Rising Stars, The Blog!

The Whale Issue

         What's one place in the world you have yet to visit, and have absolutely no intention of ever, ever going? Why are you so adamant about never visiting?          

I have to say that my travel experience is limited. When I was young, I went on a couple of day trips to France on the ferry, and one on the 'Vomit Comet', well the hovercraft as it was then. Its nickname speaks for itself, I was fine but many of the other children weren't, teachers too. Later on, there was an overnight trip to Amsterdam, sleeping on the ferry and spending the day in Holland and home again that evening.

As my children were growing up, we also took them to France; nothing more, it was all we could afford. Even after they built the tunnel, it was too expensive for us as a family.

It was only later, in my late forties that I got the opportunity to go abroad, and I've been several times since, including a trip to Paris through the aforementioned tunnel.

I'm writing all this because the quote asks 'What's one place in the world you have yet to visit'. Admittedly, this is the first part of the question, but because I've visited so few places I had to think hard about the second part 'the country you have absolutely no intention of ever, ever going, and why'. I thought firstly of the war-torn places that now seem obvious to avoid, then the places with regimes in charge. Alongside these are all the countries with famine along with war, such as in many parts of Africa.

In the end, I decided that Japan or China would have to be top of my list if I took out of the equation the aforementioned countries for obvious reasons. I am intrigued by the cultures of these countries. After some thought I chose Japan, my main reason is an environmental one. Before I continue, I'm not a crazy environmentalist; however, I do care about our planet. I believe that nature plays a huge part in the balance of the earth, and it frustrates me that we think that it's ok to do what we want with it; that we have a right to strip it of everything, including hunting animals to extinction.

My specific issue over Japan is Whale hunting.

I understand that, as in many places in the world, there are small local villages who continue to hunt a few coastal whales; here, the meat is eaten, they survive on it. I have no problem with this; after all, we catch fish, is this any different. It's the huge whaling fleets that are sent hundreds of miles to the Antarctic, that are wrong and unnecessary.

After the Second World War, the Japanese people were starving, they sent out their first fleets to the Antarctic to hunt for whales to feed their people. This is no longer necessary, yet they still do it. It has been condemned around the world, yet this is ignored and the whales are being hunted to extinction. They are not, of course, the only culprits but for this blog, I have focussed on my reasoning for not visiting one country and that is Japan. Their human rights record is also of great concern, this shouldn't be ignored either, as the treatment of their people is of utmost importance.

On a lighter note to finish, another reason for not going there is that their food is weird! I'm not sure I'm up for some of the things they eat.