Tuna

It's all on the headline a few days ago: a man from Hong Kong successfully bid the biggest wild blue-fin tuna from the fish market of Tokyo on the first day of this year.

Take aside the potential consequence of provoking unpredictable reaction by local Japanese, and that the quality of nationalism of our local paper remained stagnant for a century, I know very well that wild blue-fin tuna is a much endangered species. My spinal cord with a sense of environment protection tells me that this kind of catching and bidding for big tuna does harm to the ocean. I feel satisfied with the small fishes for my dinner. Should I be happy ?

I ask my mum, "Where do these fishes come from ?"

"Fresh catch from sea, of course." she has an obsession for fresh food.

I know just too well: fresh catch by fine-eye nets, and hopefully not explosives. Whatever the method, it got to be an exhaustive one: small fishes could not get through - before they become big enough to have offspring.

An ice-cold feeling appears on my back. When Europeans (Vikings) spread from Scandinavia to Iceland and then settled in Greenland, the already limited natural resources there - wood, grass, pure water - were gradually depleted. Those unfortunate Greenlanders ran into desperate famine, and gradually ate up their goat (or sheep) - so that they had no more milk - and then baby goats - so that there was no further breeding. The goats became extinct, and then the men. Oh, my god !

I am speechless - not knowing what to do. But I am sure I will finish with my dish and shall not in the future order one that I cannot complete - be it big tuna or small sardines. Maybe Snowball of George Orwell is right when it comes to the end: all animals are equal.