Wildest Animal Parks

Everyone is familiar with animal parks. The new Animal Kingdom in Disney world, for instance, is a tour of all kinds of exotic animals in a natural setting. The visitor gets his or her camera and rides through the park to interact with animals of all types. That's the typical version of the animal park. But wait! In China those animal parks are becoming a little more real that some people can stomach. In fact, they are becoming down-right gory..and by design. For an average of about $7 a head, tourists in almost 30 different Chinese "wild animal parks" can do more than watch the animals grazing leisurely. In these parks they can see the animals fed live prey. Tourists can watch ravenous tigers (the animals are almost always not fed for days before given their live prey in front of the tourists) chasing down and slaughtering live chickens, sheep and cows. Feathers are plucked and limbs torn by the tigers as the tourists gasp, scream, cheer and turn their heads at the sight of the killings. It's become big business in those parks, having first opened in Shenzhen 12 years ago to rave reviews and a steady flow of curious (bloodthirsty) tourists.
One park has even put a turtle in a glass box and allowed people to throw coins at it so they could try to hit its shell. At another park, tigers are chained down for hours so children can climb on its back for photos. And a few parks allow visitors to pay extra to watch a live horse get devoured by lions and tigers.
The motive for all of this- profit! In newly capitalist China, the profit motive is probably stronger than in any other country on the planet.The parks will do anything to attract more visitors. If the visitors want it, they can have it. Because of the gruesome nature of this, and the fact that many of the animals die in putting on the shows, opposition is now rising to the parks. But they remain unregulated by the Chinese government. It's all allowed in the name of "economic necessity". Some tourists have become sickened by it all, but others like it and support the idea. One tourist said it best. "The tigers have to eat. The only difference is whether you see it or not."
Here's an interesting poll result that shows the unhappy state of life in Singapore. Long known as a place of wealth and security, but one where many Singaporean residents feel too controlled by a dictatorial government to find fulfillment in life, the poll shows that even couples who are planning to marry there are often unhappy with their partners.
Yet, as every Singaporean knows, duty calls before happiness, so they seem to marry even though that doing so will not be pleasurable for them. In the poll by PREPARE (premarital Personal and Relationship Evaluation) of nine different nations engaged couples, Singapore had the highest "unhappy engagement' ratio, with 39% of the couples planning to wed saying they were unhappy in their relationships.
Apparently, the "Five C'" as Singaporean's themselves say (career, condominium, club, credit cards and cars) still drive the hearts ( they have hearts there?) of Singaporeans. The survey showed that only 14% of Singaporeans described themselves as "very happy" with their partners In the U.S the figure was 50%), far the lowest of any surveyed.
Of course, Singapore has always been rated at the bottom of the list for sexually active nations. That may explain some of their unhappiness. The other eight regions surveyed, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, United States and New Zealand, all had ratings much higher than Singapore. Reasons Singaporeans may still go through with marriage even though not happy about their partners vary. Speculation by the pollsters is that the culture imposed by the government there is so restrictive and punitive that couples may have difficulty speaking their minds to their partners in fear of a confrontation.
In short, they are afraid to say what they think and afraid to disagree. Uh.. the Singapore dictators are no doubt glad about that.