More Fish--but not edible ones!

     I've learned an important life lesson recently:  When you're in a new place and somebody wants to take you somewhere -- anywhere -- you just jump into the car and go!   You never know what you'll see or discover.  Recently my friend picked me up and said, "I need to go to the pet shop and get holiday fish food.  Do you want to go along?"  "Sure," I answered, and hopped in the car, wondering what kind of food fish eat on holidays. 


       As it turns out, "holiday fish food" means food you give your tropical fish pets while you, yourself are away on holiday.  It's compressed so it takes the fish a few days to get through it.  By then, presumably, you're back from your trip and you find that your fish are very hungry, but not yet dead of starvation.

     So, she took me to one of the most interesting and best-run places I've ever seen here in Penang.  It's the CTY Aquarium (named after the owner, I suppose, Chew Thean Yeang).  Evidently it's  the largest live fish shop in Southeast Asia.  It's actually a very well-equipped pet shop, but the fish are the star attractions.  They are everywhere!  And every tank has a "no photo taking" sign above it.  But how could a person resist?  Obviously, I didn't!

   There were all the usual little guppies and thing, but oh, so much more!  There were small rays and goggle-eyed goldfish.  There were "koi," of course, and they were much cheaper than I'd expected, based on Japanese prices.  In many cases, the green plants that go into the aquariums were more expensive than the fish themselves. 

     I was greatly impressed by the cleanliness and beautiful organization of this place, and by how well-stocked it was, too. They were very careful that people who were helping themselves to fish (to buy, not eat!) didn't use the same net in different tanks.  One aquarium, one net.  I was also amazed that they actually allowed people to choose their own fish and put them into their "buying buckets."  They'd never let you do that in Japan!

      Besides the masses of fish and all the excited kids and their dads around them, there were live animals, too.  The most interesting to me were the sugar gliders, sweet, cuddly little critters who were happily chomping away at live, wriggling worms.  They must be Japanese, who also sometimes like to eat food that's still wriggling on the tongue!


     One sad thing was the two raccoons that were in a small glass box with no water anywhere in sight.  My friend says they've been there since they were babies and the price has dropped, but still nobody has bought either one.  Who on earth would want to buy a raccoon as a pet in Malaysia?  And are they even allowed to import them into this country?  Why can't they at least give them some water to wash their food?    I was very surprised to see that in a shop that was otherwise amazingly clean, professional and well-run.
                                 
       But Malaysia isn't the only country that does this. I remember in a Tokyo pet shop seeing a meerkat, one of the most sociable animals in the world, kept in solitary confinement all his life.  How sad he was!  It was the time when Lion King was popular and, well, I guess they thought someone would pay their outrageous price just to have one.   All of this in the name of allowing people to have obscure animals as pets.  Oh, well -- it's better than eating them, I guess.  Or carrying them around.  Today I saw a young gal gal out and about carrying a snake around in a cat carrier.   How's that for weird?