Hubu Xiang and the Duck Incident

Frog
 

This past Saturday we set out for Hubu Xiang, which is an alley of street vendors selling an assortment of different foods – everything from fried pumpkin balls to rice patties to frogs.  Hubu Xiang is in the Wuchang district of Wuhan and we live in the Hanyang district so it was a decent trek by bus, but fun to navigate our way to a place in Wuhan we hadn’t been yet.

 

Duckling

Overall it was fun and we had a good time with a few of our friends who came as well; however there is one incident which blanketed the entire day and has frustrated me to such a point that I decided to journal about it. As we were leaving I saw a young Chinese boy, around 4 years old, and his friend with a baby duck. A duckling may appear a strange companion for a child but animals in China don’t seem to be viewed in the same way as America; in marketplaces it’s not uncommon to see a man carrying a basket chock-full of baby ducks, baby porcupines or baby [insert animal] to sell for whatever purpose (that part of the equation I don’t usually like to ponder). So this boy, whose parents were workers in the alley, took his newly purchased duckling and proceeded to throw it to the ground…with his parents standing by and watching. In all of four seconds my jaw dropped, the parents smiled and the boy had tossed the duckling around a few more times for his own personal amusement.

The Culprit

I’ve seen countless  things that don’t seem to “make sense” to my western mind and there are often moments I have to stop, take a breath and remind myself that my opinion isn’t going to “change China," nor should it. This was not one of those moments. Musing for a quarter second more I marched over to the two children, grabbed the boy’s arm and yelled “bu shi!” (no!) Where I may have been sued in America his parents merely watched in shock here.

After they were over the initial astonishment of a foreigner approaching them I then commenced explaining (in embarrassingly broken Mandarin) that they are big, the duckling is small and it’s not ok to hurt something smaller than you. I pet the duckling gently and encouraged them to do the same. Trying to personify the poor animal to them (which was breathing heavily, had a slightly cracked bill and hobbled its way over to me seeming to understand I was there to protect it) I asked what the duckling’s name was. We talked for a while longer – his parents finally approached me excited to speak with the foreigner and agree with what I had to say – and when I was convinced enough that my point had been made I departed. Turning around to glance one more time I saw another young boy approach my two new friends and… kick the duckling. My young friend screamed as loud as he could in the new child’s face and brought the duckling under his protection.

The truth is, I don’t know if the lesson will stick with them for longer than ten minutes but in that moment I was so enraged that nothing could stop me, right or wrong. Perhaps it was compounded with the overall experience I’ve had personally watching the maltreatment of animals on the streets along with a clip I recently watched concerning the treatment of animals on a fur farm in China (you can view that HERE). WARNING – IT IS VERY GRAPHIC. IF YOU DON’T THINK YOU CAN HANDLE IT DO NOT WATCH IT.           

Not the happiest of posts but this is what has been, unfortunately, on my mind.