Is it easy to stay vegan as a student?
It is not easy to answer this question. To me, I would say YES and NO.
This is a common question that many people ask me. I’ve been a vegan since 2008. So, it’s almost 13 years. I am now currently in Taiwan, studying at a Taiwanese university even though I am over 30. Actually, I didn’t want to go abroad at this difficult time when the Covid-19 is still around. However, we are not sure about the future and Covid-19 is something like that. So, just live with it and adapt to “The New Normal”.
I was born and grew up in a rural area in Vietnam. My family is considered as “a good family breeding” but I didn’t finish my higher education due to some personal reasons. I moved to the southern part of Vietnam when I was 18. I studied part-time and worked for a few companies at the same time. Due to an emotional shock, I learned to become vegan.
In Vietnam, the people tend to go vegan because of religious reasons rather than protecting the environment which is a quite common reason from those living in the West. When you want to pray for something good for yourself or your family, you pray in front of a Buddha statue (normally in a Buddhist temple). And as a convention, you make a commitment to be vegan for a short period. People may pray for health, luck, especially for good luck in love. I also had some time to be not so strict, meaning that I sometimes joined parties or celebrations with my co-workers and friends. But those occasions just happened at the beginning part of my vegan life.
I decided to study again. So, I went to Malaysia in 2017 and also studied another 2 years in Singapore at a religious college where I practised as a novice. That was not a problem at all because the college offered vegan dishes and we students did not have to cook ourselves. But when I moved to Taiwan, studying at Yuan Ze University, everything became more difficult.
At first, I ate out. Actually, eating in the canteen of the university is not so expensive as eating in outside restaurants but we don’t have much choice as not many food stalls in the canteen offer vegan/vegetarian dishes. So, I decided to cook myself. You know, I paid a lot of money to buy a rice cooker and another cooker for common use such as soup and stew cooking. Luckily, my girlfriend in Vietnam prepared me some ingredients so that I didn’t worry much about where to buy ingredients at first.
However, those mentioned above were just a proportion of home cooking. My dormitory doesn’t allow us to cook inside the room. So, they provide a small kitchen on the 5th floor. That is not a kitchen as I could imagine. That’s just a small room with two small tables where we put our electric cookers. But, it’s so annoying as we have to use a card called Easy Card to pay for electricity use. How come?
We are students and we cook to save money but we have to pay for electricity use. Any way, I had to get used to the system here. We also use that card to pay for air conditioning. It seems that the university know how to make money from students. Lol
Ok, that affair is still minor in my opinion. Let’s talk about ingredients. In the Orient, we rely on soybean-based products like tofu to provide protein. Hence, we don’t have much choice. For me, it’s still OK. My typical meal consists of stewed tofu, boiled vegetables, and a bowl of vegetable soup. Soy sauce is essential part of my meals. Sometimes, I buy some mushrooms for a change. But everything here is more than twice as expensive as everything in Vietnam. Vegan food is plentiful and cheap in my home country, ranging from mushrooms, tofu to many types of vegetables. It is not right to compare the cost of living among countries but I am still a student, not a working adult. Despite that, I get used to this type of eating. And to me, food is just for survival to do something more meaningful rather than enjoyment. Any way, home cooking is still cheap then eating out at the canteen. At least, I can choose which type of food I want to cook for today. Lol
As a saying goes, “If you really want to do something, you will find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse”. Therefore, despite any type of hardships occurring, if you want to keep your own lifestyle you still can do.
Taiwan, 18th December, 2021