Animal Cool-ty

Teacher Wang Lie announced in class that the school would be putting on a trip to the 北方森林动物园 (Northern Forest Zoo). Transport, and tickets were free, but he added, almost apologetically, that lunch and the zoo tourbus weren't included. Free stuff? That's my favourite kind of stuff!

Of the six remaining students, everyone signed up except Mingrui, who'd already been. On the day, I walked to school to find that Enxi and Rongshu had overslept.

That left Karolina and Anna. Anna, visibly disappointed that half the class had cancelled got back off the bus mumbling about a headache, and went home! Our class trip was down to two!

Unsurprisingly, Karolina sought out her Russian compatriots to hang out with, and I found myself very much alone. Sad.

In the end, a teacher and a bunch of schoolmates from Class D5 took pity, and adopted me as one of their own. They even gave me some of their sandwiches! There was a tall Korean guy that the other Koreans called 'ajoshi' or 'uncle', a middle-aged Brazilian man who seemed alright until he started to confide in me the differences in bed between the women in China's Southern and Northern provinces, a very red-headed Russian girl called Katja, and a Korean girl called Piao Shanya who gushed about my little song and dance from the week before.

On the bus there, a tourguide reeled out an interminable list of statistics on just how big the zoo was, and sure enough it was huge - a never-ending expanse of forest, pens, cages and performance areas. Some of the attractions hardly qualified as such though: I spotted a couple of dogs among the lions, and there was even a collection of turkeys!

The real fun to be had was at the zoo's featured circus. During my time in Shanghai, I had the pleasure of visiting the Shanghai Wild Animal Park. Aside from the unforgettable terrified-child-sitting-on-doped-up-lion, and frankly cruel very-sad-bear-dancing, there was the heart-stoppingly entertaining monkey-riding-a-goat-across-tightrope where by 'riding', I mean 'tied to' and
by 'across' I mean 'making it about halfway before the monkey freaked out and dragged the goat backwards by its neck a couple of feet to the dirt'.

Ever since that day, I've been a fan of entertainment in the form A rides a B, where either A or B, but preferably both, are animals. So I was couldn't believe my luck when one of the first acts was a monkey riding a bicycle, which it did at a furious clip around the ring.

This was almost immediately followed by a couple of bears riding mini-scooters.

The oddness escalated. The etymology of the word 'piggyback' is almost certainly only accidentally related to the word 'piggy' but noone told that to the ringmasters at this zoo. Two pigs were led out and encouraged to solve some simple mathematical puzzles, before one was mounted by the other and it piggybacked its companion around the arena.

In an odd way, the literalness of it all, and the pig connection reminded me of the mincepie that I enjoyed at Five on the Bund during my first Christmas in Shanghai. The pastry was rich and golden-brown, the presentation perfect. The only let-down was that it was made with salty mince pork rather than the more traditional sweet mincemeat.

Next, several excited puppies entered and one was encouraged to ride what appeared to be a bin from Ikea.

I cheered, but Katja was less impressed.

There was a serious point to be made about the extent of human suffering inevitably found in a developing country the size of China, but it didn't excuse cruelty to animals, and it was neither the time nor the place for such a serious debate.

"Well if it means the animals can pay their own way and survive, then why not? Besides, this kind of show wouldn't be allowed back home, and in a few years will probably be banned here too. Why not enjoy the cruelty while you can?" I rationalised.

Finally, the piece de resistance, the cream of the crop, the cherry tomato on the Chinese-made cake:

A horse was led in and trotted around the ring a couple of times. The crowd ooh-ed and ahh-ed. A horse! In a circus! Then the horse was led to the centre while a leopard appeared. The chatter of the crowd jolted up a level in volume and pitch.

"What's going on?"

"What manner of evil...?"

"SWEET MOTHER OF ALL THAT IS HOLY! NO!"

Swine were sighted at surprising altitudes, the ambient temperature of Hell fell to uncomfortable levels, and the leopard jumped on the back of the horse.

The horse galloped around the arena at a pace commensurate with it having just been mounted by a vicious carnivore, the leopard looked, as far as I could tell, surprised and scared, and the crowd just went insane.

Worried noone back home would believe me, I sent a text to Dan in Shanghai first.

"Excellent stuff," he sent back "but I'm still holding out for 'giraffe riding an elephant'."