Ask Mang | What’s the history of China's vegan / vegetarian culture?
“Ask Mang” is the China Vegan Society's Q&A series. "Mang" is the Romanization of 茻, the Chinese character which the China Vegan Society uses to represent veganism. Email Mang with your questions about veganism in China and she'll do her best to answer you!
Q: What is the history of China's vegan/vegetarian culture? When and where did it originate, and how did it change over time?
A: Although the Western concept of veganism, established by the Vegan Society in the United Kingdom in 1944, didn't arrive in China until the end of the 21st century, variations of vegetarianism have been widely practiced in China for centuries.
China's vegetarian culture is often traced back to Buddhism, which entered the country from India during the Han dynasty (206 BCE to 220 CE). However, a deep dive into written records suggest vegetarianism was practiced in China much earlier.
Scholars of the subject generally agree that vegetarianism first originated in China as the Taoist and Confucian practice of zhai (斋) aceticism. First appearing in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BCE), zhai referred to the practice of purifying the body and mind by abstaining from distracting thoughts and stimulating foods (including meat) during mourning periods or in preparation for prayer ceremonies.
It's important to note that the earliest meaning of zhai was not explicitly antithetical to eating meat—its shift to entail abstinence from meat happened gradually over hundreds of years. As a result, the earliest historical references to zhai are often ambiguous—scholars do not agree on exactly when vegetarianism first became a standard of zhai in China. For example, Wong claims the earliest historical record of vegetarianism related to ritual and ceremonial practices is found in The Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial (仪礼, Yí Lǐ) which dates back to the Spring and Autumn or Warring States Periods (770-221 BCE), while Nuse claims vegetarianism was practiced as early as the Shang Dynasty (1520-1030 BCE).
The Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial, written more than 2000 years ago, is cited by some scholars as the earliest historical reference to vegetarianism in China.
Although vegetarianism did not become popular in China until Buddhism flourished during the Tang dynasty (618-906 CE), many scholars agree that Buddhist vegetarianism became so prevalent precisely because it aligned with the existing vegetarian culture. Nuse argues,
[T]he origins of vegetarianism were present in China before Buddhist vegetarianism became popular. Of course, Buddhist vegetarianism radically changed the scene of Chinese vegetarianism upon making its appearance. By the Ming (1368-1644 CE) and Qing (1644-1912 CE) dynasties, Buddhist-influenced vegetarianism had become prominent in China.
Emperor Wu of Liang, who reigned from 502-549 CE, urged the Buddhist clergy to mandate vegetarianism in Chinese Buddhist temples. Over the following centuries, Buddhism flourished in China, and so did vegetarianism.
From the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, both Buddhism and vegetarianism prospered. The Song Dynasty saw China's first vegetarian restaurants and cookbooks appear. Agricultural advances during the Song Dynasty also brought a greater variety of fruits, vegetables, and grain-based foods, fueling a "golden age" for vegetarianism in China.
After this period of development, China's vegetarian culture remained relatively static for hundreds of years until the Republican era (1912-1949), when political reformists proposed vegetarianism as a more evolved, hygienic, and economical diet that could help China to devote more resources to strengthening the nation and fighting foreign oppression. Although this secular version of vegetarianism was endorsed by political and academic elites, including Sun Yat-Sen and Cai Yuanpei, it ultimately failed to change either traditional vegetarian culture or mainstream dietary habits.
In the 1910s, Sun Yat-Sen and other influential political figures praised vegetarianism as a healthy and economical diet that could strengthen the nation at a crucial time.
Vegetarianism surged in the West during the 1970s as a "diet for a small planet"—a response to the increasingly apparent consequences of rampant consumerism and industrial intensification. At this time, China was still a poor country where 80% of the population lived in rural areas and per-capita GDP was less than USD 200 a year. China's secular "post-consumerism" vegan/vegetarian movement began in the 2010s, after over 20 years of economic reform. China Vegan Society founder Jian Yi explains the evolution of China's 20th and 21st century vegetarian/vegan movements in his article "Eating as an Act of Civility":
The movement in the 1910s is driven by the elite politicians, revolutionaries, and businessmen of the time, while the second movement is led by common people. Secondly, the first generation of vegetarian activists in the late Qing dynasty are concerned with the establishment of modern state and the transformation of national character, making their state invincible in the international competition. [....] Comparatively, the second movement took place in the 2010s, a time when China established the world's largest industrial production system, and became the world's second largest economy and the world's largest producer and consumer of food. This movement could be understood as a response to the growingly prominent downside of consumerism, the global health crisis and the ecological degradation of the Anthropocene.
In modern China, the traditional Buddhist vegetarian culture continues to thrive alongside the newly emerging secular vegan/vegetarian culture. The increasing urgency of topics like sustainable agriculture, animal welfare, food security, and healthy nutrition are fueling the rapid growth of this new secular vegan/vegetarian movement. At the same time, a more recent social trend of cultural revitalization in China has also seen vegetarianism framed as neither a religious obligation nor a social and economic solution derived from Western frameworks and research, but as a part of traditional Chinese cultural heritage which deserves to be appreciated and preserved.
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