Guilin again again only briefly

Just arrived back in Guilin, only a 1.5 hour bus ride North from Yangshuo. Had a great time down there. Just in Guilin for another 3 hours.

Dropped our bags at the hotel we stayed at a few nights prior, and I went for a quick jaunt around areas nearby. I wanted to see what was going on at the restaurants, as someone had told us there are restaurants here that offer just about any type of meat on the menu, and the animals are kept live in cages at the front. I didnt see anything too shocking to my Western sensibilities, other than snakes and toads which we've seen alot of in Asian restaurants. There were some kind of Rodent type creatures I've never seen before. Kind of large rabbit sized but almost spherical with a puggish face. They didnt look too happy about being in the cage. I did get to witness a customer picking out a nice healthy looking Duck, which gave a few final quacks of protest and flapped its wings furiously before the girl, who was quite short and probably not much older than 18, swung it at the pavement. I saw a few fish being prepared this way also. The damage to the duck was devastating but not quite fatal, it lay in a pile of blood for a bit writhing away before it was chucked in a bucket, still writhing and sent to the kitchen. The fact that I found this shocking made me realise I've never actually seen an animal being killed, highlighting once again how removed we can be in the West from the realities of where our food comes from. In our various bus rides on this trip, I've seen a number of chicken and duck farms, and they all appear to live free range in pretty natural setups. The ducks and chickens here are huge and plump, but humaneness is not the reason for this, rather the Asian demand for good food I would say. The animals in cages outside these restaraunts - chickens, ducks, pheasants, rodents, snakes, toads, fish of multiple kinds, toads, fresh water prawns - looked pretty stressed mostly. Not that I can tell when a snake or a fish is stressed.

I've tried to witness and understand more of the attitude toward animals in food here. I figure either I should be a Vegan or I should be able to eat anything, otherwise its kind of living by double standards. I'm still sitting in the middle however, my conditioning, or my culture if you like, obviously runs pretty deep. I guess I only speak for cityfolk.

Catching overnight train from here to Shenzen, which is closest city on mainland to Hong Kong, which is our destination. We think we're there 4 nights. Need to double check our flights. Alot of updating of photos and vids to do, so should have downtime in HK to do so.


Guilin again from tgoodwin on Vimeo.