Time for some ribbing – without the meat
Vegans seem to be less liked now than we ever were, even as we become more environmentally relevant ...
In the beginning, God, infinitely wise, smiled, then jammed the Car of Life into gear, leaned over the wheel, blew that long, snowy hair off his brow, gazed ahead through the windscreen – time, actually – towards the glorious evolutionary future, the great arc of biological progress crackling from the universe’s atomic wallpaper; towards us, humanity, his favourites, the sentient ones, the creatures with the spark of His thought and the fire of His heart.
Manual transmissions, however, have always been tough for learners, and reverse was really close to first gear, and – to cut a long story short – He reversed up the kerb.
God speeded away with a haunted look on His face and a unicorn mashed under His back wheels.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how vegans were created.
You see, I might have been naive but I thought veganism would become cooler over time. The opposite seems to be happening. Like God, we’re reverse-evolving. Vegans seem to be less liked now than we ever were, even as we become more environmentally relevant, which surprises me because I genuinely didn’t think we could get less cool.
Now I don’t mean to crow about how lame I am, but I mention all this because after a few years of being vegan, I don’t necessarily demand fewer vegan jokes, but at the very least I ask for better jokes – and fresher material. Please, please, try harder.
The next time I hear the one about how the cabbages screamed when they were chopped up for my dinner, please remember those tears running down my cheeks aren’t from suppressed laughter. I just realised I can’t smother myself into sweet oblivion with that nearby cushion because it might be filled with goose down.
So, sure. Life for the vegan is a long, slow death by open-mic-hour, but my point is: joke away. I hold to my moral beliefs. And staleness aside, I just put up with the ribbing because, after all, isn’t there something a little bit privileged about being vegan, being able to choose our food like we do?
I mention all this because an unusual thing happened to me a few weeks ago during the latest marae stay in my fulltime, full immersion te reo Ma¯ ori class at Te Wa¯ nanga o Raukawa, north of Wellington.
I started the class this year, a Ma¯ ori journalist in my 40s, to learn the language. (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: For Ma¯ ori people who feel a missing piece in their life – this is probably that piece. If you possibly can, learn te reo Ma¯ ori in full immersion. The pa¯ keha¯ people in the classes are having an extraordinary experience too.)
A lot has happened for our class since the last marae stay, but I still think about this particular thing.
The generosity of my fellow students and teachers in the kitchen to the non-meat eaters was wonderful. I ate better than at home. It was capped off with the hangi on the final evening. The baskets were lifted out of the ground, the steaming cloth lifted off, and there in a tray, tightly wrapped in foil, was a generous nugget of tofu. Yes, in what might be a first in New Zealand, they hangi’d tofu. It was delicious. Nothing tastes sweeter than manaakitanga.
Weeks later I still get a kick out of it. It makes me think a couple of things. Sometimes you will take jokes, sometimes you will make them. Sometimes you’ll have your breath stolen by acts of simple generosity. When I look at the news, these thoughts are often followed by darker ones.
The racists, bigots, and rednecks here in Aotearoa and overseas flinch at humour at their expense. Here, some people living in the gutter of racism, despite having everything in New Zealand curated for them – like an enormous, obscene, stolen theme park – still cannot accept any jokes against pa¯ keha¯ hood. I guess it’s no fun being racist. Then again, it’s no fun being any villain, like the gorgon, or that half-bull guy, Mr Tumnus.
Perhaps these people know that in some way they have abased themselves by their strange, angry preoccupation with their own resentment.
‘‘Don’t laugh at me’’, they growl, as they snuffle round the gutter for some imaginary talisman that might prove they were justified in dropping to allfours in the first place.
Why is it that people who believe the unacceptable demand unquestioned acceptance?
Giving and receiving ribbing is the Kiwi way. So I say to these moaners, when there is a funny doing the rounds at their expense, whether it is sublimely hilarious, or just plain lousy, get over it. It’s just a joke. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Be a bit humble. If anything, that is the lesson I’ve been learning from The Driver.