Animal Ring Toss
“Tao Huan” is a traditional Chinese version of Ring Toss Game in which the pegs are replaced by different objects ranging from toys to kitchenware. The players rent the rings and could take away whatever is looped. I had always reckoned it to be a benign entertainment until last week, when I saw a Ring Toss Game on the food street in Jiayuguan (a small city in northwestern China) being rendered into a tortuous circus show–encaged rabbits and parrots were shamelessly used by the owner as pegs, along with rubber toys and plastic plants. Behind them was a wall of balloon targets at which people shot plastic bullets and win money. The loud noise made by the gun and the blasting sound of balloons startled the parrots every time, making them flapping their wings in the tiny cages in vain, again and again. The rabbits in the cages could hardly move around–lying on their urine and a few pathetic straws of grass, they were frightened and piteous.
- Animal Ring Toss in Northwestern China
Chloe Chen 