Make Yourself Useful

Hunting birds and purpose in the jungles of Suriname

In 2013, Lucky Peach magazine – the former cultishly-followed food journal from writer Peter Meehan and restaurant mogul David Chang – released #8 The Gender Issue, in which our very own Mei Chin – who deserves her own cult following it has to be said – wrote this wonderfully uncomfortable essay on the discomfort she felt during a hunting trip with men in the jungle of Suriname.

#8 The Gender issue “For Women!” cover featuring halved papayas, melons, oranges, figs, oysters, etc.

“Yale is one of maybe a dozen institutions that still funds collecting expeditions, in which specimens are killed, and their tissue and skins preserved. Although the practice may sound cruel, it is hard to imagine the natural sciences without it.”