Photo op
(Would it be ethical to change the date on this post to last week, when I said I'd post this? Didn't think so.)
Like I mentioned before, during our trip to Kunming, we took a corporate outing to the zoo. There isn't many people in our "corporation", so we all fit in two vans. (called mien bao che or "bread cars", since they're shaped like a loaf of bread) I had read bad things about zoos here in China, so I never would have chosen this activity myself. But since our boss had already scoped it out, I figured it would be all right. We trucked on up to the north end of town up into some foothills.
The zoo looked pretty good--all nice and new. The animal pens seemed a bit smaller than the zoos back in the States, but then, the last zoo I went to is the Brookfield Zoo, which is a pretty major operation. The first stop we made was amongst the lions and tigers. There was a wooden deck built up between four separate yards, and from there you can look down upon the animals. For ten kuai one can buy a piece of meat attached to a pole via a string and feed the animals. We found this same setup at the wolf and bear pens in other spots of the park. At first it seemed like a neat idea--the ability to interact with the animals safely. But then I saw some folks teasing the animals with the meat and had to revise my opinion.
After the tigers we ventured over to the small animal cages. Monkeys, apes, lemurs and an exotic animal called a raccoon. (Our Minnesotan co-worker got a big kick out of that.) As we neared the end of that area, we saw a man with a trained monkey. He was letting a boy hold it while his mother (I thought) took some pictures. Then I realized that the photographer was actually a park employee. Anyway, I enjoyed watching the kid's photo session, but then the man walked over to me. He grabbed my hand and plopped the monk on it. I then spent a couple of minutes making various poses with the monk. I slipped the camera to Ga Dai, so she could take some shots. Once I was done, Yau Neih got roped into getting the monkey treatment. I started to take some shots, but then was scolded by the monkey trainer. Apparently any souvenir shots need to be purchased from the official shutterbug. Partly out of guilt I ended up springing 20 kuai for two monkey shots. I also kept the pix Ga Dai and I shot, rationalizing that they didn't ask us if we wanted a monkey on our head.
We found the whole photo scam thing going on throughout the park. It seemed like we were lucky to get the cheap one. If you wanted to be photographed atop an elephant or a camel, you were charged 10 kuai for the privilege of taking your own photo. If you wanted the services of a park photographer, the price jumped up to 20. There were also other feeding opportunities--1 kuai would get you a banana for the elephants or a bag of seed for the peacocks. All in all, they provided many opportunities for one to divest his or her self of one's money. Gee, just like home.
The rest of the morning was pretty much like home as well. We hopped a tram which drove us through the area for grazing animals. It had stops for the elephant and the bird shows and then, surprisingly, ended. We had to hoof our way back to the front gate. (There was a sort of roller coaster type car on a track that ran down the hill, but it wasn't running.) It was a slight challenge to get back because the provided map was not bilingual. Just about all of the signs were, however. I figure that they either had used up their translation budget or got sick of coddling the monolingual mei guo ren. But I suppose you can't blame them. I mean, we did opt for the cheapest monkey shots after all.
posted by John @ 7:32 AM
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