Chinese Circus

In my first memorable dream of 2016 I was visiting another Chinese zoo with family and as usual, running out of time before closing. I began in the aquarium which was a darkened area punctuated with the glowing green windows of tanks. In a parallel to the scene featured in The Drunk Tank, I saw a bloated eel, this time a green moray, swallowing a small zebra fish. I called my sisters over to watch, repulsed by the abject sight of the eel's bulging, squirming throat and the zoo's lax management in keeping predatory species in the same tank as defenceless prey. An announcement in Mandarin declared that the zoo would shortly be closing, and as I was eager to see the hippos before it did, I split off from my family and went my own way towards the back of the zoo.

To reach the pachyderm yards, I had to navigate past a huge sports hall that was being used to train staff and animals for the circus acts that the zoo regularly put on. Rehearsals were underway so I determined to go the long way round to avoid interrupting or drawing attention to myself. Before I did so, I peeked through a curtain and saw a troupe of acrobats, some dogs, a chimpanzee in clothes, and a hippopotamus of prodigious size and fatness, its legs like stumpy sausages barely able to support its massive weight. The mammoth beast was the size of an elephant and of an obesity I had never imagined possible, its fatty sides rolling in mounds of quivering flesh, the shape of its whole body like a barrel tub, Posters on the wall indicated that the hippo was a popular animal celebrity called Big Boy, with a long performance history.

I decided that I would rather see the more normal hippos in their enclosure, so I pressed on, descending a winding stairwell which I hoped would bring me outside of the building. I got to the bottom level and found myself in a concrete yard, fenced off as far as I could see by a green mesh fence. A groundsman eyed me suspiciously, so I asked him the way to the hippo enclosure to prove I had nothing to hide. He gestured for me to go back into the building and up several floors to a higher level and before I knew it, I was back at the circus hall. Rehearsals were still going on, with the human performers undertaking a variety of rolls, tumbles, and flips on sports mats. The dogs were made to jump through hoops, whilst the chimp tottered around on two legs in its gaudy outfit. The hippo stood placidly by, obediently following the instructions of its trainer when called to.

I think I woke up before I made it to the hippo enclosure, but I decided that it was time to publish my real life experiences in Chinese zoos on here.