Look mum, no shark

Eve Yap Straits Times 29 Apr 12;

Five years ago, documentary film-maker Jonn Lu's 'stomach developed a conscience' - he found he could no longer consume shark's fin soup because of the cruelty involved in its preparation.

When the dish was served to him, he would 'quietly refuse' to eat it.

Initially, his stand put his family in a spot.

His father is Mr John Y. Lu, 69, a businessman and chairman of the Singapore National Shippers' Council, who frequently hosted and attended lavish dinners where shark's fin was always served.

His Filipino-Chinese mum, Mrs Polly Lu, 65, a porcelain artist, felt it was rude to refuse the dish at the important business dinners.

She says: 'I would say to him, 'The shark is already dead. The food will be wasted if you don't eat it, a greater crime for the environment.''

So he 'ate it grudgingly', says Jonn, 40, who is also a rock climbing and technical diving instructor.

But his family, including an elder and a younger sister, came around to his way of thinking.

Jonn has been the volunteer director of Shark Savers South-east Asia for two years.

Based in Hong Kong for the past 14 years, he is back in Singapore for a spell to launch the local chapter of the pro-shark group.

On Tuesday at Orchard Cineleisure, the non-profit organisation here will be holding SharkAid Singapore 2012, the first in a series of awareness-raising concerts to be held around the world.

Jonn says the aim is to persuade the authorities to impose a trade ban as well as a ban on the dish during official functions, and drum up mass support for the message, 'I'm FINished' with shark's fin soup.

What was Jonn like as a child?

Mrs Lu: He was a handful, couldn't sit still and was always irritating his sisters. They would be playing masak-masak and he would upset all their toys.

Jonn: I was very disruptive. Now looking back, it could have been attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but we never knew.

Mrs Lu: He liked to climb like a monkey.

Jonn: When I was in kindergarten, a boy fell and broke his arm while mimicking my monkey antics on the monkey bars.

Mrs Lu: The teacher called me and said, 'Mrs Lu, how do you train your child?'

Jonn: All through primary school, in Catholic High, I used to pretend that the erasers, pencils and rulers were good and bad guy characters, and every story ended with destruction. I would sweep all the stationery onto the floor.

Mrs Lu: Or he would draw cartoon strips in his homework book. I got calls from his teachers every other day.

What was the naughtiest thing he did as a child?

Jonn: Scoring 30 marks for Chinese was good in my book. When I got zero once, I forged Mum's signature.

Mrs Lu: One day, when he was seven, he took apart his father's favourite transistor radio. When I saw it, I was horrified.

Jonn: I told her, 'Don't worry, mummy, I can put it back.'

Mrs Lu: He said, 'See. You take this wire and this wire and put it together.' I couldn't get angry with him because it was funny. But when he bullied his sisters because he was bigger in size, that was a no-no. He would get whacked.

Who was stricter: mum or dad?

Jonn: Mum was the disciplinarian. I got righteously thrashed. Thin bamboo canes, feather-dusters... and when these could not be found, it was rulers, clothes hangers, sometimes even wooden rice ladles.

Mrs Lu: He used to hide the canes in the piano. One day when we were moving house, the movers removed a panel and more than a dozen canes fell out.

Do you resent your mum for disciplining you?

Jonn: With my mum there's always closure. After she whacked me, she sat me down and talked to me. It always ended with a hug and a kiss.

What do you think of his extreme sports?

Mrs Lu: Why does he want to do all that? Very silly.

Jonn: In everything I get into, I make sure I am properly trained and know exactly what I'm doing.

Mrs Lu: Aiyah, this son of mine. I still worry for him. If not, I'm not his mummy.

If the parent-child roles were reversed, what would you do differently?

Mrs Lu: I wouldn't be so naughty. I wouldn't have upset my mother so much as to make her punish me so heavy-handedly.

Jonn: I wouldn't change a thing. My mum was tough on me but I needed that, otherwise I would have been a hell-raiser.