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PART 11
on 2010-06-03 (54 reads)
By Tegan Chubb
| Recently I began keeping goldfish, as for a while I have wanted to have a pet. But as I am living in an apartment, it's difficult having a dog or cat. Goldfish are easy to have even in small spaces, so I decided to get one. Having a pet again reminded me of how different the culture of keeping animals is by people in Japan compared to Australia. A lot of people in Perth are able to live in a house with a large garden, so it is easy to keep a large dog. But in the much more crowded suburbia of Japan where people live a lot closer to one another, there's not really a lot of space for that. If you're living in the city in Japan, you can only really choose from a small dog or cat, goldfish or tropical fish. Only if you lived in the country would you be able to consider a large dog. I have kept goldfish as pets in the past, and find that they are just so adorable. I have also had tropical fish also, but goldfish are my favourite. Now I have 1 little gold fish, swimming about happily in a little goldfish bowl (at least I think he looks happy). When I was living in Japan, a very long time ago I once tried "Kingo Sukui" (fishing for goldfish) at a summer festival. It is really quite hard to do. Even though I thought it must be very scary for the goldfish being chased around and felt sorry for them, children seemed to be enjoying it immensely. I decided to try just once for myself, but found that the paper scoop broke very quickly. But I was still able to catch 4 little goldfish. At the time I was living alone and thought it would be nice to have some company in my apartment. The stall lady put my goldfish into a clear bag for me to hold while walking around the festival. But thinking back to it now, that really must have been so frightening for the goldfish, poor little things. I took them home and put them in a bucket, but didn't have any food to give to them. Not knowing what else to feed them, I gave them breadcrumbs. But unfortunately the next day all 4 had died. As fun as it was for me, I really felt sorry for the poor goldfish! Thinking about pets, I just remembered how surprised I was to discover that in Japan, certain types of animals come in and out of "fashion". While I was there, small dogs like Chihuahuas and Maltese were popular, but I wonder what is in fashion now? There seemed to be a lot of people who really wanted to own the latest popular breed. I didn't understand it at all. As dogs can live for about 15 years, even if it's popular now, doesn't mean that it will still be popular in a few years. |
I think it's much more important to own a pet which suits the personality and home of the owner. In the same way, I feel sorry for dogs from cold climates such as Siberian Husky's etc to live in hot places like Australia. But before I went to Japan, I had never even considered that things such as pet breeds could be a fashion item, so perhaps this culture isn't as strong in Australia? So I find Japan (and Japanese people probably find Australia?!) fascinating in that way! Ever since I was little, my family have always owned pets. The first that I remember, were 2 cats that we looked after when I was about 3 years old. There are a lot of photos of me as a baby, trying to grab the tails of the cats as they ran away from me. Then as I grew a bit bigger, we also had 2 dogs as well as the 2 cats, and the house must have been like a zoo! My brothers and sisters and I would take the dogs for walks, feed and wash the pets, which I'm sure was quite a lot of work for us, but it was a really good learning experience and I have so many happy memories! I'd like to have a pet now, but there are many other things to consider when you're an adult. Firstly, if you're going to own a dog, you have to ensure that you have an appropriate place for them to live. For example if you're renting, it would be an issue if your landlord didn't allow pets. Also even if the place you're staying in at the moment is ok, it might become a problem if you need to move house. If you like travel, you have to think about who is going to look after the pet while you're away. Lastly the costs of food, medicine and vet bills may become quite expensive for you. So I think it's important to be careful, and to have your own long-term accommodation and consider all of the possible expenses before committing to owning a pet. So for the moment, I'm happy to enjoy my goldfish! I'll do my best for them to grow up big and healthy! I'm inviting comment from readers of JA News to let me know directly what you think. You can contact me on teganjanews@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you! |
