No to shark fin soup

In one afternoon, me and Ludo were invited for lunch in the finest chinese restaurant at the golf course. We were there to meet with recently deceased friend's family. Of course, it was an opportunity to catch-up with them, the wonderful Indonesian family who I used to be close with in Jakarta. It was lunch after the wake of our friend.

The dining room has a high-ceiling with huge window-glass overlooking the green golf course. The entrance was decorated with dark red and black also golden ornaments. Yes, I feel it is pretty high-class lunch. I was sitting next to Counsellor George Soraya, a wonderful man I know from Jakarta who used to be a teacher for children class.

We were served small amounts of foods and delicacies such as duck feets and sea cucumber. I barely touched anything. In my Indonesian culture, oh well, in my culture where I grew up I will not eat any feet of the animals. It is pretty grossed to just even think about it. The next course was the bowl of soup of shark's fin. Of course, I was tempted to gulp the whole bowl as I have been pushing away all the "good" delicacies they served. I was hungry but also I want to try the famous shark's fin soup, once in my life. I thought eating a bowl doesn't hurt the whole population of sharks. But I pushed it away again this course, out of respect to my deceased friend, I am not cut to eat this poor animals. So was George Soraya who is working for World Bank of Indonesia in Poverty Department. Yes, it was pretty hard when we refuse the foods when our tummy was empty.

It was more than 6 courses of foods, but each is small portion. Forgive me, I wasn't really familiar with this fine dining chinese customs. But I was expecting rice and the yummiest noodles. So I picked a couple of desserts and left the table to chat with family members and friends. Of course, I was still hungry so me and Ludo went out to get a good tomato soup soooo good at 3 pm around Raffles Place.

So I hope, the consumption of shark's fin will be reduced soon. No more restaurants serve shark's fin for chinese new year in 2012.