Beijingaling Zoobaloo

I went to the Beijing Zoo today. It was a good experience, and highlighted a few things that I've been meaning to talk about. I'll start with the zoo itself and work my way up to the big stuff.

First of all, it was insanely hot today. It's the kind of hot that's just oppressive. You walk outside and feel dirty, and you're already sweating. It's very hard to feel clean, but you settle into it after a while and just accept that while showers help, they certainly don't fix the problem. After a bit of confusion and plan-changing, we settled into cabs to the zoo (because on a really hot, sweaty day, the subway is your least favorite place to be). We arrived after little to no confusion (!!) and got down to business. Fenn wanted to see bears, Andrea wanted to see lions and tigers, Jess wanted to see penguins, and I wanted to see giraffes and pandas. The panda exhibit was first (and cost extra money), and there were TONS of them. They were really adorable, and we got to see them eating. Their caretaker handed them bread and they would take it from his hands and just sit down and have a nibble. One was stretched out on his back, scratching his stomach, and munching on his baguette. It was incredible.

We then saw some really strange birds, including black chickens, which I was told to look for. I am putting pictures up on on Ofoto hopefully tonight, so be on the lookout. We then saw some pretty cool elephants, who perked up for pictures. After elephants were rhinos. They were obscene. One turned around and peed at us (thanks!), and the other was a male... who... well... showed off some pretty inappropriate limbs. It made me uncomfortable, and I don't really like rhinos so much anymore.

Then came the sad part of our visit. We saw lions and tigers (no bears, oh my), and they were treated so incredibly badly. The kings of the jungle are housed in concrete boxes with bars in China. They look malnourished and depressed, and I almost cried. They have very little room to walk around, and I couldn't take any pictures because I just thought it was so wrong. I had the same feeling that I did at the village, strangely enough. I felt that I was partially responsible for their living conditions, and I felt guilty and helpless. It was really sad, and I thought momentarily about changing my life plan and becoming a zoo keeper to improve their lives. It's hard to see something awful that you're helpless to change.

After that, we saw zebras, giraffes, and ostriches. I LOVE GIRAFFES. They are really the coolest animals that exist. The ostriches were up close and personal, and it was here that I got upset again. People were throwing trash at the ostriches to get their attention. Their pen was already pretty disgusting, and I'd been seeing litter in other animal's cages but didn't really think much about it. For some reason, I felt so incredibly angry with these people and their disregard for the animals. I know that I'm not one of those nutty animal activist people, but there IS such a thing as common decency, and it made me so sad and angry to see animals living the way they were. The camels had humps that were floppy and flat due to a lack of water. It made my heart ache and it highlighted a few feelings that I've been sensing for a while but couldn't quite pinpoint.

Before I came to China, my impressions of it were that it was a very collectivist culture, with an intense focus on community. Now that I've been here for a bit, I am unsure what to make of my experiences. They just don't seem to align with the national identity China seems to portray. Keep in mind that these observations are not to be taken to heart. I've only been here for (almost) three weeks, and my experience doesn't reflect the way the society operates as a whole, so I can't even really make generalizations. Okay, enough with the disclaimers:

Subway
I have ridden mass transit in New York, Boston, London, and Paris, and NOTHING compares to the way the subway works here. I have almost fallen several times from being pushed either in or out of the subway. Friends of mine have been elbowed in the face and squished so much that their feet no longer touch the ground. You have to be a fighter to get off at the right stop in rush hour.

Lines/Queues
Lines do not seem to matter here. It seems to me that if you are in the way of someone, whether or not you were there first, they will get you out of their way no matter what. I can't quite get up the gumption to shove my way back, or push past people in front of me, though I'm curious of how it would be received.

Taxis
If you get a taxi, get in it while it is still moving, if possible. People will take it from you, and you won't even know where they came from.

Sanitation
Okay, so I've been trying and trying to not let this one faze me. I understand that I'm coming at all of this from a "Western" perspective, so I'm trying to be fair in my perceptions. However, I can't get over this one. Children here will routinely urinate or defecate on the sidewalk. I can't even tell you how many times I have seen a child pee on the sidewalk, into dirt, IN A MALL, or into a grate. If they are even wearing pants, they will often be missing a crotch and a backside, so that the child can simply do his/her business wherever. Now, here's what I've determined regarding the disposal of bodily waste thing: maybe squat toilets are more sanitary because you aren't really touching anything (unlike on a western toilet), and your waste goes immediately away. Maybe letting your child urinate freely is better for them than having them sit in a soiled diaper. However, I saw a ten-year-old girl urinating on the sidewalk today in front of the zoo, in broad daylight, on a crowded street. This is problematic for me for a lot of reasons. The first is the obvious sanitation problem this causes for other citizens. At Emerson, a kid in Piano Row was playing a joke for a while by dropping human waste into a trash can on his floor, and they had to go through a huge process to clean it and ensure safety. The second is that it seems disrespectful to other people. The third is that it seems to indicate a lack of self-restraint or ability to put another's needs before one's own. I just don't understand it, and though I'm getting more used to it, I can't contain my disgust when I see it.

Anyway, it was a good day. These issues are minute really, and I want to emphasize that I've also met an incredible number of people who want to go out of their way to help us.

I've noticed too that when I get outside of really touristy spots, I have a much better experience. Jess and Andrea and I went to the Lama Temple the other day, and wandered around the hutongs for a while afterward. We ended up finding a really great little tea place that was tucked into an alley. It had a courtyard with calming music, and only one table. The table was glass, with turtles living in the bottom part of the table. It was really cool, and the people were unbelievably nice. It was so calming, and after the madness of the Temple (we were scolded for lighting incense in the temple... oops!), it was exactly what we needed. Afterward, we did a little shopping in a tiny store without sizes or a fitting room. I guessed on a red dress that looked vaguely my size, and paid $2 for it. I got it home and put it on, and it fit perfectly. It might be my new favorite garment. :)

Once again, this post was a jumble of things. I love it here, but it's in such a transition and I'm such an outsider that it's hard to get a grasp on what's going on.