Being a woman, a wife, a daurhter-in-law, and even a vegan is not typical powerful side in most Asian societies. You can catch a glimpse of this through "The Vegetarian" by Han Kang, the Nobel Prize-winning author from Korea. From the very moment you start eating vegan, family members are worry about if your plant-based diet full of nutrition, if you feel hungry all the time. After that they will try to give you some meat, and emphasize some benefits for you in order to persuade you and change your mind. This kind of behavior will go on for a while. Then they may ladle some soup and say, "even though this is chicken soup, you're only drinking the soup not eating any chicken." This is only first stage. At this stage, people have no idea to deal with your vegan choice - a choice that's different with others.
If you neither shrink back under pressure nor become depressed and chane your mind, then what comes next is ostracism. Your family will intensify their verbal persuation to dissuade your vegan decision. For example, they might say things like, " you will be lack of nutrition because of vegan. And It's hard to make friends." But actually they worry about you out of good intentions. On the other hand, they indeed don't know that many plant-based foods contain high-quality protein and full of nutrition. And In Taiwan, you can always find tons of delicious veg restaurants. There are Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Western type, or other international cuisines, all kinds of veg gourmet foods. In most restaurants, there are also some vegetarian dishes choices. It's very easy to be vegan in Taiwan.
Even friends and family continue to doubt or disagree with your choice, you still stick with it because you've tried and experienced the benefits of vegan diet. You may feel lighter physically, see improvement in chronic illness, notice fewer red flags in your health reports, and experience a sense of peace and joy. And you might have a different ,better, version of yourself when you look at the mirror. What matters most is knowing that your actions have allowed many animals to stay alive in this world. If one less animal is killed each day, that means 365 animals are still alive in a year because of you. We may not be the hero in a Marvel movie, but we can still save animals' lives by choosing vegan diet and become a silent hero.
