Life of Pei:  the battle for compassion;  my story and journey so far

by Pei Feng Su

Lantern Publishing & Media
P.O. Box 1350
Woodstock, NY 12498

www.lanternpm.org

Reviewed by Merritt Clifton

The animal advocacy world knows Pei Feng Su as the intensely hard-working,  politely amiable,  fluently multi-lingual,  supremely capable and outwardly poised founder of ACTAsia for Animals,  a humane education society with offices in London,  Taipei,  and Beijing.

Facebook followers are also aware that Pei Su is determinedly battling breast cancer,  raising a sixteen-year-old daughter with her Scottish husband Ross,  and has kept ACTAsia for Animals alive through challenges including COVID-19,  which severely disrupted fundraising in the West and forced a transition from working in classrooms to working through social media in China.

Journey with a tiger

In Life of Pei,  a pun on the 2012 hit film Life of Pi,  about the lifeboat journey of a shipwrecked zookeeper’s son across the Pacific Ocean with a tiger,  Pei Su unflinchingly describes her own long journey from humble beginnings in Taiwan,  when her family nickname was “Ugly” and she suffered from an acute lack of self-esteem,  through many years of developing the skills and insights that have enabled her to make a success of ACTAsia for Animals.

Perhaps the first of many surprises Pei Su shares in Life of Pei is that she worked often literally around the clock for animals,  because of time zone differences,  for more than 20 years before she ever had a pet of her own or a close emotional relationship with an animal.

A cat named Socks

For Pei Su,  animal advocacy was a social justice issue,  rooted in her Buddhist faith.

Pei Su had already become a mother,  at age 40,  and her daughter was already a toddler before a cat named Socks came into her life,  more as a reward for her dedicated work it would seem,  than as an inspiration for it.

Her initial inspiration did not come from her family.

“My father was an authoritarian man and a secret police agent,”  Pei Su acknowledges,  but she did not know who he was,  or what he was,  until adulthood,  long after he died.

Leaving his first wife and family behind in China,  her father fled to Taiwan after the Communist takeover of China in 1949;  took a new wife and started a second family;  and then took a mistress,  who bore him four daughters,  among whom Pei Su was the youngest.

Emotionally austere upbringing

Pei Su recalls growing up in an emotionally austere environment,  without toys or close relationships with either her older sisters or her mother,  and practically no relationship with her brother.  She felt closest to her grandmother,  who died when she was nine.  Her mother and father also died when she was in her early teens.

Supportive relationships with her sisters developed later.

In distant hindsight,  Pei Su praises and credits her mother for inspiring her own positive character.

“Although my mother had a difficult life,”  Pei Su writes,  “I admire her determination,  loyalty,  leadership,  and hard work;  she has influenced me to always persevere in spite of adversity.       “I wonder how she managed to cope with all the challenges she faced:  she was a mistress with little standing in society,  five children,  a chronically ill partner,  and a sharp-tongued mother by adoption.

“Practically illiterate”

“She was practically illiterate and spoke in broken Mandarin.  She had only six years of primary schooling,  and for the first four years she had been taught in the Japanese language,  Taiwan being under Japanese rule at that time.

“Despite all these odds,”  Pei Su acknowledges,  “she was a capable woman with an iron determination,  who cared for her ill husband,  diabetic mother,  and five children,  yet was always neat and tidy.  I never say her cry in despair or self-pity.

“From her,”  Pei Su says,  “I learned the meaning of responsibility and how to find the courage to face challenges in life head-on.  She was my best role model.”

“I was a rather cold,  unfeeling child”

But “I don’t recall the words ‘compassion’ and ‘empathy’ ever being used or even having any meaning in Taiwan in my youth,”  Pei Su continues.

“As I was growing up,  I felt little concern for those suffering from wars,  famine,  or poverty elsewhere in the world.  Natural calamities like earthquakes and typhoons were a part of life in Taiwan,  and war was an ever-present possibility.  I was concerned only with the disasters that could befall us and whether we had enough to eat.

“When death and loss became part of my life,  I continued to care only about how I was affected and what would happen to me;  if I had any compassion,  it was for myself.  I realize now that I was a rather cold,  unfeeling child,  teenager,  and young adult.”

Life Conservationist Association

What Pei Su also came to realize,  over time,  is that how she was raised was how most Taiwanese and mainland Chinese people have been raised for centuries,  under one authoritarian regime after another.

Countering the cultural effects of emotional deprivation became her life’s work early.

