Vegan restaurants run by cult leader who 'speaks to God'

Elizabeth Schumacher
DW
August 13, 2018

A millionaire businesswoman whose followers call her "Supreme Master" is behind a chain of popular vegan cafes, including four in Germany. No one knows how Ching Hai amassed her vast fortune.

In just four years, vegan restaurant Loving Hut has opened more than 140 locations in the United States, Austria, Germany, Australia and South America, which makes it the biggest vegan chain worldwide. Its founder, known as Ching Hai, has more than 500,000 followers (by some counts up to 2 million) who believe she has direct conversations with God and call her Supreme Master.

With thousands of videos on YouTube showing spiritual lectures going back to the 1990s, Ching Hai preaches all over the world to acolytes of a meditation-based philosophy she has dubbed Quan Yin. Wearing colorful outfits and sitting on outlandish sets with one or two favored followers, Hai mixes Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam to instruct her believers in how they can achieve higher levels of consciousness and also speak directly to God. She claims to be the next "master" following in the likes of Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed.

In the lectures, she also reminds her adherents that they should not be ashamed of making money, "people will make you feel guilty about making money…it's none of their business."

She also sometimes advocates something called breatharianism, which is a denial of food and water in favor of spiritual "sustenance." The practice, sometimes associated with older religions, has been tied to numerous dehydration and starvation deaths.

Supreme Master TV

Born Hue Dang Trinh in Vietnam in 1950, Hai came to Germany in the early 1970s after she met and married a German scientist. In the following decades, she founded Supreme Master Ching Hai International, selling jewelry and clothing and books authored by Hai.

The company also produces content for Supreme Master Television, which is usually played on large screens at Loving Hut locations, in which Hai, photoshopped onto glowing and sparkly backgrounds, recites aphorisms about time travel and different dimensions.
Hai, who also goes by Celestia De Lamour in the US where she is now based, has been described by the media as a cult leader for decades, and according to Humanewatch.org "inspires feverish adoration like a kind of deity-cum-rock star."

Questionable business practices

She has also run afoul of the authorities on several occasions. In 1996, $640,000 (€562,000 at today's rate) she donated to the presidential campaign of Bill Clinton was returned for being of "suspicious" origin, and her business has been targeted by Taiwanese authorities for illegally transferring funds in and out of the country.

In China, a group of her followers was accused of using an electronics company as a front for recruiting Quan Yin members and organizing initiation rituals. And according to University of Oxford political scientist Patricia Thorton, the origin of Hai's vast fortune is unknown.

However, unlike practices used at better-known cults, Hai does not seem to be calling on her followers to cut themselves off from their friends and family nor hustling them for their money. According to her website, her lectures, which are attended by hundreds of devotees, are free of charge.

Loving Hut has four locations in Germany: two in Hamburg, one in Hanover and one in Lüneburg. Their offices declined DW's request for a comment.

https://www.dw.com/en/vegan-restaurants-run-by-cult-leader-who-speaks-to-god/a-45061424

Visiting the Vegan Restaurant Chain Owned by a Cult

VICE

By Justin Caffier

July 15, 2016

 

Vegan restaurants are a dime a dozen in Southern California. They're so commonplace that even us non-vegans wind up at them from time to time and, with each visit, have the recurring epiphany that hey, this stuff ain't half bad! But there's one vegan chain that stands out among the rest: Loving Hut, an international chain of more than 140 restaurants and one hotel, which has been called the fastest-growing vegan franchise in the world. It's also operated by a group that many consider to be a cult.

Loving Hut was created by Supreme Master Ching Hai, a 66-year-old Vietnamese businesswoman. Besides her restaurant empire, Ching Hai—who was once called the "Buddhist Martha" by TIME—is the creator of a jewelry line, a clothing line, and the Quan Yin Method, a pseudo-religious philosophy with as many as 500,000 followers, by some estimates.

You probably haven't heard of Ching Hai, because she's pretty toothless as far as cults of personality go. There have been no mass suicides done in her name, and she's not squeezing her followers for every red cent, a la Scientology. Instead, the Quan Yin Method preaches preservation of life above all else. Other pillars include not telling lies, not taking that which is not offered, not drinking alcohol or doing drugs, and avoiding "sexual misconduct," whatever that means.

