Everyday musings on the life of my cute, white rabbit

By Craig McIntosh (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-01 15:31

Some are born great and some have greatness thrust upon them," according to William Shakespeare. Profound, and you'd be hard pushed to find anyone who disagreed.

However, a more difficult task would be finding someone who disagreed with the same statement only with the word "greatness" replaced with "pets".

I, sadly, fall into the second category. I have had a pet thrust upon me and have little choice but to accept my fate and wear my crown as food-giver to a furry nation of one.

As pets go, he's not a bad little fellow: A cute, white rabbit with the face of an angel and the appetite of a bulldog. But that's not my gripe. My problem is I have no idea how to look after him (I presume he's a he!).

The story of how this little fellow has come to set up home on my balcony is a disturbing and, I fear, not a unique one in this or any other country. An unwanted birthday gift, he was about to be released back into the wild of downtown Beijing to fend for himself and be one with nature when my girlfriend intervened.

Having a head as soft as my girlfriend's heart, I agreed to take him in, on condition she agreed to follow him around my flat at all times with a dustpan and brush.

What has been scary is how we have cooed over this animal endlessly for the last several weeks like he was a newborn child.

What has been REALLY scary is some of the posts on Chinese online forums we have endeavored to visit to make sure everything he does is "normal" (well, he is only two months old, we want to know he's developing right).

One guy on the "ask Baidu" pages asked: "My rabbit gets too hot in the summer. What can I do?" The reply, which most of you will probably guess, went something like "try using less chili in the hotpot".

Another concerned pet lover mused: "My rabbit has very warm ears, should I put him in the refrigerator for a while?"

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