Please introduce yourself to the readers.

  I graduated from Visual Design this year and I currently work at a marketing company in Cheongju as a motion graphic and visual artist. It has been four years since I got to know veganism and became vegan.

Before we jump into the interview, can you define vegan for those who don’t know exactly what it is?

  To talk about vegan we have to understand the theory of veganism. Veganism started from the animal rights movements based on the term ‘speciesism’ argued by philosopher Peter Singer. Therefore, veganism lies in the idea that one should not discriminate against non-human species, and vegans are people who want to practice it. This is why veganism is not only not consuming meat, but also protecting the environment; they ultimately lead to protecting animal rights. Since no one can be a perfect vegan according to this theory, there is a tendency to use the term a ‘vegan-oriented person’ instead of vegan.

What was the main motivation for you to decide to become a vegan-oriented person?

  It was four years ago amid the controversy on consuming dog meat. My Facebook feed was inundated with posts related to this matter. I read some posts which strongly objected to consuming it, and opposite comments which defended the practice. After considering both sides, I decided to be vegan, thinking, ‘Yeah, we shouldn’t eat any kind of meat. I shouldn’t eat meat from now on.’ Obviously, I didn’t change overnight. After a few days, I happened to order chicken. It was a kind of reward after a long, hard day, and I enjoyed it. Only when I took away the scraps it dawned on me that the food I ate with pleasure was actually a living species before. I have never thought of having meat since and have lived the life of a vegan-oriented person.

There are zero vegan restaurants in Cheongju, only some cafés, and bakeries. As a vegan citizen living in the wasteland of the vegan food industry, have you ever had any inconvenience?

  There were so many cases I cannot count them all. Not to mention pressure from my family, friends, and even my fitness trainer. It is always difficult for vegan-oriented people to put their choices into practice in everyday life due to various outside factors, such as social pressure, the gap of infrastructure among cities, or lack of information.

Please introduce <Visdeum>

  I will start with the aim of the magazine. We made Visdeum with the purpose of creating a space for a publication forum, where people can speak freely and uniquely about various issues and rights in society from the perspective of veganism. Another name of Visdeum is ‘Veganism for everyone to read’, as veganism is not a profound and wordy theory, rather, it is a window of a different aspect; a new pair of lenses to see society. All the team members are vegan-oriented, and they have full-time jobs. In the case of outsources such as lawyers we receive help in exchange for publishing or contributions. At minimum we choose people interested in animal rights. In addition to these human resources we also seriously considered the material that goes into the production of the magazine. This includes the wrapping, paper, and even the coating material to coat the cover of it.

We heard you joined the publication as an illustrator. How did you come to join it?

  The existing vegan related contents out there was quite disappointing to me. Some didn’t search thoroughly about veganism, some misunderstood and misused the wording of it, and some just scratched the surface. It’s no wonder that it was almost impossible to find publications that concentrated on veganism. Then I was told about Visdeum by a friend who was one of the key founders of the magazine. I went over the contents and finally decided to participate in this project.

What were your favorite contents?

  I love all of the articles in Visdeum but I specifically chose two. One is ‘Vegan Gift Ideas.’ It is a light read for both vegan and non-vegans. The author introduces vegan-approved products in the article and it reassures not only vegan-oriented beginners but also the non-vegan who has the vegan-oriented as a friend. Another is ‘Story: Life of a Vegan who Suffered Sexual Violence and a Vegan who has a Mental Health Condition.’ Both articles are interesting and they will linger in your mind, so I recommend reading it at least once.

The article related to combining social media and veganism was interesting to me. Have you ever gotten any help from social media regarding veganism?

  In this digital era, it is helpful to get lots of information easily via the internet. Veganism is no exception. What is convenient in social media is that one can access enormous amounts of information that someone has already checked. Cruelty-free Bot on Twitter is most useful for me. It is an anonymous account which informs about cruelty-free cosmetic products. To be cruelty-free certified, it needs to meet three criteria: Legislation against testing animals, prohibition against export to China -To enter the Chinese market, animal testing is mandatory-, absence of animal testing of the ingredients. These categories are hard for consumers to check whenever they purchase something. Ingredients are also a problem regarding this. Remembering all kinds of wordy ingredients and filtering them every time is impossible. That’s why getting pre-maid lists like Cruelty-free Bot saves a huge amount of time.

What was the biggest challenge in creating Visdeum?

  The first thing that comes to mind was the difficulty of communication. Like I told you, members are living in different cities, and they have their own jobs and lives. Because of this, we didn’t have any headquarters and it wasn’t easy to set an exact date and time to meet. This year’s Covid-19 made this circumstance even worse. Everything took such a long time to finish that even a tiny point on the agenda took forever. For example, it took a year to upload Tumblebug, a crowd funding site. Even if accidents happened in the middle of the process, we couldn’t meet face to face and share our opinions due to social distancing. Texting and phone calls weren’t enough. As time went by, some of the members started to leave and the rest of us had to be reassigned what they left behind. We did our best not to hinder the project, but we ended up being tired with the feeling of not enough progress. A shipping problem also occurred due to the absence of headquarters. Just when we thought all work was finished, a bulk of damaged books appeared. I think we kept staying vigilant until the end. When we solved every problem and held the final perfect product in our hands, we all joked, “Did we really finish our job? Please no one say there is a problem!”

What are the plans for publishing another Visdeum in the future?

  We can’t tell you exactly when it will be published because we don’t have an office yet and Covid-19 is still a big problem. The theme of the first issue is ‘beginning’. Therefore, there are plenty of things we need to discuss about Veganism in future issues. Even if it will take a little time, we will gather again for the second issue for sure.

  Illim wished those vegan-oriented people and those who are interested in veganism will keep looking back on themselves, and yet not have too much pressure. This means that when you face a big wall of difficulty, she hopes you stand up again rather than to break down. “I wish you will have a vigilant conscious and a relaxed attitude at the same time. I don’t think everyone will change overnight. It is what it is. Even if your mind stays sharp, the time you have to compromise with yourself will come at least once. Thoughts like ‘I am a vegan, but isn’t it okay to eat meat just today?’ will always watch you raise compromise in your mind. I hope you keep being vegan without getting tired. If you continue Veganism without getting tired, it will naturally last for a long time. No matter how small an individual’s action is, it spreads around. When many people practice this action, it can become a wave of society. I think our wave can change the world.” - Ed

By Lee Dong-ah
da39@cbnu.ac.kr