by Charles Liu
The NanfangToday, 9:06 AM
“Monkey see, monkey do” is one of the earliest taunts you’ll learn in the schoolyard that will go on to (unfortunately) remain a relevant way to explain why people do things in the future. That’s the case for an incident that took place last week at a zoo in Yangzhou, Jiangsu, but will leave you asking, “Which one is the monkey?”
Last week an unidentified man in his thirties was visiting the Yangzhou Zhuwuwan Zoo with his wife and child when the chimpanzee in the nearby exhibit threw something at him. Although it’s not clear if the man was hurt by the thrown object, the “attack” provoked the man enough to retaliate by throwing the object he had in his hand, which happened to be a piece of food.
But the counter-attack failed once the man realized the bracelet he was wearing slipped off and landed in the watery moat that divides the visitors from the fenced-off chimpanzee.
Having lost the need for revenge, the man quickly disrobed and went into the water in search of his bracelet. Soon joined by zoo workers, the group searched for two hours but were unable to find the bracelet, though they were able to find three missing cellphones. The next morning, zoo workers continued their search of the moat and were able to find watches, Buddhist prayer beads and more cell phones, but the bracelet still remains unaccounted for.
This news of just desserts served monkey-style has been republished several times in the Chinese media, but with glaring discrepancies between them.
Even though all the stories involves a chimpanzee at the Yangzhou Zoo, they each have inconsistent details, like: the man was not retaliating, but instead was trying to feed the chimpanzee; the bracelet was specifically worth RMB 5,000; the man did not go into the water to search for his bracelet himself, but was still grateful at zoo staff for their hard efforts; the time spent searching for the bracelet was only one hour; and that the search in the watery moat was so grueling that searchers were said to have blue lips upon coming back to shore.
The version of this news we’ve brought to you from NT Joy is the only one that features a video report in which half-naked Chinese men are seen groping the bottom of a pond in front of a chimpanzee exhibit, and looks to be the closest to the source. As well, it’s the only story that features a quote by a zoo employee that provides a rational explanation for the debacle:
Chimpanzees are primates with an extraordinarily high IQ. As a result, much of their actions come from the imitation of zoo visitors. If there are visitors that come to make fun of the chimpanzee or throw things at him, the animal will get agitated and angry. That is why the chimpanzee may throw things outside the cage, like dirt or drinking bottles.
Maybe this zoo employee has never heard of the phrase “the customer is always right” as it appears he’s blaming the zoo patrons for the bad behavior of its animals, much the same as the report which seems to insinuate zoo patrons, such as our retaliator, are to blame for their valuables somehow winding up at the bottom of the watery moat in front of the chimpanzee exhibit.
To get rid of any semblance of subtlety, the NT Joy report concludes by saying that the more civilized you treat the chimpanzee, the more civilized it will treat you. Sounds fair enough, but the NT Joy report is also the one that shows live “re-enactments” of zoo visitors throwing things into the animals’ pen as well as the chimpanzee throwing something back in return, much to the visitors’ delight.
The one detail that all reports exclude is the fact that chimpanzees are prone to throwing their own feces instead of just “dirt”, something read on warning signs at the zoo (seen above). Without this detail, we can’t be sure if the unidentified man was the recipient of one of these volleys, but at the very least we know his “monkey see” retaliation did not extend to copying this particular part of “monkey do”.
And though it pains us to remind you, zoos in China don’t have a great reputation when it comes to the welfare of its kept animals. If they’re not being mistreated by guests that are prone to throwing things like the aforementioned plastic drinking bottles into the animals’ pens, then its the zookeeperswho are allowing the animals to be abused in order to make a buck. Even the chimpanzees at Yangzhou Zoo haven’t received the best of care: in 2013, black chimpanzees at the zoo suffered frostbite on their hands and feet due to exposure to the cold.
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The post Man Retaliates Against Projectile-Throwing Zoo Monkey, Loses appeared first on The Nanfang.
https://thenanfang.com/man-loses-jewelry-retaliating-zoo-monkey/
