Plant Futures Duke Kushan University Chapter at Shanghai Veg Expo
As Broadway’s play Chinglish highlights, 关系 (guānxì), also known as the art of building relationships, is one of the most important concepts in Chinese culture. Unlike in the U.S., where you might directly ask your canteen manager for plant-based defaults, or your math teacher for extra credit, in China you first invest in the relationship. Safe to say, lots of lessons have been learned.
As a 外国人(wàiguó, foreigner) navigating this rich and complex culture, I felt the power of guānxì firsthand last weekend at the annual Veg Expo. While vegetarian, pretty much every booth had fully plant-based foods, businesses, and advocates, all connecting, collaborating, and growing the movement—for the animals. Talks covered everything from food innovation, to climate and sustainability, to international growth and collaboration. We tried samples of flaky pastries, cakes, and tofu in a dozen different forms (yes, even stinky tofu… one I’d recommend skipping). Sellers had build-your-own bowls, vegan pet food, we even found oat milk ice cream for 50 cents! What struck me most was the shared enthusiasm: people genuinely excited about making the world better, one meal at a time.
China is both the world’s largest producer and consumer of pork, raising more than 700 million pigs annually (FAO, 2021; Our World in Data, 2023). Industrial factory farming here is not only an animal welfare crisis but also a planetary one: globally, livestock contributes about 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions, with pork alone responsible for around 10% of the sector’s footprint (FAO, 2013). Inside China’s sky-scraper hog farms, pigs are crowded in tight, dark, and crammed crates, a system developed for easier mass production–and also a breeding ground for zoonotic disease.
Furthermore, producing just 1 kilogram of pork requires about 6,000 liters of water (Mekonnen & Hoekstra, 2010) and vast amounts of grain that could otherwise feed people directly. As we are approaching both climate and humanitarian deadlines, set forth by leading bodies like the United Nations and the World Health Organization, bringing light to these topics in events like this, especially pertaining to China as an emerging global power, is important now more than ever.
Veganism isn’t new in China. Rooted in centuries of Buddhist tradition, vegetarian dining has long had a place here. Today, there are hundreds of Buddhist restaurants scattered across the country, with dozens in major cities like Shenzhen, Beijing, and of course, Shanghai. When visiting, you’ll find that nearly every temple has a nearby vegetarian buffet; simple, affordable, and abundant, and often frequented by monks on their lunch break. Beyond that, modern vegan chains are flourishing: from homestyle family spots like 素满香 Sumanxiang, to bakery-cafés like Green Friday, to upscale fine dining at Chunmen qing chun pu men.
I arrived at the expo knowing just one person, but I left with a network: chefs inviting me to their restaurants, vendors hoping to collaborate with my university, even a proposal to bring a vegan stall into.
