling due to its proximity to nature. This isn't an archaeological decision as in Ta Prohm but the temple is still waiting for restoration as can be guessed from the frail walls about to collapse.