In her early twenties,  Pei Su became a founding member of the Life Conservationist Association,  with two Buddhist nuns and the Buddhist monk Wu Hung.

One of the first nonprofit organizations allowed in Taiwan,  after the end of forty years of military rule,  the Life Conservationist Association initially focused on human rights issues,  and to a great extent still does.

Wu Hung

Wu Hung,  however,  led the Life Conservationist Association into animal advocacy as well,  opposing wildlife trafficking and campaigning for reform of pounds at city dumps where impounded dogs were left to starve to death in cages.

Wu Hung became Pei Su’s mentor in activism.  Together they taught themselves to do investigations,  to seek media attention to what they were investigating,  and to make use of foreign response to their exposés.

Eventually they visited the U.S.,  where Wu Hung spoke at several animal advocacy conferences,  while Pei Su volunteered briefly for a variety of animal advocacy organizations,  including two sanctuaries for farmed animals.

Undercover investigations

Following five years with the Life Conservationist Association,  Pei Su pursued further education in England.  Upon obtaining a master’s degree in sociology,  she was offered jobs with both the Royal SPCA and the World Society for the Protection of Animals [WSPA,  now called simply World Animal Protection].

Choosing the World Society for the Protection of Animals,  which at the time claimed affiliation with 350 “member societies” abroad,  Pei Su rapidly advanced to become coordinator of member society relations.

Pei Su also did extensive and at times personally dangerous undercover investigations,  detailed in Life of Pei,  of the bear bile farming and wildlife trafficking industries in China.

Bear bile farming

Bear bile is incorrectly believed by many devotees of traditional Chinese medicine––which is mostly plant-based––to have medicinal properties.  Until the mid-1960s the gall bladders of illegally poached bears were the sole source for bear bile.

North Korea,  however,  developed the technique of catheterizing tightly caged live bears to extract more bile at less cost.   This approach was soon emulated in China,  Laos,  Vietnam,  and South Korea.

Two previous investigators had already exposed the bile farm industry:  Peter Li,  born and raised in China,  now a longtime University of Houston faculty member and consultant to the Humane Society of the U.S.,  and Jill Robinson,  then with the International Fund for Animal Welfare,  who founded the Animals Asia Foundation in 2001.

Robinson went on to start sanctuaries for rescued bile farm bears in both Chengdu,  China,  and in Vietnam.

Neither Li nor Robinson,  however,  had been able to penetrate the bile farm industry from the inside.  Pei Su and two Taiwanese colleagues did,  posing as entrepreneurs interested in developing a market for bear bile products in Taiwan,  thereby obtaining a considerable amount of information about the economics of the bear bile business.

Disillusioned

Eventually Pei Su became disillusioned with the World Society for the Protection of Animals,  especially after a change of leadership reoriented the organization,  and found herself equally disillusioned with the approaches taken by the other major international animal advocacy groups,  especially in China.

“What was your main reason for starting ACTAsia?”  Pei Su asks herself toward the end of Life of Pei.

“Mainly my frustration with large organizations as I got to know them more and more,”  Pei Su answers herself.   “I may have misunderstood,  but it seemed to me as if these organizations saw themselves as almost more important than their cause.

“I perceived something of an attitude of superiority,” Pei Su says,  actually something of an understatement.

Brits & Americans blundering about

British and American representatives of animal charities blundering about overseas in ignorant disregard of local experience have for decades often alienated the very indigenous animal protection organizations they purport to help,  and sometimes have significantly undercut local efforts.

Pei Su mentions specifically the attempt of a now former WSPA chief executive,  whom she does not name,  to redirect member societies to work against factory farming,  which did not yet exist in many of the nations where “member societies” operated,  and against whaling,  not exactly an issue in places with abundant street dogs but no whales.

“In my role as coordinator of the WSPA member societies,  I was able to find out that the opinions of many local groups––especially smaller ones––in different countries were in line with my own observations,”  Pei Su writes.

Tactical conflicts

Apart from the topical issues,  Pei Su encountered tactical conflicts.

“It is difficult for those living in an established democracy,”  Pei Su explains,  “to grasp the day-to-day challenges of working in an authoritarian country with limited freedom of speech and a civic society still in its infancy.

“So when well-meaning Westerners with little to no first-hand experience of Asian countries seemed reluctant to listen to the views and opinions of local groups in those same countries,  I found this most disrespectful.

“I felt that I could set up an organization that would better serve the needs of local groups.”

