Read the full post of Shark Love (EP2): Sharkwater and some shark facts.
Read Shark Love (EP1): In conversation with Sharkman.
Shark Love (EP2): Sharkwater and some shark facts
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 09:32hrs, the long zlong
SharkWater is an award-winning documentary produced, written and directed by Rob Stewart. The film debunks many of the fears and misconceptions the media machine has brainwashed us with. And traces the journey that Stewart makes with renegade conservationist Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, on an adventure that exposes the truth behind shark-finning, with the corruption involved for that tiny bowl of soup at our Chinese dinners.
There were moments that disgusted me, moments that made me feel shameful and embarrassed as an ABC (Asian Born Chinese) - a Singaporean company is featured in the film for all the wrong reasons. The MD of the said company is filmed with such arrogance on how vicious sharks are - “See the teeth! Like a saw!… They bite you…pain until die.” - and ignorance of how one can prevent cancer and rheumatism by eating shark’s fin. And it horrified me that we Asians, me in part, am responsible for the slaughter and driving the need for the corruption that is involved, which includes paying off officials in Guatamala (where finning is illegal) by Asian syndicates.
But I also felt a sense of redemption when an Asian couple, whom I can only guess is from South-East Asia from their accent, declared how they would not be serving Shark fin at their wedding dinner.
Now I promised that I had a plan to affect change. When this idea first started, I didn’t realise how much there was to write about shark fin and how embarrassed and disgusted I would feel from learning more. And since this post has gone on to include a lot more than I anticipated at first I will postpone my plan to affect change til the next post.
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