Two days ago the China Daily ran a story about the launch of the Animal Olympics in Shanghai. Although it has beeen running for 3 or 4 years, the story was filed under the “Hip and New” section on the website (I kid you not). It had an almost mundane feel to how it described the 30 species of animals who were going to spend 2 months competing in a various sporting events. No hint that this might be cruel or in any way negative.
The event, it seems, was quite big and well organized. I don’t know who did the press launch for it or who attended it, but it didn’t take long before the Aussies got their hands on some incredibly strange details. Soon, this type of photgraph was being circulated:
The reporters at the opening ceremony must have been stunned. On one hand, experiencing the sheer culture shock of the thing would have been bad enough, but it also must have occurred to them that they suddenly had a story that would receive massive global attention. Their instinct was (rightly) not to play it down. The whole thing comes across as something approaching medieval cruelty, yet the kids that attended it probably thought it was great. Sadly, their parents probably did too.
Over the next 24 hours, these ever more lurid descriptions began to appear
In one of the cruellest displays at the Shanghai show a clown taunts a kangaroo with boxing gloves tied to its hands.
Not surprisingly, the story hit the wires and spread quickly. By the time the Daily Mail (and then Drudge) got to it, the PR damage was unstoppable. It was now ’sickening’, the ‘Cruelty Olympics’, ‘torture’, etc. You can even see a slide show here - (though this one isn’t actually critical). See here for video plus slide show.
At this point, the moral posturing with an easy target is starting to sound as bad as the cruelty itself. This obviously quaifies as horrendous treatment of the animals, but by who’s standards?
And who let this debacle happen in the first palce? In the run up to the 2008 Olympics I can’t think of a worse scenario for a PR disaster. A corrupt mayor is one thing, but if you’re looking for a way to truly damage the country in terms of global PR, then you’ve just found it. (Look at some of the comments from around the world on the newspaper articles.) The Olympics were actually supposed to boost national self-esteem.
I don’t see this as something the Chinese government is responsible for, but I imagine they will now have to put a quick stop to it. I hate cultural relativism, but in my view this is more to do with culture than with politics. A century ago, there was little concept of animal rights in western socities. The fact is that there is no concept of animal rights or feelings across China now. I think this poses a question for the relativists: if we’re not supposed to judge other cultures and cultural practices (’they’re all equal’) then we have no right to criticize this one.
What strikes me about the whole thing is the sadness of it all. What a miserable attempt at entertainment. All that time, money, and cruelty, and for what?
The guys at Shanhgai Zoo who organized this are probably in trouble. I don’t think they intended any of this to be deliberately cruel to the animals. But it is, and imagine the thunder this will bring down on them from the higher ups. Do they deserve it? Probably no more than the animals.
Somehow I think we might hear some different views from you on this.
Lighting the Olympic flame or igniting a PR disaster?.
Ken Carroll
Sorry, Ken. You just hit a hot-button topic for me. I detest this sort of thing. Not just the “jumping through flaming hoops” aspect of it, but zoos in general. I think they’re barbaric and sadistic.
America is no better in this regard. We can pretend to get on a high horse, but I’ve been to the circuses here. If any of those negative comments are coming from the States, I think it’s a bit like the pot calling the kettle black.
I fully agree with you Frank… It is just disgusting and it still happens in most countries. But this week in Winschoten (a mid-size city in the Netherlands) a ban has been voted for circuses with animals. Amsterdam, Groningen and Zaandam are also planning to set up the same ban. More than 85 cities in Belgium have alreday such a ban.
Things are moving but not so quick.
2 years ago I saw in Zhuhai (China) a horse “painted” as a zebra!!
I think we should judge these things, not on the basis of our feelings for animals, but on the basis of a rational argument. To my mind, animals don’t have rights, because they don’t have the power of rational thought, and cannot make ethical decisions. However, there is an obligation upon us to avoid needless suffering. I eat meat and I personally think there are rational arguments that can be made to explain why. But this circus brings no benefit to anyone - certainly not the animals.
I would also caution against easy judgementalism. This is sad for those creatures, but it is not as if it was out of the blue: The Chinese have never been ones to worrry about animals feelings. In most cutlures around the world, animals are given little or no consideration in this context. By this standard, Western feelings for animals are the anomoly, not the other way round.
Ken treating the animals in this way is wrong on my scale but I can see exactly the angle you are coming from.
Most of us only have to go back a couple or more generations to find relatives who would absolutly ‘know’ that women could not achieve academically and shouldn’t be given the vote. That children should have to work as hard as adults if their families needed the money etc. etc.
