These past few weeks when out visiting China, I feel like I've been on a trip through the future.
I started off in Chengdu where I got to see that city’s famous pandas. Then I caught a bullet train right across this mountainous country from West to East.
I stopped off in a place called Suzhou, before a painfully hot few days in Shanghai, where temperatures felt like 50 degrees because of the humidity.
I went there to try and find the place where an American relative, a pilot, used to live. His name was Charles Sharkey and he too featured in a story in this paper a few months back.
The visit to his part of town might be an article for another time but this week’s tale is about some furry friends.
Maybe that’s natural after a few days of Shanghai’s immense crowds and a desire to get away from the endless waves of people. I’ve visited this city once before but it’s got bigger, higher, hotter and more packed in every way.
Suzhou was a gentler stopover in some ways. A city that’s smaller and more tranquil in places but just as futuristic. Through visiting these places, I understand why so many Chinese people believe that we live in a past century of science and technology.
But even with all the developments in technology, regardless of what part of the world you’re looking at, there’s still a lot of poverty and suffering. And that doesn’t just happen to people but also the other creatures that live on this planet amongst us.
The pandas that I mentioned in Chengdu almost reached the level of being an endangered species in the last century. Now, thanks to breeding programmes in captivity, their numbers are growing again, particularly in western China.
Unfortunately, not all animals are so lucky. In Suzhou, which I visited for one weekend, there are a lot of stray dogs and cats. And they almost serve as a metaphor for a world where there is so much division between rich and poor; in people as well as pets.
Some dogs and cats, especially the fancier breeds and healthier ones, live a life of domesticated luxury. They are well fed, loved and given a roof over their heads for a lifetime, hopefully.
Meanwhile, others face a fight for survival on a daily basis, battling hunger, sickness, abandonment and exposure to the elements.
That’s why, last Sunday morning, I travelled to an animal shelter on the edge of Suzhou alongside some people who volunteer there on a regular basis. I got involved through friends who work at a university in the city. After seeing how many homeless animals there are in China, they just wanted to make a small difference to the situation.
Because there are no national organisations like the RSPCA in China, shelters such as this rely entirely on donations, whether in terms of time, money or resources. And we’re not talking Bright Eyes Animal Sanctuary here. It’s way more basic than that.
It was a challenge then to join 16 other volunteers at the Suzhou Animal Protection Association’s (SAPA) crowded shelter on the outskirts of the city. Before going there, I got told that I’d probably find the smell and the sounds overwhelming.
But words can’t really prepare you for a place where there are over 1,000 dogs in cages.
Because of such numbers, they have loveless lives at times and yet, through the efforts of volunteers, they get a taste of normality every couple of weeks.
Some form friendships with those who come to help them. They get shaved, washed, walked and treated with some basic affection.
Probably they also dream of finding what’s known as ‘a forever home’ even though the odds on that aren’t high.
For me, it was an emotional experience in many ways. I learned a lot through helping the dozen or so volunteers to clean up the place and tend to the animals for a few hours. Being new to this type of thing, my day started with the cattery.
Because cats are generally cleaner than dogs when domesticated, the area where several hundred cats lived was in a much more hygienic and habitable condition.
They’re also a quieter species which is again to be expected.
The noise of a thousand dogs barking at the same time is absolutely overwhelming.
Some yelp. Some howl. Some bay. Some growl. Some whine. Some just shout. But when put together, it’s like a live show with Motörhead, Iron Maiden and AC/DC playing together at once.
As loud even as the English media if England had won Euro 24!
That’s why I gravitated towards the puppies’ section, where they’re quieter and more exuberant, with the spirit of life not yet dampened in their little hearts.
At the same time, that section is particularly heartbreaking because the reason many of those puppies are there is because they have been recently abandoned.
Unfortunately in some east Asian countries, there is a culture of buying puppies as gifts. But unfortunately, if someone rejects the offer of the gift, then the animal is also rejected. Now becoming second-hand goods, fewer people want to adopt them.
Nowadays everybody wants the latest fashion and the perfect accessory, which is why dog-breeding exists as an industry. Puppy farms just continue to spill out more animals on a factory production line, even as so many already exist, waiting to be re-homed.
And it’s not just animals as accessories that’s a major problem. As covered by this paper and others a few years back, the illegal meat trade remains an issue. That’s probably less of a concern in Suzhou though where the main issue is abandonment.
Thankfully though, there is decency in humanity too. And the volunteers at this shelter were shining examples of how the human spirit isn’t always a cruel and selfish one.
Sometimes people just need to be educated about the ethical issues involved.
The visit to the Suzhou Animal Protection Association shelter was certainly a learning experience for me.
One thing I learned is that even though I keep a cat in London, I’m probably more of a dog person at heart. That’s why I gravitated towards the puppies.
But if anyone’s chatting with my cat on Facebook or even Pawbook, I’d rather you didn’t share that information, even though she suspects this because every time I come back from weekends in Fermanagh, I stink of numerous dogs.
I know that healing the suffering of pets might not always seem as important as addressing the sufferings of people. But it’s not a competition. We should embrace kindness to all creatures, especially those less fortunate than ourselves.
And thankfully whether in Battersea, Suzhou or Fermanagh’s various animal assistance groups, there’s a wee bit of humanity found in every corner of the world – even in a place like China where there are an awful lot of human beings!
Thankfully, even in the midst of so many, some show the very best traits of our species.
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