Liger, Liger, Burning Bright

First stop for Wase's tour of Harbin was the 老虎园 or tiger park. Despite the name, tigers were but one of the big cats featured. Also featured were lions, leopards (pronounced to rhyme with 'leotards') and even the fabled you-mean-they're-not-actually-made-up-? liger.

In a massive 他妈的 to usual tourist-trap convention, we were led to the gift shop first. Here, we browsed quite possibly the world's largest collection of tiger-related souvenir tat in the known universe. Apart from the fluffy toys and keychains, there were tiger slippers, paintings, creepy masks, and even tiger-head-on-a-stick.

Wase was cooing over the white tiger fluffy toys when our bus was called. We boarded what was unmistakably just a normal minibus - no guns, no anti-tiger repellent, no flamethrower - and were driven into the first of a series of pens.

Despite the rain, the tigers wandered about, seemingly content.

This being China, I was free to open the window, which I did. I'm not stupid though, so I took the safety precaution of making sure the gap was slightly smaller than a tiger's head.

Sometimes the tigers wandered right up to the bus, smacking their tails against the glass. I was literally able to stroke the head of this one, but to my regret, fear got the better of me, and I contented myself with some photos instead.

On the way in, a menu offered a choice of poultry and livestock to buy. I was really disappointed when Wase declined to split the 1500RMB cost of a whole live sheep with me. Instead, I spent 40RMB on a chicken. Wase HATES chickens.

I thrust out my arms at the attendant, expecting to get a squawking, struggling bag in return, but she wrote me out a ticket instead, which I was to give to the bus driver. When we reached the largest pen, he radioed a quick command, presumably to this - a significantly better protected vehicle which had been following us around.

A hand pushed open the door, and a startled chicken was thrust out, before the door slammed shut again. The chicken seemed happy to stay where it was, even as the 4x4 sped off in a mud-soaked blur, until a tiger noticed and sauntered up towards it. Panicked, the bird did that half-hopping, half-flying thing that chickens do, and got itself cornered. Bird-brained. Heh.

As you might expect, it wasn't much of a battle. Some critics of the Tiger Park contend that feeding chickens to the tigers in this way weakens their fighting instinct (the tigers' not the chickens'), making them ineffectual once released into the wild. I'm no expert, but any tiger is scary - what in the forests of Dongbei is going to want to take one of these on? Also, I'm not sure that the critics have any more viable alternatives. How about Running Man-style human combatants? Arming the chickens with (frickin') lasers?

This tiger had no complaints anyway, padding off to a quiet corner to skin and eat his lunch. I was more surprised that none of the other tigers tried to get in on the action. Maybe they took it in turns, or maybe this was just the most bad-ass tiger in the house.

You might have noticed the cages in the background of some of the photos. A wag at the front of the bus called out to the driver,

"What are those cages for? Is that where you put the naughty tigers?"

The driver sighed a sigh so deep and weary it raised even more laughs than the original question. Rolling his eyes and shaking his head, he replied

"Yes. Yes, these are the naughty tigers."

After the excitement of the safari portion, we were returned to the main building. A guide turned up to lead us around some protected walkways, which ran around and over yet another series of pens.

Conditions here were inferior. It didn't stop the cats from enjoying themselves though. Check out this sexy beast!

The guide informed us that, due to in-breeding, white tigers were really stupid.

"Much like our royal family, no?" I offered by way of conversation. She just looked confused though. Maybe I should have told her I was from England, first.

A sign exhorted us to refrain from scaring the tigers. Fortunately, it said nothing at all about other species, so I whispered to a nearby liger that China's current rate of growth was leading to increasing inequalities between the haves and have-nots and was simply unsustainable in the medium to long-term. He seemed distinctly unimpressed though.

Here and there were small boxes filled with chickens. A really old guy, all hunched back and crooked teeth, offered to feed the chickens over the fencing for 40RMB. Even though he seemed inordinately happy at the prospect, I felt I'd inflicted enough animal cruelty for the day, so I politely declined.