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Why whale meat is popular in Japan
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8565665.stm
Page last updated at 08:47 GMT, Saturday, 13 March 2010
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Consuming whale meat is seen by many as barbaric and unnecessary.
But the Japanese say eating the meat is part of their culture.
Commercial whaling has been banned since the mid 1980s, but Japan justifies its annual hunt in the name of science.
So how is whaling viewed by the Japanese?
Roland Buerk reports.
Why Japan Keeps Fighting the Whale Wars
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1971807,00.html
By Bryan WalshSaturday, Mar. 13, 2010
Whale meat sashimi dish is served at a restaurant near Wada Port in Minamiboso, Chiba, Japan.Junko Kimura / Getty Images
While the team behind The Cove, the hidden-camera documentary about dolphin slaughter in Japan, was in Los Angeles last week accepting an Oscar for Best Documentary, they took a detour to help carry out another undercover sting operation — this time at Santa Monica sushi restaurant.
Together with federal officials, they discovered evidence that a restaurant called the Hump — really — was secretly serving whale meat, in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. When confronted, the restaurant accepted responsibility for serving whale, and now faces up to a $200,000 fine.
As Andre Birotte Jr., a U.S. attorney on the case, told the New York Times: "Someone should not be able to walk into a restaurant and order a plate of an endangered species." (Read "Japan Gets Its First Chance to See The Cove")
Which begs the question — who would possibly eat whale meat?
Well, for one: me.
Before you begin flooding the Internet with electronic hate mail — or contacting the nearest U.S. attorney — you should know that my eating whale was a one-time thing, as part of my reporting, and it happened in Japan, where eating whale is not only legal but sometimes considered a national right. (Japan is not the only country to refuse to sign onto the whaling ban, but it's the only one that pursues whale in any significant way.)
In June 2005 I attended an annual whale-tasting event held by the Japanese Whaling Association at the national legislature in Tokyo. Whale restaurants from around Japan served their best cetacean recipes — whale sushi, whale sashimi, whale on crackers, canned whale, whale with Osaka noodles — to black-suited Japanese legislators, grazing from one table to the next.
So, I had to try: when you cover a whale-tasting event, you have to taste whale. And morality aside, I can tell you whale meat isn't good. As sushi and sashimi, it was fatty and chewy with a bland, blubbery taste — like salmon that's been kept out too long. The one exception was the whale noodle dish, but I'm going to say its success had more to do with the noodles — and the spicy broth — than it did with the whale. All in all, the experience made it hard to keep a straight face when people refer to whale as a "delicacy." It was like eating leftovers from a submarine. (See pictures of Japan and the world.)
Indeed, even in Japan whale meat isn't really that popular. Though some coastal towns have hunted whale for centuries, relatively few Japanese ate whale regularly before the postwar years, which is when it took off. What changed? Blame U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the head of the U.S. occupation of Japan, who thought whale meat would be a cheap source of protein for an impoverished country, and effectively launched the modern Japanese whaling industry. A generation of Japanese schoolchildren grew up accustomed to having a bit of whale in their lunch boxes.
But it's been decades since Japan could be described as impoverished, and a 2008 survey found that 95% of Japanese either eat whale meat very rarely or not at all. The fishing company that owns Japan's whaling ships estimated that annual per capita consumption from their catch might amount to less than four slices of sashimi a year. If Japanese whaling — which is allowed under the international ban only in very small scale, as "scientific research" — ended tomorrow, your average salaryman in Osaka would barely notice.
And yet, the whale wars continue — and even seem to be worsening. In January a vessel belonging to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a group that tries to disrupt Japanese whaling on the high seas, was badly damaged in a collision with a Japanese whaling ship. On Mar. 12, the Japanese Coast Guard in Tokyo arrested Peter Bethune, a member of Sea Shepherd, after he tried to board a whaling ship without permission in February. Yet Sea Shepherd — the subject of the popular Animal Planet reality show Whale Wars — isn't holding back. "Nothing is going to keep us from trying to save whales," says Laurens de Groot, a deckhand on the Sea Shepherd. "We're not going to stop."
But neither is Japan. In part, the Japanese may be protecting their right to whale as a stand-in for a separate issue that they actually care about: fishing for bluefin tuna. Japanese eat an estimated 80% of the world's catch of the sushi species, which many scientists believe is in danger of being fished out of existence. If Japan holds the line on whaling, the argument goes, it would send a signal that limits on bluefin tuna aren't up for debate either.
We'll see if that message gets through. At the meeting of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), beginning Mar. 13 in Doha, the E.U. and U.S. will push for a ban on international trade in the bluefin. Japan has already said it will oppose the ban, but Tokyo faces an uphill battle. "A ban is the only possibility to prevent a total collapse of this species," says Sergei Tudela, Atlantic bluefin tuna expert for the World Wildlife Fund.
