Today, we visited the Anhui Museum and learnt more about the Chinese Culture. For example, the Chinese painting 水墨画 that we have learnt during RV Literature.
C: Bronze
There were a lot of bronze antique here in Anhui Museum.
S: Bronze Ding
It appeared in one of our CID worksheet. Seeing the real ding made us mouth agape with awe.
I: Anhui Museum building
Next, we proceeded to a theme park called 中国非物质文化遗产园. At first when we entered the theme park, the impression was not bad, although it seemed empty. After visiting the cultural attractions, the guide took us to watch animals competition. Before the matches start, some of my classmates and I discovered the barn of horses. It was my first time seeing and standing in front of a real horse. I was excited and wondered what kind of performance are awaiting us.
Horseeee
However, during the first competition between the chickens, all of us were shocked and disappointed with the way they treated the animals there. The chickens were fighting to their deaths, with strips and patches of feathers being ripped off by one another. We could literally see the red flesh of the chickens. They were also extremely skinny, almost like a skeleton.
After the competition, they were locked back into small cages.
Next up was racing competitions of horses, dogs and ostriches. Although they do not seemed to be abused, I thought they were really very thin and the owners should feed them more.
We went around exploring the different cultural sites and caught the circus show in time. Here, we experienced yet another wave of trauma. The first act was tigers performing tricks. It was my first time watching a circus show and I was rather excited when the lights dimmed for the first performance. However, it was just another round of animal abuse. Poor tigers, they were forced to obey and were totally controlled by the trainers; or rather their whacking sticks. Some of our classmates cried at the sight of this behaviour. As we could not stand the cruelty of animal abuse, we left the circus halfway through the show.
For the remaining time, we played at a playground nearby.
Although we might complain that animal abuse is cruel and vicious, inhumane actions that are against the laws (in most countries), we should also take time to argue that those people are poor and they only had these animals to make money from. However, I thought instead of hitting the tigers to force some tricks out of them or making chickens fight to death, maybe rewarding them with snacks would be a better idea. This will motivate them to put up a good performance and at the same time, not getting hurt. The audience will also then enjoy the show comfortably.
Today was also the last day with our Hefei guide and shifu. They were very friendly towards us and were probably the best I had met so far.
Overall, today was really a meaningful day indeed.
~ Kitty
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