There is only a certain amount of malleability available to each generation, try to push things faster (and lets not fall for the mistaken impression that this is always progress) and you are storing up trouble.
There is something unplesant when ‘our’ press goes too far with stories like this which doesn’t reflect a concern for the poor animals but a sort of ‘better than thou’ feeding frenzy.
The West may want to reflect on the fact that we spend a lot of time and resources, manufacturing and marketing ’special’ foods for pampered pets (who serve no practical purpose). The aforementioned pets often having being inbred with deformaties that shorten their lifespan and reduce quaility of life. All this while elsewhere people are starving.
I was (un)lucky enough to watch a Taiwanese show where a bunch of women were discussing and demonstrating the various implements and costumes that could be obtained for their pampered animals. It could have been aired over here, hurray they have completly picked up our higher moral attitude to animals, what a relief.
So yeah, I don’t like it, I think a bit of pressure or indication that some other people don’t like it is in order but lets not go to far. If it really bothers you consider that animal an somewhere is bound to be treated just as bad within driving distance of your house. Go and find it and rescue it.
I think for you to completly understand strange behaviour in another culture you have to be raised there, then you wouldn’t understand it, it just would be unquestioned!
Ahh it just occured to me that most if not all of the Chinese people that watched the event without question, would have found these images amusing/cute rather than offensive. Maybe our two cultures are closer than I first realised considering some of things that sneak under our cruelty radar under the guise of amusing and cute.
I agree about the cultural relativism of the issue, but I do think the West has progressed in the right direction in this case. So, I think the protest is good.
@Frank:
Admittedly, many Zoos suck. However, they do A LOT for conservation and education these days. I think thier contribution may out weigh thier offenses.
May I suggest book titled ‘Life of Pi’? In addition to being a good read, it also contains several interesting thoughts about zoos.
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Lately, bad journalism seems to be on the rise. It’s goal is not to dig the hidden truth or to put together whole picture of things as they happened; it’s goal is merely to make money. Journalists (or “journalists”?) are interested only in the juicy bits, the bits that stir emotions. Who cares that their half-truths can inflict suffering on innocents? Definitely not them, and for that matter neither does majority of their readers. I have this nudging feeling that this topic fell prey to such beasts.
Let me explain. The ‘lurid description’ on news.com.au at least openly admits that no real violence takes place during performance. But Daily Mail piece just goes on and on how outrageously cruel is the whole thing ‐ all based on bunch of photos. They write “Chimpanzees are forced to play basketball and apparently lift huge weights”. Besides apparently fake weights that many pre-schoolers would find a hilarious toy to play with, I must say that I was also forced to play basketball. I had no choice than to learn and play it ‐ and I enjoyed it. So I simply fail to see why chimpanzees are so unlikely to enjoy it as well.
Is the Animal Olympics cruel? You can try to form your opinion based on the photos and the video. But for good answer you have to do a bit deeper than your immediate emotions go. I don’t like animals being hurt. When I first saw the boxing photo I felt a surge of outrage. But then, after a bit of thinking and analyzing, I concluded that it is more likely to be an interesting shot of a carefully staged performance. It’s not clear, but it is unlikely they would risk bringing animal to state of anger or fear. Kangaroos hind legs are strong and if the claws are not sheeted (not seen on the photos), kangaroo can cause quite serious injuries to the opponent.
Animal training has been there for many centuries. Some trainers love their animals, some only see them as things and treat them according to how much profit the animal brings them. I have no sympathy to the second kind, but we cannot simply put all of them into the same bag. So which kind of people work with the animals of Animal Olympics? Animals on leashes look suspicious. But why are they on a leash? Are they badly trained? Would they run away? Is it to force them do things? Is it to prevent them to engage in fight with other animals? Or is it to keep them in place if one of them decided to run and jump around and generally have fun while wreaking havoc among other animals? It is very hard to tell just from photos.
If you object to training animals for entertainment, think about domestic pets. They are closed in a house or flat, if they go out it is on a leash or in a cage, in many places mound for dogs is mandatory in public. The pets, especially dogs, get fancy haircuts, are clothed, they undergo training. From ‘Vet School’s Popular Dog Olympics Set for Oct. 4′ at http://www.ncsu.edu/news/press.....09/273.htm
“Dogs of all shapes and sizes can compete for prizes in the howling contest, musical sit (similar to musical chairs), best beggar, doggie limbo, doggie high jump and the wiener toss. Competitions for the more athletic canines include the Frisbee toss, a retrieving contest, and “speed demon” race, among others.”
