This medieval cycle of life and death starts immediately with the 80-yuan price of admission. For 10 yuan, he will bait a bamboo fishing pole with a live chicken or duck and demonstrate how to dangle it headfirst into a pit full of tigers. Pole-bearers jostle for position as children and onlookers squeal with delight at each tease and catch. The young tigers, naturally, rip the chickens and ducks to shreds, fighting over every carcass. But this is just a taster for the main event.
Hungry tigers await.
Hungry tigers are not what you see first. No one stops to read. Inside the dank, cold, concrete arena there is no such pretence. The tigers pace their cages below, the punters laugh and smoke and take their seats upstairs. A placid calf stands tethered to an iron gate, back to the wall, brown eyes impassive to its impending agony . . .