 

Every cult leader needs a vehicle to spread his or her message, and for Ching Hai, that vehicle is food. The Loving Hut chain has locations everywhere from Portland to Pittsburgh to Prague, which are operated less like a traditional franchise and more like a free-for-all, where each location can choose how to run the restaurant, as long as it's in line with Ching Hai's philosophy.

I decided to visit the closest Loving Hut, about an hour's drive from Los Angeles in Claremont, California. It's nestled in a modern shopping plaza next to eateries like Le Pain Quotidien and Yogurtland. The Loving Hut, which has sun-faded, printer-paper photos of various entrées taped on the front windows, is a misfit among the meticulously crafted aesthetics of its neighbors. The word "Lynchian" gets thrown around a lot lately, but there was no other way to describe what it's like to enter the restaurant.

 

The curtains were drawn to mitigate the hot midday sun, so the only light in the entire room came from a few beams poking through the cracks, catching the dust particles hovering in the air. A white guy with dreads in a polo shirt was feeding his baby in a stroller. At another table, two women sat across from each other, not eating, not talking. Soothing massage parlor ambient music played from speakers around the room.

A wall-mounted television played grainy scenes of nature, like those from a karaoke-music video, while a ticker of affirmations scrolled below. I later learned this was Supreme Master TV, the channel owned by Ching Hai, which broadcasts in most Loving Huts and on 71 cable and IPTV networks, according to its website. The 24-hour channel features shows called things like "Vegetarianism: The Noble Way of Living," "Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants," and "Words of Wisdom."

 

After a few moments, the lone front-of-house staff member approached me and led me to my table. The menu was intimidatingly large. Every Loving Hut location chooses its own menu, meaning there is no consistency between the various locations other than the fact that all the food is vegan.

 

I asked my server what she recommended from the menu, and she suggested the Asian Gyro—a meat substitute wrapped inside homemade scallion bread with lettuce, tomatoes, fresh herbs, and a spicy sauce. I figured I might go the rest of my life without encountering a vegan Asian/Greek fusion dish, so I jumped at this rare opportunity.

 

While I waited for my food, I noticed a row of celebrity portraits. These were photos of the "vegetarian and vegan elite," which ranged from people I did not recognize to Bill Clinton. The placard next to them explained with unusual capitalization, "These Smart, Beautiful, Talented People are Vegan and Vegetarian. Why aren't you?" It seemed like an odd question to pose in a restaurant where people had come specifically to eat vegan food.

The owner of this Loving Hut, Charles Liang, later told me that he's been a disciple of Ching Hai since 1996. When the first Loving Hut opened in 2008 and the brand rapidly expanded, he jumped at the opportunity to spread the vegan gospel by opening his own location.

"Most important is saving lives. Loving animals, loving others, loving yourself," Liang told me. "Everything connects with one another. Everything has vibrations. Nature is the best magic to maintain everything. That's why my restaurant is organic vegan, and not just vegan."

 

Liang mentioned that Supreme Master Ching Hai loves to visit her restaurants around the world and has even dropped into the Claremont location a number of times. Deities gotta eat too, after all.

My Asian Gyro came out fast and tasted great. The imitation steak tasted like real cow, and the scallion flatbread added an interesting twist. And rather than proselytizing the merits of vegan living, the servers at the Claremont location pretty much left me to enjoy my meatless meal in peace.

Sure, the Supreme Master TV was still humming in the distance, and the portraits of intelligent, brave, famous, beautiful vegans were staring back at me from nearby wall of fame. But if you can ignore all that for long enough to enjoy a delicious meal, you might even start to feel like a devotee of Ching Hai yourself.

 

http://www.vice.com/read/the-restaurant-chain-owned-by-a-cult

 

Vegans argue they're a 'creed' under Ontario human rights law

New definition opens door to protections for people opposed to eating meat or wearing leather
Dan Taekema
Toronto Star
February 4, 2016

Nick Wright is the founder of Animal Justice, a group that has
 been fighting to have ethical veganism recognized in Ontario as a protected human right.

You are what you eat.

At least that’s what advocates of veganism argue now that the Ontario Human Rights Commission has updated its definition of the word “creed.” The advocates suggest the change makes ethical veganism a protected human right.