Is it so unlike the Animal Olympics? Is it to be considered cruel?
I don’t judge those around me who eat meat, but I do think it bizarre that people who feel no qualms about killing animals daily for food would have such a strong emotional reaction to this.
By the way, my parrot is certainly capable of rational thought, has a rich culture, linguistic expression in a tonal language with observable grammatical structures, and something that resembles our own ethical decision making, demonstrates concern for the misfortune of other animals including humans, and delights in observing the misfortunes of her mortal foes.
There’s a bloke at work who has few human-like attributes, but I don’t put him into funny clothes and parade him around while harrassing him… because I’m unlikely to get the opportunity to do so with impunity
I love animals. All kinds and my parakeet in particular. I think that God put them here on earth to serve mankind, especially the ones that we eat. In all things, however, we have an obligation to treat them humanely. In the country where I live the people say that when you die there is a big river that you must cross in order to reach paradise and if you treat your animals well while you are living they will be there to help you cross that river to reach Heaven when you die. I like that.
I live with rodents. I can’t imagine how that could be relevant to this blog, except that it follows the tendency to masochism (not Sadism) illustrated above. Two uncaged squirrels, one rabbit. They steal my food, often eat better than i do (it shows), urinate on me when i’m sleeping, tear apart any new clothing i buy, and nest in my appliances. They only use me in order to feel loved or protected.
We may look at perversions across the globe and recognize and engage in discourse upon corresponding elements requiring correction in our own society, but frequently there is no moral equivalence. Where we find error (in ourselves) others may discover justification (for their own actions). That’s not exactly symmetrical. We might also remember that China has made a concerted effort (at least through the mouthpiece of the China Daily) to wrench the concept of “rights” into a definition formerly ascribed to “privileges”. This pertains, in no small way, to the subject in question.
Speaking of dodgy journalism, check out Frontline. Very funny Aussie satire about shonky journalist tactics. Personally, i take all news, whether it’s from the tv, paper, magazine, podcasts and even non-fiction books, with a nice big pinch of salt. This is not just because of deliberate attempts to contort the truth, but because journalists like everyone else make mistakes. e.g. a few years ago a friend was killed in a storm and the 3 local papers could not agree on whether it was a branch of a tree or the trunk itself that killed her. They also incorrectly quoted her mother speaking at the funeral.
To all,
frank,
i agree with u a bit,
some zoos are bad how they are mainly about tourisim but ones that focus on breed endangered specises are good.
But frankly not everything that great happens in australia,
well at the national zoo you can pat leopards in their enclousure,
and theirs a romour that they sedate them so they will be calm.
But back to the asians, at least their not as cruel as they are to humans,
they remove wounds to alive humans!
Its the comunist fault.
But its obvius that they dont know that they know this is cruel,
i rember when i was about 4 and i wished theired be somthing like this.
I’m not crash hot on the whole idea myself. I value a well planned zoo for its conservation practices, but I’m not sure about the whole fighting thing (although I’d expect a roo to be able to hold its own in such a situation).
In terms of cultural respect, there is a definite need to respect cultural differences, and should not result in outrigth condemnation. However, if you believe something morally, it doesn’t seem right to simply let it pass on the ‘it’s a different culture, I respect that’ ticket. Outrage isn’t the way to go, rather an attempt to show your own view in a way that might get people’s attention without making them angry and defensive.
My hometown banned animal circuses years ago. But we do have a zoo.
Thank you for blogging about this. For anyone interested in taking action, Animals Asia headquartered in Hong Kong, has put together a protest letter. Please go to this link:
http://www.animalsasia.org/ind.....&lg=en
Will, and fellow CPodders,
You make some interesting points here. I won’t speak for anyone else, but for myself, I had actually written out a rather lengthy diatribe on why I oppose zoos but ultimately decided to delete it. This isn’t the right forum for us (you, me, anyone) to really start an intelligent debate on the benefits or cruelties of that establishment and its place in our culture. At least I don’t think so. Ken posted an interesting article, but this is his blog. I didn’t want to come in with guns blazing.
Of course, at the end of the day, I accept that mine is an opinion. Nothing more. Some people may agree with it. Others won’t. I’m okay with that.
But let me expand ever-so-slightly:
Are there benefits to the animals in these zoos? Health care and regular feedings and such? You bet. But if you told me you could double my life span, but I could never leave my house again, I’d have to pass.
