ANIMAL CRUELTY

quite apart from the treatment of farm / food animals in Asia, coming here from Europe means you occasionally see things that we would describe as animal cruelty but are seen as perfectly acceptable here - for example - keeping large dogs in 500 sq ft flats on the 38th floor of a tower block and never taking them out for walk, or locking a 3 month old puppy on a balcony for 18 hours a day and coming out and hitting it every time it barked / whined / yelped as happened with our 2 rescue dogs. But there is 1 thing that is common here that I fell is indescribable cruelty.

It is well known the chinese love to keep caged birds. They are supposed to bring good luck and are easy to keep as they stay in their cages which is handy in a small flat. This in itself is not what I think is cruel. There are plenty of budgies and canaries in cages in Europe, though I wouldn't have 1 myself. What I think IS cruel is the chinese habit of taking their caged birds for a walk in the country parks in the evenings and at weekends. Imagine the poor bird. There it is, in a cage, never able to really stretch it's wings and never having the chance to fly free, being taken round a park shown the wide open spaces it yearns for, all the things it will never be able to touch and places it will never be able to go to, probably with all the wild birds taunting it (you know how cruel birds can be). It must be the ultimate torture.