Jumping to conclusions about other peoples’ ways is unjust
By Lethbridge Herald on May 21, 2022.
Editor:
I was in the changing room of the swimming pool. I overheard a father telling his little boy: “Don’t do that! That’s super-yucky!”
Probably it was nothing: I didn’t want to know. All of us do some inappropriate things away from public eyes. Don’t have to be alcohol or drug related. But nobody calls it disgusting because no one can see it.
Reportedly as many deaths by drug overdose occur at home. The same is with alcohol addiction and related violence. But if it’s done by homeless people on the street, it’s seen as disgusting and there will be a public outcry.
We have to think carefully before we call anything disgusting. We have to live with people of different cultures, histories, and lifestyles sharing one planet.
Too often, we speak of disgusting things people do as though there is one universal standard. We condemn what looks merely different and strange, and call it disgusting. Some different people see the same thing but feel differently about it. We see it sympathetically if done by a family or a friend. We think of healing, not punishment.
When Charles Darwin arrived in Galapagos, the native chief graciously welcomed the company of Englishmen with a stupendous dinner. Darwin was delighted but did not eat the food. He thought it was disgusting. It was not because it looked strange or unsanitary but was served without cutlery.
My work in Vancouver during the 1960’s often involved helping immigrants finding homes. I often ran into landlords who did not want to rent apartments to people who cooked “smelly food.”
They said they were not racists but had ”to protect property value.” They didn’t want people who cooked curry, fish, and garlic.
Today if you don’t want those ingredients, you really have nothing to choose from on the menu in Chinese, French, Italian, Indian, Greek, or Korean restaurants. The notion of disgust is a social construct.
Chewing gum came to Japan a long time ago but had never caught on. It was seen as a distasteful habit. American soldiers came and popularized it.
Initially people thought it was disgusting. It was thrown to the homeless war orphans who were begging for food and money. Also, sex workers began chewing it. I experimented with it and was caught by a church elder. “Disgusting! This is a church!” I was not a good Christian in his eyes.
For a long time eating four-legged animals had been taboo in Japan. Probably it was a Buddhist influence. For protein they ate beans (tofu), birds, and fish.
Europeans came in the 19th century and introduced beef and pork in the diet. It took a while to catch on. Only junior college boys dared to eat beef because they proudly appointed themselves to be “outlaws.” Not allowed to cook it inside, of course.
They barbecued it on the blade of the plough or the spade in the field. That’s how the Japanese favourite beef dish “sukiyaki” came into being. “Suki” means spade and “yaki” means “to fry.”
We think all excretions of living things are disgusting. However, some of them are good for your health. Intakes of what we think disgusting make some animals immune to germs and viruses. Ask a mother zebra what she feeds her newborn. Of course, certain customs are unhealthy and unsanitary. But many are not.
Let’s not jump to conclusions and condemn other people’s ways. Beware. Your ways may be disgusting to some people too.
Tadashi (Tad) Mitsui
Lethbridge
20-19
I like reading Tads letters .
how dare one, in this day and age, suggest that choice and diversity are good things.