There are teetotallers, and then there are teetotallers. There are vegans, and then there are vegans. I lived in Manhattan for just under 8 years, and have be

There are teetotallers, and then there are teetotallers. There are vegans, and then there are vegans. I lived in Manhattan for just under 8 years, and have been in Hong Kong for almost 9 years now. I have more friends and colleagues who are vegan here (and a few Jains), but I've never seen the social posturing here that I would sometimes see from vegans in NYC. I don't mean to imply all, or even a majority, of teetotallers, vegans, etc. are virtue signalling in New York, just pointing out the near complete absence of posturing and virtue signalling (at least over those choices) here in Hong Kong puts New York in sharp contrast. I took my wife to New York for the first time a bit over a year ago, and our AirBnB hosts were way over the top sharing their dietary choices, to the point is was very confusing to my wife. I had to tell my wife something along the lines of "Don't worry about it. These aren't actually super strange people. It's just something some people do here. We don't have to worry for our safety." We have vegan friends and colleagues here, and my wife's sister-in-law believes in a branch of Buddhism that doesn't eat beef, but posturing over dietary choices was completely foreign to my wife. My weirdness was that I didn't own a TV for about 10 years prior to getting married. I understood a lot of people who didn't own TVs were really annoying about it. I presume not owning a TV is too passe as a virtue signal these days. With me, it only came up if someone asked me what I thought of the latest episode of XYZ. Anyway, I see huge differences between New York and Hong Kong about how people present that they don't drink alcohol, are vegan, etc.