Quote by Lan Samantha Chang

“Their father, seated near one end of the long table, smiles broadly. "Pass the vinegar, please!" His voice is so deep and loud that everyone turns to watch him. Holding a steaming dumpling in a large porcelain spoon, he drips a bit of sooty vinegar on top, greedy and focused. He picks up a sliver of ginger, using his chopsticks with the precision of a surgeon, and places it over the dumpling's puckered nipple. He raises the spoon to his mouth and takes a bite. "Hmm. It's good," he announces. "But I like my dumplings made with pork. Hot meat juice gushing into my mouth at the first bite. Hot, greasy, delicious pork juice!" Dagou's chest swells. "You know they're vegetarians here." "You prefer plain dumplings?" their father shoots back. Dagou doesn't answer. He and their father favor meat in all of their food. "I have nothing against 'plain food,'" their father says, addressing the community at large. "Winnie says it's sinful to eat living creatures, it amounts to killing, it's an act of violence, especially because the choice is an act of will, because we can decline to eat meat, because it's okay----and maybe even healthier, Winnie says----to eat only vegetables. She says people who stop eating meat have a long life, and people who eat only vegetables have the longest life. Yeah, yeah. But, Your Elderliness"----he nods at Gu Ling Zhu Chi----"I, Leo Chao, would rather be dead than stop eating pig. I will be ash and bone chunks in a little urn before I don't eat juicy pig.”

Quote by Lan Samantha Chang