Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on May 2014

I’ve been a vegetarian for over 15 years and now living in Japan, the home of the vegetarian staple tofu, I’m often overwhelmed by the ignorant attitudes people express about my lifestyle—Japanese and expats alike.

I know that primarily these attitudes come from a lack of understanding, but I still find myself frustrated when I have to explain myself time and time again. People’s curiosity takes over and I’m frequently barraged with questions such as, “But why? Sushi is so delicious!” or “Can you eat octopus? What about bacon?” My favorite question of all, though, is: “How are you still alive? Your body needs protein! Only meat has protein.”

At lunch time, people crawl over each other to see what I have in my homemade bento, and on my lazy days they assume my bento is boring because I’m a vegetarian—not because I wanted an extra 20 minutes in bed. I’ve also been to self-proclaimed “vegetarian” restaurants and often ended up with a side of fishy miso soup.

I’ve held back from voicing my reasons for being a vegetarian because maybe Japan is really rubbing off on me: I don’t want the conflict or to stand out like a stereotypical foreigner with an aggressive opinion or to be labelled “weird” or “difficult.” Over the years, I’ve found myself profusely apologizing for being a vegetarian and have even concocted made-up reasons for inconveniencing people’s food ideologies, such as allergies or health.

My honest issue with eating meat and fish is that I think it’s cruel and it’s not something that I want to have on my conscience. There. I’ve said it out loud—and it feels good to have it out in the open.

I’m not the sort of person who preaches about my morals to uninterested ears and I’m usually as polite as I can be about them because I understand that it’s my own choice to be a vegetarian and it was my own choice to come to Japan. I realize now how spoilt for choice and support I was in the UK.

If I order food at a restaurant which comes with surprise chicken chunks, I’m capable of pushing the cooked fowl aside and eating the rest of my meal without kicking up too much of a fuss. And I’ve even stomached a whole bowl of dashi (soup stock, usually with bonito) to be polite at a dinner party whilst feeling my soul slowly melting away inside. (I have been to some great vegetarian restaurants in Japan and met people that went out of their way to accommodate me, but these people and places are few and far between.)

It’s hard to have such morals in a country where animal cruelty is ignored and most people seem oblivious to it. It’s something I witness almost daily. I’m talking about dogs wearing dresses and being pushed around in prams, blaming dolphins for overfeeding on local fish as an excuse to torture and kill them and the local zoos with shaggy long-haired Shetland ponies that have no shade from the insufferable summer heat. Japan has a long way to go to protect these animals. I understand that all countries and cultures have their downfalls when it comes to animal cruelty, but I feel that Japan often hides behind “cultural tradition” as an excuse.

I’m not naïve and I’m not expecting to turn the whole population of Japan into vegetarians overnight. I’m just asking that next time you’re thinking of posting that Instagram video of you eating live squid to impress your friends back home or you fancy a coffee in an owl café, that you think twice about it.

If you don’t agree with the idea that fish have feelings or that dolphins have families then before dismissing me, might I suggest that you consider the other reasons people have for being vegetarian such as improving your health and sustaining the environment.

After three years in Japan I feel like it is time to stop apologizing and to start educating people. Let me be proud of my own opinion and don’t judge me for choosing to kill carrots over cows. It’s not a crime to not eat meat.