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Animal Rights

As civilizations evolve, cultural and behavior norms change over time.  What use to be acceptable as the norm, can become unacceptable or politically  incorrect.  For example,race relation, voting rights, women rights, etc.  More recently at least in theWestern world, animal rights begin to gain momentum. For example, elephant ivory tusks, rhinoceros horns became illegal trade  items with the exception of China and possibly Japan. Whale hunting again with the  exception of Japan became highly regulated. Fur coats have practically  disappeared in the West. However, mink and fur coats are apparently still status  symbols (派頭) among the newly riches of China. The small country  of Denmark has become  the fur capital of theworld with most of the trade going to China (Ditto for the diamond business of Europe). The Economist magazine this week has a lengthy article  on this phenomenon

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21601488-how-danes-became-masters-global-fur-business-adventures-skin-trade ,    http://www.kopenhagenfur.com/about-us/facts.

The obsession of wealthy Chinese with status symbols is well known.

Of course, the counter argument from the Chinese side is that the majorities of the  people of the world still eat meat and wear leather shoes.  To condemn us for wearing mink coat is hypocrisy. Then the response is that eating  meat and wearing shoes is for existence not for pleasure and status symbol as the case  with mink coat. But then the retort is you have a choice also why don’t you become  vegetarian and wear cloth shoes. Can you imagine the whole world becoming  vegetarian? The debate goes on . . . Each one of us must do what we each think  is right and accept the consequences of how you appear in the eyes of the world.