Day 27: Shanghai Zoo

Day 27: Today was the Dragon Boat Festival (AKA 端午节 / duānwǔ jié) in China, which originated from the legend about local people in China racing in dragon boats to find the body of the famous poet Qu Yuan who committed suicide after political turmoil. There are many other legends associated with the holiday, but the story of Qu Yuan was the one that our professor and our textbook mentioned. It's also important to realize that most holidays in China, like the Dragon Boat Festival, are based on the lunar calendar, so this holiday will probably not be on the same day as this year, but I was excited to have the opportunity to witness a holiday in my rather short trip to China. After group presentations, the dictation quiz, and the test, one of our other professors stopped by at the classroom to give us all 粽子 (AKA zòngzi / sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves). He gave us each three of these holiday snacks, where each had something different in it, like red bean, egg, or beef. It was really pretty, but I wouldn't say I loved the snack (in terms of my taste buds) because the sticky rice was pretty sweet. Our professor also mentioned that we did not have tutoring today due to the holiday.

Because we didn't have our tutoring session, our professors took us to the Shanghai Zoo. Someone on our trip who had been in another program in Beijing had said that the zoos in China were the "saddest place on Earth," but to be honest, I think most animals held captive in zoo in any part of the world seem pretty sad. The zoo was actually not that far away, and we took the subway, which led us to an exit right in front of the zoo. The zoo was pretty large, and especially because it was a holiday and the beginning of a holiday weekend, there were many families at the zoo. After we got into the zoo, we all split up into smaller groups, and after I got back to the hotel after the visit, I learned that most groups stayed between thirty minutes and an hour. My group (my roommate and a friend) stayed for approximately three hours visiting all the exhibitions, taking pictures, and making sure we were getting the most out of our visit. The Shanghai Zoo, like I mentioned, was very large, and it had a small outdoors aquarium, too, which I feel like you wouldn't see at most zoos. Hey, another reason to visit Shanghai! Many of the animals we visited seemed very tired as some seemingly looked dead in the middle of the exhibition, and many of the exhibitions were pretty but were definitely not designed to resemble the different animals original habitats, which I found unfortunate. The only thing that really bothered me was seeing many people not following the rules (like "Do not feed the animals" or "Please don't use flash photography" or "Don't climb on the fence") right next to the sign stating all the rules. I definitely had a lot of fun visiting the zoo though because I haven't actually been to a zoo since elementary school, so the trip to the Shanghai Zoo made me want to go back and visit Zoo Atlanta again. My favorite animal was definitely this black and yellow bird that had this huge thing from the top of its eyes to its beak (I really wish I had remembered its name, but it's in one of my pictures, so if you know what it is, let me know!) The bird looked so angry, and I truly felt sorry for it because the thing on its head looked so heavy and inconvenient for it. It also hopped around to get leaves to eat but was never successful at eating the leaves, and my friend commented that the bird wasn't that smart, but its exhibition was definitely where we stayed the longest as we cheered on its efforts to eat a leaf. I took a lot of pictures while pushing and being shoved around at the zoo, so please know that it took a lot of effort to take these pictures; enjoy! 

 

  

  

  

  

  

Also, that last picture is of a mom and son who we ran into at nearly every exhibition. The mom really wanted to make sure her son got to see the animals, so she pushed through and often bumped into me, but unlike most people, she apologized before continuing to the front of the exhibition. Also, when we came back to the hotel, we saw a note from our 服务员 (AKA fúwùyuán / hotel cleaning lady) in our restroom because we had left a note for her in the morning to let her know about our shower door hinge becoming loose. Her response was very short, but my roommate and I both took a picture of the note because we felt that we were slowly becoming closer to the 服务员.

 

Our professors also took us to eat dinner at a rather fancy looking restaurant where most of us felt under dressed. The restaurant gave us more 粽子 free of charge to celebrate the holiday. Like most of the places we went for group dinner, everything was really good, but I especially liked the desserts!