In terms of animal rights… I’m not suggesting they be given the same rights as a human being. But a dog, for example, is capable of a wide range of emotions. Fear, loyalty, love, happiness. I certainly think my canine companion is deserving of more rights than, say, my coffee table.
Will, I’m not suggesting that you were speaking to me with your comments, but there *was* more I wanted to say. I just didn’t feel this was an appropriate venue.
I suppose it all depends on your definition of “cruel”. For myself, slaughtering pigs, chickens and cows in Western country slaughterhouses is extremely cruel, yet nobody complains about that. But as soon as you get a few zebras jumping through hoops, there is an uproar.
For example, challenging a kangaroo to a boxing match doesn’t strike me (pardon the pun) as being cruel. In fact, it seems like harmless entertainment, if not downright fun-loving and comical. The first chance I get, I’m taking my 2-year old to that show !
C’mon people, get a life and a sense of humor.
I’m with you on that, Frank. I’ll leave it where it is, because there’s not going to be adequate resolution without causing hurt here. Thanks for being polite and reasonable.
Likewise, Will.
I have just returned from 3 weeks in china and watched this program…..when i say i watched i was channel flicking and after 30 seconds i carried on flicking . I could not understand why such a program would be broadcast , i am aware that to train animals to do this usually involves cruelty and a lot of stress to the animals .My wife on the other hand had no idea untill i told her of the training program that was probably involved .she was also intrigued about animal rights and was astonished when i told her that no one would be allowed to do this in england ,and that if people were cruel to their pets they could face possible prosecution and a fine or jail term . different cultures have different ideas about what is right and wrong so,,,,who is right and who is wrong ?
I think most people are unaware of the kind of training involved in these things, the majority of which is not exactly carrot-based.
For me the bottom-line is that behind the fun a lot of pain - if not torture - has been deliberately inflicted on these animals, for entertainment. Justifying that typically requires creating a whole scheme of self-serving distinctions, categories, and logical contortions.
Cultural relativists still have the problem of explaining why (without resorting to cultural specific values) we should respect other cultures. Basically, people get along better the fewer the differences we consider worth clashing/fighting over; and the world is more interesting the more differences there are.
That said, for me, people who think differently to me with respect to how ok it is to inflict pain on other living creatures, frankly, are worth clashing with.
Fortunately, for my view, most people, in most cultures, are brought up to consider inflicting pain as something exceptional rather than normal - and then have their own internal logic to deal with, in addition to anything I might add.
Whilst a certain amount of hypocrisy is inevitable in the reaction to this event, that’s not really a counter-argument: that just means that ‘we’ have to look at ourselves as well.
other highlights I read… China and India ‘top bribe list’, Bejings Penis Emporium, Horse fighting, Bear torture, Third of China ‘hit by acid rain’, Plans for 544 new coal-fired power stations, Tibetan gulags, Execution Buses, Selling organs of executed prisoners, China executed more people in the last three months than the rest of the world did in the past three years, add, SARS… Bird Flu etc…
Stumbled upon this thread whilst prepping a lesson on animal cruelty. You may be interested to view this clip:
http://www.heathermillsmccartn.....upwarm.php
Perhaps for next year they can get snapping turtles to backflip into boiling soup pots.
I do not feel that this is animal cruelty. I think it is great that someone thought of this. I feel that it is good for the animals.
I did a search for sites that might help me not feel so alone in my depression and hopelessness. This one came up so I figured I would comment. You know what they say, the older you get, the less you are invited to weddings, and the more you go to funerals. On that positive note, I invite you to come to my blog, http://lazyfathead.blogspot.com, and join me in my delightful spiral into death depression and nothingness.
Thanks for your time. Remain happy ?
The “animal olympics” are indeed cruel. No Ifs, Ands, or Buts.
Why? Because animals are not naturally inclined to act in such a way. The Chinese force these animals to perform through brutal training, starvation, & make them work for several hours without consideration to food, water, or rest.
If the animal happens to behave like an actual animal, then the so-called trainers enforce physical punishment. The animals are simply instruments of amusement to the audience & to collect profit. This is undoubtedly cruel, without being affected by emotions.
However, cruelty is not the same as what is “right” or “wrong.”
But recognition of cruel practices does lead to ethical, humane, compassionate, civilized, democratic actions; which eventually leads to peace, justice, & the chance to happiness.
It is hard to imagine China, with its reputation for complete disregard for animal welfare, to hold “animal olympics” other than sadistic barbaric entertainment. We can only imagine what goes on bedind the lights, camera, & action.