Tag Archives: tourism

For the last few weeks Maggie’s been suggesting we take Casey to the Haikou zoo. I have deeply mixed feelings about zoos. Like the ROM for history, trips when I was a child to the Toronto Zoo instilled in me a great sense of wonder and a love for animals. On the same coin, I always feel depressed looking at anything confined to a cage — and never is this more so than at Chinese zoos.

If being in the company of wild animals is a gradient; most Western zoos would be further towards “in the wild” and most Chinese zoos would be sitting much nearer the “waiting for slaughter” end of the spectrum.

However, after a very long, hot summer, the weather in Haikou is absolutely beautiful for getting out and doing some site-seeing. Conjuring up just enough cultural relativism to tuck away my misgivings and not ruin our son’s first trip to a zoo, we headed out.