DanDinhHac’s Blog

Last month, I happened to be at a friend’s house when he was cleaning his koi pond. To be specifically, he was pulling out dead water lilies’ leaves when I arrived. As he doing that, he scooped unintentionally some tiny mosquito fish along with brownish leaves to a garden bucket. When he finished, he left to do more yard work in the front. I was going to feed the koi, and as I bent down, I saw those little black adult and baby mosquito fish struggling desperately for water. For a moment, I realized the adult ones were pregnant. Without hesitating, I picked one by one and released them back to the pond. Some of them were buried deep beneath pile of dead leaves that by the time I reached to them, they were lifeless in my hand. The last one was a pregnant mother.

Later, I told my friend about it. He laughed it off. He found my little rescuing act amusing, “Those miniature fish? Mosquito Control Center would gladly give you hundreds of them with no cost at all. Come on, they are insignificant!” My face turned red as I could not let him walked away without any idea what those poor fish went thru. I lectured him on having compassion for all creatures on earth, especially the pregnant ones. I asked him to think about pregnant ladies and how cautiously people treat them. Why not with fish? After a long talk he seemed to acquire the idea. Then, I vowed from now on I would never eat fish again.

Days later, I found myself stressed out with food. Seafood, mostly fish, is my main source of protein as I don’t eat much meat or dairy products. Besides, I was not ready to become a vegetarian yet. After trying not having fish for five days, I gave in on a bright September afternoon. Making myself a tuna sandwich on that afternoon only satisfied my fish craving body for couple of hours but disgruntled my soul terribly for a long time.

Am I a hypocrite? My sympathy to those poor pregnant fish is not powerful enough that I broke my vow without much difficulty. I felt so awful when thought about how I accused my friend of being callous. In life, how many times had I drawn a conclusion based on a convenient fact? Is that so effortless to hear or read about ethical issues and jump right in a rigid criticism? Those questions spinning in my head as I realized that I should dig deeper to any issue before passing judgment.

Dear Heloise: To help conserve water, we put a large bowl in the sink, and every time we rinse something, the water goes into the bowl rather than down the drain. When the bowl is full, we use it to water plants in the yard. It’s amazing how much water is used each day. — Carol Lawrence, Newport Beach, Calif.

I usually don’t have time to read this type of Dear Heloise or Dear Abby writings.  There are just too many things to read nowadays.  Last month I got bored over the coffee table with a group of friends in old town Santa Ana, so I read to them.  One guy laughed at the idea, and the rest didn’t show much interest.  They thought that wouldn’t make a big impact on the land where water is too cheap and the method is not as efficient as other methods.

Anyway, I got up early last weekend with the idea of trying to see how much water I consume a day in the kitchen alone.  So, I put a large bowl in the kitchen sink.  I also had a 10-gallon container on the floor nearby.  So, every time when I washed vegetable or cleaned my hands, the water went to the bowl.  I tried to keep soap and greasy stuff out of the bowl.  When the bowl was full, I transferred the water to the large container.  Later, I used the water in the container to water the plants or grasses.  Boy, at the end of the day, I was surprised to find that I had used 2 containers full of water.  It’s around 20 gallons of water just for one person per cooking and cleaning around the kitchen.  Imaging how much water we spend on taking shower, doing dishes or laundry, and other stuff.

Thanks, Carol Lawrence.  Your idea have changed my thinking about water conservation.

NatGeo Video

By David F. Gallagher

(source here)

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