Cognitive Dissonance

Oh ma gawd, I just ate shark's fin for the first time in four, nay, five years. And it's not due to the fact that my family hardly gets to eat it, no. In fact, they eat it rather frequently, whenever they are in a celebratory mood (i.e. somebody's birthday, someone struck 4D etc) or feeling indulgent. So no, rather it is due to this obscure, sometimes unfathomable concept of Personal Principles that I don't eat it (though I love it, love it).

And I don't give in easily, mind. A big bowl of it was once served at a wedding dinner I attended alone (read: paid for out of my own pocket), and I very magnanimously gave others a chance at a second helping, or at least a bigger bowl of the delicacy. And each time my family cooks the dish, two uncles and a father will try to get me to eat it, in all manner of coaxing, teasing, reasoning, shaming or plain terrorizing, but never did I once give in.

Well, tonight I learned there is a hierarchy of principles, just as there is a Maslownian hierarchy of needs. My dad da powed a tub (yes, you read that correctly) of shark's fin soup for my sister, who had been absent from the gathering 'cause she had been out somewhere. But when she got home, she was still too full from dinner to eat it all up, not to mention too tired from the day's activities, so she gave me an offer I could not resist: she beseeched that I share the take-away with her. And really, you can't keep shark's fin overnight, right? Besides, it would've been a bigger sin to let the poor animal die in vain and pour all that wonderful, heavenly broth down the sink. So I obliged.

And it was amazing. I wolfed down a good portion of it in what must've been a record-breaker, because to be honest I was half-afraid that my dad would walk out of his room and catch me with my mouth agape, shovelling spoonful after spoonful of the goodness of the sea. There would be no end to the teasing. I would never live that moment down. Seriously though, could you blame me?