Emulated George Angell

In this,  Pei Su echoes the thoughts of Massachusetts SPCA founder George Thorndyke Angell (1823-1909.  Twenty-one often frustrated years after starting the MSPCA,  Angell realized that humane education would have to precede either the passage of effective humane laws or the practice of effective humane law enforcement.

Angell therefore founded the subsidiary American Humane Education Society.

Francis H. Rowley (1854-1952),  Angell’s successor as president of both the Massachusetts SPCA and the American Humane Education Society,  followed up Angell’s inspiration by hiring African-American humane evangelists William Key,  father and son Richard and Seymour Carroll,  John W. Lemon,  and Frederick Rivers Barnwell.

For approximately 30 years the Carrolls,  Lemon,  and Barnwell,  in particular,  were the face of humane work throughout the U.S. South and Midwest,  laying foundations for the civil rights movement as well.

Caring For Life

The message of the American Humane Education Society evangelists was essentially the same as the underlying message of the Caring For Life curriculum taught by ACTAsia for Animals to more than 350,000 Chinese school children and 4,000 veterinarians since 2007,  with implications for human treatment of fellow humans,  as well as for human treatment of animals.

“Many Asian countries have developed education systems that turn children into academic machines who retain vast amounts of information from their studies but tend to emerge lacking emotional intelligence,”  observes Pei Su.

“This is why I believe that Caring For Life education holds the key to solving twenty-first century issues,  and that the six-year course,”  which continues through six grades of schooling,  “is just as important as math,  science,  and languages.

“Through Caring For Life education,  children can learn how to become responsible global citizens,  and as they grow up,  they can form their own opinions instead of being overly influenced by their peers and social media.”

Limitations

Pei Su recognizes limitations on what Caring For Life can teach,  at least for now.

“It is difficult to address farming issues in China at the present time:  the animal protection movement is in its infancy,  and ignorance is widespread in the industry as well as among the public,”  Pei Su recognizes.

ACTAsia for Animals introduced the Caring For Life curriculum in several cities in Guangdong state,  the part of China where dog-eating is most deeply historically and culturally entrenched,  with little tradition of Buddhist vegetarianism.

“When we visited schools to introduce Caring For Life education,”  Pei Su recalls,  “teachers told us that lessons could not include dog-eating or vegetarianism/veganism––sensitive topics for Chinese people.  If we tried to discourage meat consumption,  parents would complain and the authorities would cancel any Caring For Life lessons in their schools.

“So to avoid potential problems,  I decided we would campaign against the fur farming industry,  as the issue was not as sensitive and the time was right.”

“We need to prepare the ground”

This does not mean Pei Su abandoned her long-term goals.

“ACTAsia would like to promote a plant-based diet and reduced consumption of animal products,”  Pei Su writes,  “but we must be subtle in our approach.  Rather than take huge risks with a direct public campaign,  we need to prepare the ground first for mass dietary change––slowly,  step by step.

“Many Western organizations believe that providing more plant-based food choices––by creating more tofu recipes and investing more in plant-based proteins or cultured meat––is enough to influence attitudes toward meat and create dietary change.

“But why should people bother changing their diet?  What would motivate them to change?  They may try eating plant-based for a short while,  but then slip back into their old ways.

“Change requires education”

“Change requires education,  so that consumers are aware that animals are sentient beings.  Change requires investment of time,  so that people are allowed to learn about the suffering behind the animal farming industry and its implications for the planet.  Once convinced of the facts,  they may gradually come to accept a new lifestyle.  They need to understand why they should change.

“Yet the majority of funding opportunities are oriented toward the Western push for plant-based food,”  Pei Su laments.  “I often ask myself in frustration,  ‘Why are my thirty years of observations and suggestions not appreciated or considered?”

“Our sustainable future is with plants,”  Pei Su agrees.

Pointing the way

At the same time,  Pei Su is aware that Chinese per capita meat consumption,  currently at about 90 pounds per person per year after decades of government efforts to increase production,  is still a fraction of U.S. per capita meat consumption,  at 232 pounds per year.

Telling Chinese people to eat more tofu and seitan instead of meat,  when they already eat far more tofu and seitan,  and less meat,  is somewhat pointless,  whereas promoting an ethic of Caring For Life,  extended to all animals and all humans,  offers far more long-term promise for positively changing Chinese society.

The path that Pei Su encourages China and Taiwan to take is the long path she has followed herself.  Aware that her own future may be short,  Pei Su wrote Life of Pei to help point the direction for others.

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