When you went to the zoo as a kid, which animals were you most excited to see? Monkeys? Lions?
How about dogs? Or a pig?
If you visit the small zoo attached to the Guanlan Mountain & Lake Garden Farm in Shenzhen, China, you won’t find the first two, but you’ll find plenty of dogs, cats, pigeons, pigs and other similarly exotic animals. And their sad eyes will bore into your soul from behind the rusty bars of their tiny, filthy cages.
See what I mean?
Right after entering, you’ll see cats in small glass boxes. Next to them, mice fill another glass box. I looked for a removable divider between the boxes, figuring the owners simplified feeding time, but couldn’t find one. Maybe I should have made a suggestion. After the cats, comes the dog above and a bunch of other dogs who don’t even get their own cages.
I wonder how often they injure their legs on those floor bars
Then the zoo’s most exotic animal:
An alpaca!
It took ten minutes to get that photo, since I had to wait for a steady stream of peace-sign-flashing Chinese tourists to finish posing in front of his cage. You can see how excited he is by all the commotion.
Following the popular alpaca, several rarely-seen species:
The pig
The rooster
And rarest of all: the pigeon.
Many of the cages were affixed with this sign:
Ask that dog how beautiful his earth is
You might think this is a cruel joke, but it’s China. They’re completely serious; not the slightest hint of irony.
After all the exotic animals comes the main attraction, the reason everyone enters this zoo: the animal show and its spectacular grand-finale:
Pig diving!
The show begins with a goat walking across a high-beam. Then a goat-tamer (AKA teenager working her way through college) places a vase on the beam. The goat steps up onto the vase and maintains perfect balance. Next another vase goes on its head. Then a ball. Perfect balance.
Finally, the goat’s shining moment. A monkey climbs on its head and poses. Just when you think it can’t get more amazing, the monkey does a handstand on the goat’s head while the goat balances on the vase, and the whole lot balance on the beam.
Pick your jaw up off the floor
The crowd eats it all up:
This was during the first part of the show where dogs listlessly jumped through hoops
Then comes the moment you’ve been waiting for. The moment everyone’s been waiting for. It’s time to force some pigs off a diving platform. They call it “pig diving,” but it’s more like “pigs falling off platform and flopping into water.” The Chinese crowd goes crazy. They jump out of their seats and lean over the barrier to get the best photo possible. I got shoved out of the way and ended up with photos that look like this:
The first pig goes soaring through the air
The next pig gets ready to top the his predecessor’s weak effort—that splash is way too big: 2.4
These two seem reluctant after the first couple of failures
After their dives, the pigs are supposed to swim to the end of the little river and line up for an exciting pig race. They didn’t. Two ran off in the other direction, one decided to stay in the water and another found a clump of flowers for a pre-race snack. The staff chased after them with bamboo rods and eventually got them to line up at the start.
One pig false started. No one cared and the others were quickly chased forward. The false start made no difference, since that pig found a new clump of flowers to snack on. The others flew past the frantic spectators and their clicking cell-phone cameras.
A pig won. Another pig came in second. A third kept eating flowers. My heart was pounding. And then…it was over. The pigs went back to their cages and the onlookers filed out of the zoo. But they didn’t stop chattering about the historic photo finish they’d just witnessed live and in person. A pig beat out another pig by a snout to take the title of Shenzhen’s Fastest Hog. I’ll never forget the day.
If you’re ever passing through Shenzhen, go see anything else. If you’re stuck there for a longer period of time, there’s still plenty of other things to do. If you work there and your company takes you on a trip to the Guanlan Mountain & Lake Garden Farm, you might as well pop into the little zoo and watch animals suffer.
And then go for lunch. The park is famous for its restaurants and coincidentally, they all feature multiple pork dishes. Just in case you were wondering what became of the flower-eater…
For suggestions on far more interesting things to see and do in Shenzhen, go here.
Yuk! The only zoo I ever got close to liking was the old San Diego one – animals had plenty of room. Other than that, most leave me unimpressed. Better to see them in the wild.
Apart from this one, I haven’t been to a zoo since I was a child, but it seems like these days, most zoos in the west give the animals plenty of room to enjoy their lives; at least more so than they did in the past. That concept has not caught on in most of Asia. Certainly not in China.
I prefer seeing them in the wild, too, but when the zoo features dogs and cats, you don’t even have to go that far. I can just visit one of my neighbors and see their dog.
There is a small zoo outside of cabo San Lucas, pretty sad, no staff in sight, a monkey in a cage who will hold your hand and beg with his eyes for you not to leave. Another 10×10 cage has a big lion who will rub up against the bars hoping you will (and you can) scratch behind its ears.
Not sure how I stumbled on your blog but enjoyed reading. Thx
10 by 10 for a lion? That’s horrible! Unfortunately, I saw a lot of that in Asia.
Surly there are just a tiny few zoos in China that are like this. I hate it when people write articles like this – thinking you know a lot about China when you don’t. Most zoos in China are pretty advanced and just so you know, that sign you mentioned is to tell people not to throw trash all over the zoo, not what you think it means. I agree that these zoos are despicable but you should not label China as a horrible country, and so what many Chinese tourists poses with peace sign, there is no need to be offensive about that, thank you very much.
Actually, most of the zoos are like this. You live in a country that jails and tortures people simply for believing in the wrong religion or for criticizing your government. Do you really think they care at all about animals?
Thanks for the update. I have seen a zoo in some small south Indian town – most animals don’t live long since they don’t feed them enough (why feed them when you can use the budget for yourself?). I am not sure if that zoo beats what you saw in China.
BTW, I will be taking 2 years off and traveling starting next month, initially in the USA and outside starting next year. Thank you for all the funny articles during the mind-numbing busy days of work for last couple years. I will buy you a beer if you ever have the misfortune of meeting me.
I went to an animal conservation area in India once and it was horrible, so I can only imagine what a small-town zoo might be like there.
2 years, huh? That’s great! I give it six months before you start your own blog. And if you’re like me, another six months after that before you start getting lazy and only writing a post every month or two…
Hey, I’m Chinese and working in Shenzhen for 5years. I love dogs and my dog live in my apartment without cages and ropes. The place you write is famous in Shenzhen, I once got there and I don’t know or even heard the show you mentioned. It’s quite horrible.
I’m not surprised this place is famous. While it was very touristy, there were a lot of things to do and many restaurants. But I didn’t understand the zoo. I hope they just close it.
Are you still in Shenzhen, Daniel? If so, let’s catch up because I’m visiting Cez here in Dongguan and it’s nearby.
As for your post, the way Chinese treat animals is really cruel. They even eat dogs!! I can never accept nor understand that 🙁
No, I left a year ago and have been traveling since. I sent you an email.
I boycott zoos, totally. If I’ll ever have children, I will never take them to zoos. It’s time we all take strict action against this cruel imprisonment of animals.
I never heard of this kind of zoo, well if talking about I am never fond of zoo all together, it takes away the lives of the animals deserve…
This does seem pretty sad.
This is bad! I have never been a fan of zoos where animals are kept in prison. I think zoos must be shut down, national parks are the better place to watch the animals.
I have always believed that animals don’t belong to the Zoo they need to be free.