On Oct. 1, five Postechians started the first day of ‘Life of Vegetarian’. It is a project by MODAM, Student·Minority Human Rights Council, for students to understand and appreciate the vegan lifestyle by experiencing their vegetarian lifestyle and lifestyle. The participants lived as lacto-ovo vegetarians for five days, thus not eating any animal products except milk and eggs. Additionally, they carried out several missions such as asking whether foods served in school restaurants included meat or not, eating a vegetarian meal at Burger King, and finding a snack that a vegetarian could eat at the campus store. These kinds of missions made the participants face the problems which vegetarians at POSTECH regularly encounter. During the project, all participants shared tips and difficulties of vegetarianism through a KakaoTalk group chat room, which enabled them to find solutions to these situation through discussing together.

According to the participants’ daily reports, on the first day, most participants were shocked through the fact that there were so few foods they could eat on campus. Moreover, every day they encountered a new situation that occurred because they were vegetarians. They had to seriously search for food that they could eat on campus. When they tried to order delivery foods, it was much harder to find vegetarian menus. However, as time passed, they adapted to the life as a vegetarian and found the benefits of the vegetarian diet. Most of them found their own way to enjoy vegetarian diets. Some participants said it was good that vegetarian diets were not too hard on the stomach. In the final report, they ranked the environment of POSTECH for vegetarians and the level of difficulty for vegetarians’ finding nutritious food on a scale of 1 to 5. The score of the former was lower than three, and that of the latter was slightly above three. These scores were from those who actually experienced life as a vegan and show the difficulty vegetarians face in POSTECH.

Kim Nam-won(LIFE 16), the president of MODAM, said, “I think that if the participants recall the idea that ‘in this situation, a vegetarian will feel uncomfortable,’ when they have food on campus or outside of campus in the future, the purpose of the project is fully achieved.” He mentioned that creating a minority-friendly campus atmosphere begins by recognizing their hardships and discomforts. People know that there are minorities in our community, but seldom symphasize their difficulties and make specific efforts to help them. Therefore, the ‘Life of Vegetarian’ project is very meaningful. Kim hopes that by taking this opportunity, campus members will have a deeper understanding and a more accepting view towards minorities.

Since last semester, MODAM has made suggestions to create menus for vegetarians and light eaters to the Division of General Services, and in October, the menu for light eaters started test operations. People who experienced difficulties due to the large amount of meals on campus welcomed the news and several Postechians participated in MODAM’s event related to menus for light-eaters. On the other hand, introducing vegetarian menus is still difficult due to the financial issues that may arise from creating menu items that are unpopular. Kim said, “I hope POSTECH members sympathize with the situation of not only vegetarians, but all minorities, and to provide support for them.” Also, he asked the readers of The Postech Times to support MODAM’s efforts to improve the environment for minorities and create a minority-friendly campus atmosphere