The 1st Middle East Vegetarian (MEVEG) Congress, Part 10 of a Multi-part Series

“Indonesia and China – again, we’ve never done anything in either of these countries until last year – the fourth Asian Vegetarian Congress in Indonesia. Totally unexpected, we had a thousand people at this congress. Absolutely huge. It was organized by the Indonesian Vegetarian Society, which started out as a Mathraya Buddhist organization. Then they changed their name to the Vegetarian Society, and looked into organizing a world congress, and we said, ‘Great, but we cannot have a Buddhist congress; it’s got to be everyone.’ And they really worked hard on involving other communities, other religious groups.”

“The man on top right in the suit is Professor Duo Li, from Hangzhou in China, and he is actually organizing the next Asian Vegetarian Congress in China, and that will be the first one we’ve ever had there. And this was China last year, they had a food fair.”

“To me, it’s just amazing to be here at all, having a Vegetarian Congress in the Middle East. Two years ago, I could never have imagined this. Though, there may not be thousands of people here, but for everyone who is, thank you for coming, because this is, for me, quite historic, that we’re here at all, just to have this happening.”

“Twenty-ten – the World Congress was held in Jakarta. We had the biggest food fair I’ve ever seen at a world congress, completely vegetarian food fair. Five thousand people passed through, several hundred of them attending lectures. We had the most children I’ve ever seen at a congress. Children’s activities of all sorts. Metro TV set up a complete TV studio, done some cookery demo. We did a chat show from there as well.”

“And the fifth Asian Congress, the first ever vegetarian congress in China, coming up next October. And the big one, the 40th IVU World Vegetarian Congress in San Francisco, also next October.”