Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation

During the month of May, the parents, teachers and children of three Tzu Chi kindergartens in Pengang, Butterworth and Bayan Lepas ate a total of 33,000 meals without meat. To encourage themselves, the children carried passports of ‘Vegetarian Land’, a fun way to keep a record of vegetarian meals each day.

The children were leading the way, among them Zhong Haozhe. His passport shows that he went without meat for 29 of the 31 days of May, quite an achievement for someone growing up in a family of carnivores. His record is much better than that of his father and grandfather. “Grandpa bought a lot of meat, because he loves it,” said Zhong’s mother, Li Shuqing. “The meat was put on the table and Haoze saw it. He stared at it and really wanted to eat it, but he left the table without touching it. That moved me, because he stuck to his promise.” His father, Zhong Dejing, was proud too. “He is great, because he told himself not to eat meat and then did it. That is brilliant. He has the right idea. I am also trying to become vegetarian.”

Haozhe’s classmates have been doing the same thing. Li Hongqi said that he declined to eat the fish his grandmother made. “We have to love the hunters, so that they will not kill so many animals for us to eat,” he said. “We have to be conscious of the environment, love the planet and not kill animals.” Another classmate, He Chengxuan, said that he planned not to eat meat from now on. “I want to be a Tzu Chi person and they cannot eat meat.”

The success of these children during the ‘meatless’ month of May shows that eating vegetarian is not as difficult as people think: young and old, everyone can do it.