But there is more than just fish politics and food culture at stake for Japan when it comes to whaling. Even though few Japanese ever sit down to a plate of whale sashimi, they still resist viscerally the idea that the international community could force Japan to stop whaling. A country that arguably never returned to full sovereignty after World War II — its constitution greatly limits its military, and U.S. armed forces are still based throughout Japan — can get tired of the world telling it what to do. As one Japanese chef told me at that whale festival in 2005: "If other people don't want to eat whale, that's fine. But we should be allowed to do what we want." A side of national pride makes a blubbery dinner go down a lot easier.
Culture clash over Japanese whaling
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8564342.stm
Page last updated at 00:59 GMT, Monday, 15 March 2010
Whale meat, once widely consumed, is now considered a delicacy in Japan
Clashes between Japanese whaling vessels and activists from the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling group have received global attention, but do not go down well in Japan, where whale meat is still considered a delicacy, as the BBC's Roland Buerk reports. 更多内容见原文
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http://fashion.people.com.cn/GB/10771367.html
日本、挪威和冰岛是目前最主要的三个捕鲸国家,其捕鲸作业一直遭到反捕鲸人士的抗议。
为保护鲸类,1986年国际捕鲸委员会通过的《全球禁止捕鲸公约》生效,禁止商业捕鲸活动,但允许“以科研为目的”的限量捕鲸活动。挪威反对此公约,一直从事商业捕鲸;日本则于1987年开始“以科研为目的”的捕鲸活动。
日本等捕鲸国家坚持认为,食用鲸肉是其传统饮食文化的一部分。
据调查,八成日本人吃过鲸肉,超过六成的人认为捕鲸是日本传统。
二战后日本粮食紧缺时期,鲸肉成为国民摄入蛋白质的重要来源。
如今日本有完整的鲸鱼产业链,鲸鱼产品在市场上大量销售。
今天许多站在反捕鲸立场上的欧美国家,其实也曾经有过捕鲸的经历。
早在9世纪,法国人、西班牙人在沿海地区捕鲸。
在中世纪欧洲,鲸骨被用作女性长裙的裙撑。
19世纪,捕鲸业发展成为有利可图的产业,人们疯狂捕杀鲸类,以获取鲸油。
鲸油是当时重要的工业原料和照明灯油。
到了20世纪,以鲸鱼为原料制造的化妆品一度随处可见。
在1961年的一个捕鲸季中,有6.6万头鲸鱼被捕杀。
全世界13种鲸中至少有5种处于濒危状态,南极海域被划为鲸类保护区。
然而在一些国家的捕鲸活动中,还是能看到已处于濒危状态的鲸鱼被捕杀。
此外,船只碰撞、重油污染、鲸鱼觅食海域的天然气和石油工程等人类活动带来的海洋生态恶化等,
与滥杀滥捕同样威胁到鲸类的生存。
日本食用鲸鱼肉居民被检测出体内水银超标 2010-01-25
http://msn.huanqiu.com/world/roll/2010-01/699106.html
据日本《朝日新闻》24日报道,以“捕鲸之村”著称的日本和歌山县太地村居民因长期食用鲸肉,被检测出体内的水银含量是日本人平均含量的10倍。有的人甚至超过了世界卫生组织规定的标准。
目前,日本环境省正在对该村所有居民进行健康检查。报道称, 日本北海道医疗大学中毒学教授远藤哲野和日本第一药科大学教授原口浩一从2007年12月开始到2008年7月,收集了该村50名村民的毛发进行了水银检测。