“Creed may also include non-religious belief systems that, like religion, substantially influence a person’s identity, worldview and way of life,” reads the revamped policy on preventing discrimination based on creed, released Dec. 10.

The policy doesn’t directly refer to ethical veganism — a practice of not eating or wearing animal products for reasons of conscience — but that hasn’t stopped groups such as Animal Justice, which advocates for humane treatment of animals, from heralding the change a victory.

“In modern times, more and more people have ethical systems and practices that aren’t rooted in a traditional organized religion,” said Nick Wright, founder of the group. “This change is important for ethical vegans, because in instances where accommodation is required they’ll have a legal right to enforce it.”

Renu Mandhane, chief commissioner for the OHRC, said the “door is open” for ethical veganism to be considered a creed, but added the final decision rests with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.

“Somehow this has been spun out to suggest that our policy says that ethical veganism is a creed, which it doesn’t,” she said. “The tribunal is the place to make these decisions because its decisions are made based on facts.”

The commission policy is designed to guide employers and service providers in how to respect human rights and accommodate people based on their creed.

Camille Labchuk, executive director of Animal Justice, has been fighting for veganism to be recognized by the Human Rights Code since she was a law student in 2011.

“I wouldn’t call it an epidemic, but I do hear cases regularly of people who feel they have faced discrimination for their beliefs about animals,” she said.

Animal Justice believes the updates could assist vegans in cases where students refuse to dissect animals, wear a work uniform with an animal-based component such as a leather belt or even ensure vegans aren’t excluded at work events held at steakhouses.

“This is a really big step forward for human rights in Ontario,” said Labchuk. “It protects people like ethical vegans for whom not doing harm is more important than anything.”

Ethical veganism refers to people who not only follow a vegan diet but also extend the philosophy to the rest of their life and oppose harming animals or using any animal by-products.

But some critics say ethical vegans may have bitten off more than they can chew.

“The Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Code were put into place to combat real persecution based on a person’s cultural, ethnic or religious affiliation,” wrote Amanda Hohmann, of B’Nai Brith’s League For Human Rights, in an email to the Star. “Should the interpretation of what constitutes creed be broadened to the point where any meaningful protection becomes difficult, this would weaken the effectiveness of existing legislative protections.”

Dominique Clement, a sociology professor at the University of Alberta, said he suspects the Ontario human rights tribunal won’t ever actually recognize veganism, but if it does, it will come down to whether or not accommodating their “creed” is reasonable.

“If the person works in a restaurant, for example, and doesn’t have to wear leather, then that is absolutely a legitimate objection,” he said. “On the other hand, if you want to work at Danier, then you can’t ask your employer not to be around leather.”

However, he added it’s crucial for human rights law to evolve over time, so there is a chance ethical vegans will one day be recognized.

“The idea of veganism as a creed sounds crazy.” he said. “But keep in mind there was a time when the idea that gay people and lesbians have a right to not be discriminated against was equally absurd.”

THE EATING SPECTRUM

From fruitarians to omnivores, the spectrum of dietary distinctions comes in many flavours.

Fruitarian: The option for those who prefer food that hasn’t fallen far from the tree, fruitarians survive on a diet of strictly fruits, seeds and nuts.

Raw Vegan: Pick it, wash it, eat it. This diet consists of raw vegetables and combines the concepts of veganism and raw foodism. It excludes all meat and animal products, as well as food cooked at a temperature above 48C.

Vegan: Vegans eat only plant-derived foods. They don’t consume any meat or products from land or sea animals, including milk, eggs or even honey.

Vegetarian: To put it simply, a vegetarian is someone who does not eat meat. Instead, vegetarians consume vegetables, beans, grains and nuts.

Lacto-ovo vegetarian: “Lacto” means milk and “ovo” means eggs. Lacto-ovo vegetarians eat mainly vegetables, but also consume eggs and dairy products such as milk, cheese, and yogurt. They do not eat meat, poultry, seafood or fish.

Pescatarian: Preferring to stick to seafood, pescatarians do not eat land animals or birds, but do consume fish, shrimp and crabs, along with vegetables from both land and sea.

Omnivore: Opting for the best of both worlds are the omnivores. They eat foods that are of both plant and animal origin.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/02/04/vegans-argue-theyre-a-creed-under-ontario-human-rights-law.html