China: pt.2 - Beijing Zoo

One of the first things we went to see in Beijing was the aquarium. And the zoo, since the aquarium is located within the area of the zoo. "A nice and relaxing thing to do for two jetlagged kids from the other side of the planet.", we thought. And the whole thing was.. interesting. Zoos can be many different things: they can be lush gardens where animals can be, well, animals. And they can be concrete boxes that simply hold an animal. Beijing Zoo can be said to be of the last kind.

The park in general was beautiful at times. Small lakes, big and fresh trees - it would've been a nice place to just go for a stroll. The weather was fantastic, allthough so hot we had to drink water continously in order go be able to stand up straight. But, it was a good day. It was.

Before we headed for the aquarium, we had planned to see how the pandas in the zoo were doing. We were in China, there were pandas. "Allright, gotta see it." The road there was long though. As both Beijing and Shanghai proved: if you're going to do anything, you've got to do it big. An ideology that was reflected in the zoo aswell. It was huge! So we walked, and we walked, and came to see a lot of.. well. Various animals in various conditions.


I can, for example mention the "Penguin House" that we agreed to pay a few extra yuan to enter. I guess you can say what we paid for - it was a house. With penguins. That just stood there behind a wall of glass. Some were so still that my Mr.Man was convinced the zoo had a real' good taxidermist, just trying to hide that a few of them had called it the day. (They did shuffle around a few millimetres after that, but that was it. The life of a zoo penguin.)

After that we tried to head a little more straight to the pandas, wanting to see at least what we had planned. It took some time, and on the road we hurried past a lot of different animals in different boxes, cages or fields. We found the pandas in the end though. And, as the main attraction of the Beijing Zoo, I'd read that they'd be treated like royals compared to the remaining inhabitants of the zoo. Royals? Well, I'm not sure I'd say that. But they had a significantly better place to stroll around in than most other creatures we saw. They did seem just as stressed and understimulated as I would, living my life with a whole bunch of people staring me down from the other side of a transparent wall. It is, however, a beautiful animal, and I'd love to see in out in the wild. Free. Sitting in its furry ass, being chill and eating bamboo.

Having found the star of the zoo, we decided that enough was enough. It was time to get out of the place, and find that aquarium that was supposed to be somewhere in that zoo. We grabbed some bottles of water, picked up a somewhat comprehensible map and left the furry bamboo-chewing panda. We left little turles in little glass boxes, and we left tigers in concrete cages. There and and then, we'd had enough zoo. Do I regret going there? No, not at all. Did I feel comfortable there? Again: not at all. But I don't believe in only going places, seeing things that pleases you. To be able to know and express what I like, I think it's equally important to experience the things I don't like. And this day held some of both sides.

I'm awfully sorry for starting my experiences in China like this, I know it seems harsh and brutal and.. well, awful. But as I'm writing this, I'm also looking through my photos from the aquarium, which we finally found. And that, that is a whole different story. Promise!