Zoos are a funny thing, so are people. We can be pretty uncaring towards each other. We too are just animals. For us, zoos make us wonder not just about the way we treat animals, but also about how we treat each other. Not to anthropomorphize animals (See, we can pull out some big words occasionally.), but they do sometimes set good examples for the rest of us. We were walking to the patch of green on the edge of the waicheng (the square canal that surrounds historic downtown Suzhou) that we always see from the taxi as it drives along Dongbei jie to Moye lu on the way back from the train station. Walking down the alley from Pingjiang lu to Ouyuan (where the zoo is), we saw a woman beating an apologetic man with her shoe. We wondered what he’d done to piss her off.
We went to the zoo to see the rare turtles, the Rafetus swinhoei we told you about last month, but they didn’t seem to have any intention of surfacing. The big cats didn’t look happy in their cages, so we went to check out the monkeys. They’re usually jovial creatures. One little monkey was clutching the edge of its cage and munching part of an apple. A bigger monkey came out of nowhere and pulled him off the fence and took his apple. We laughed hysterically. Then we felt kind of sad. Poor monkey. The big monkey immediately started doing a victory dance. But, when he was finished, he thought better of it. He returned the apple to the smaller monkey, looking ashamed, and that was that. No more apologies necessary. They were both happy. Zoos are funny, so are monkeys. But if they can tear shit up and put it back together, so can we. That’s educational.
 "Suzhou Zoo")
 "Suzhou Zoo")
 "Suzhou Zoo")
 "Suzhou Zoo")
H: o