其结果显示,回答一个月只吃一次鲸肉的28人中,体内平均水银浓度为24.6ppm,是一般日本人体内含量的10倍以上,其中三名50岁以上村民的体内水银含量高达67.2ppm,超过了世界卫生组织(WHO)规定的50ppm的标准;
回答一个月中吃鲸肉不到一次的11人平均体内水银含量为15.5ppm;
回答完全不吃鲸肉的11人平均含量为4.3ppm。
结果显示出了食用鲸肉和体内水银含量的密切关系。
教授们还推测,村民体内的水银超标可能因为鲸鱼也遭受到了水银的污染。
报道最后称,人体长期摄入水银,会使得体内的循环器官出现异常,并引起不孕、免疫力下降等危害。
仅2%日本人经常吃鲸肉 日本捕鲸意在提高影响力 2010年02月08日
http://www.chinanews.com.cn/gj/gj-fxpl/news/2010/02-08/2113853.shtml
1月6日,隶属于环保组织“海洋守护者协会”的“阿迪·吉尔”号快艇在南极海域干扰日本捕鲸活动时,与日本捕鲸船“第二昭南丸”号相撞。“阿迪·吉尔”号船身断为两截并于1月8日沉没于海底,随之浮上水面的,却是日益严重的全球环保主义者与日本捕鲸业的冲突。
早在1946年,世界上15个主要的捕鲸国就已经在华盛顿签署了《国际捕鲸管制公约》(ICRW),并成立了国际捕鲸委员会(IWC)作为该公约的执行机构,到目前为止共有88个成员国。《国际捕鲸管理公约》出台之初,日本拒绝签约以示反对,直到1951年才加入。
最初,IWC每年通过对鲸种群数量的监测来设置捕鲸配额,而以商业为目的的捕鲸已经在1986年被IWC禁止。
日本只能打着“科研”旗号继续捕鲸,所有的日本捕鲸船上都写着“research”字样以表示自己是从事“科学捕鲸”的船只。
而对于鲸肉在市场上公开贩售的行为,日方辩称,一方面鲸肉不能被浪费,
另一方面,出售鲸肉的所得也将作为研究经费继续支持研究。
法国外交部日前在批评日本捕鲸活动时表示,世界公认现在科学研究无需对鲸进行捕杀,而日本的捕鲸计划实际上很少产生什么“科研成果”。即使科研需要解剖鲸身,那也根本不需要成百上千的数量。
而国际捕鲸委员会则明确指出,日本通过捕鲸获得的科学数据没有实际意义,此外,即便是进行科学研究,“科研捕鲸”也绝不等同于“科研杀鲸”,完全没有必要通过杀死鲸的方式来获得数据。
除却“科研”,日本国内对捕鲸行为的辩护理由还有一种版本,即捕鲸、食鲸是日本的一项民族风俗,应该得到国际社会的尊重。日本现任外务大臣冈田克也曾在2009年12月表示,日本不打算停止在南极海域的捕鲸活动。
在澳大利亚广播公司对他的采访中,冈田只字不提捕鲸是出于科研目的,而辩称从事捕鲸是因为食用鲸肉是日本文化的一部分。“我认为饮食是一国文化中最重要的元素,因此有必要相互尊重并认同彼此的文化。”
目前,日本仅太平洋地区就有捕鲸船1000艘,工人10万,并拥有北海道函馆市、和歌山县太地町以及山口县下关市等六个捕鲸基地。日本国内还有一些团体在进行推广鲸肉食用的活动。日本有专门的“鲸美味协会”。
日本机构J-cast的调查显示,仅有2%的日本人经常性食用鲸肉。
然而,却有65%的日本人支持继续捕鲸,只有9%的日本人反对。
90%支持捕鲸的日本人认为,捕鲸是日本由来已久的文化习俗,不应被国际社会干涉;更有不少人认为,国际社会企图阻止日本捕鲸是一个巨大的陷阱,一旦有战事发生,日本对进口牛羊肉的依赖将极大影响日本的战略安全。
对于日本政府的立场,有一种分析认为,日本政府企图借捕鲸活动来试探国际社会底线,并提高日本的国际影响力。
2006年,国际捕鲸委员会大会在岛国圣基茨和尼维斯举办。
为了在该次会议上获得多数支持,日本政府一方面于2005年向主办国提供了6.17亿日元(当时约合531万美元)的无偿资金援助;
另一方面,还通过“金元外交”的手段,拉拢小国加入国际捕鲸委员会,以期在投票时获得支持。
除了圣卢西亚、格林纳达等6个加勒比国家获得超过一亿美元的援助以外,一些完全没有海岸线的内陆国家比如马里和蒙古也加入了国际捕鲸委员会,表示支持重启商业捕鲸。
日本国内舆论认为,这些接受“援助”的国家也是在合适时机助推日本“入常”的重要盟友,而随着国际捕鲸委员会内部力量对比的不断变化,一旦商业捕鲸由于新加入会员的支持而获得通过,便可以视作日本战后在国际政治舞台的最大胜利。
捕鲸争议背后的文化摩擦 2010-02-27
http://www.gmw.cn/content/2010-02/27/content_1061046.htm
最近日本与美国和澳大利亚这些盟友之间因为一件事情闹得不太愉快,那就是日本在南极海域的捕鲸船频频遭到美国环保团体的妨碍;而澳大利亚则要求日本停止调查捕鲸,否则就要把日本告上国际法庭。
一位日本媒体的朋友告诉记者,其实现在一般的日本人对鲸鱼肉并不太感兴趣,
很多上点年纪的日本人也是为了寻找当年的记忆才去吃鲸鱼的。
但面对西方的批评,不少日本人则认为“为什么欧美可以吃牛肉,而我们吃同样是哺乳类的鲸鱼就不行呢”。
在欧美存在着“鲸鱼是神圣的动物”这样的价值观,而日本则没有这种价值观,因此这一问题其实也是一种文化摩擦。
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律师认为该餐馆经营铤而走险,为其他经营者敲警钟。 |
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