Go to the Circus

2017: When I first heard of the Great British Circus, I thought it was a sham. You know how in Malaysia, people like to give their businesses faux-French names, putting the prefix 'De' in front of everything? Or they may love the Japanese culture so much, they give themselves Japanese nicknames and make me wonder why I have so many Japanese people on my friend list.

I thought the circus was something like that--some local performers calling themselves the Great British Circus, because it sounded cooler than if you were to name it 1Malaysia Circus. For some reason, I just didn't think a circus troupe would travel all the way from England to come to...Malaysia, of all countries? Singapore or Hong Kong wouldn't be so surprising, but Malaysia? Perhaps I was being too cynical, or too condescending towards my own country.

The good news was that the Great British Circus didn't feature any animal act. Although it would be thrilling to watch large animals doing tricks up close, especially since I had never been to a circus before, the amount of torture that went into training those animals was enough to haunt me for life.

So what's the issue with having animal acts in circuses anyway? This may sound like a stupid question to most of you, but I had a friend who was genuinely perplexed when I mentioned to her about an animal-free circus. She didn't see why anyone would want to have a circus without animals. This was the same friend who couldn't understand why I said I loved animals when I didn't like going to the zoo. In this age of information and technology, it's hard to imagine that there are people (with smartphones) who could still be living in their bubble of ignorance, but there are.

• 71% of the observed animals had medical problems
• 33% of tigers and lions did not have access to an outdoor enclosure
• Lions spend on average 98% of their time indoors
• An average enclosure for tigers is only 5 m²
• Elephants are shackled in chains for 17 hours a day on average
• Tigers are terrified of fire but are still forced to jump through fire rings
• Since 1990 there have been over 123 cases of lion attacks at circuses

- Wageningen University

According to PETA, during an undercover investigation, a video footage showed an animal trainer using electrical shock prods and bell hooks on elephants. He allegedly instructed the other trainers to "beat the elephants with the bell hooks as hard as they can, and sink the sharp metal hook into the elephant's flesh and twist it until they scream in pain". If that doesn't put you off yet, I don't know, maybe you should go and replace the elephants.

My partner and I went to the Great British Circus in Anggun City, Rawang. There were different ticket prices for VIP, Standard, and Hot seats. We bought the cheapest ones, of course. We sat on a hard bench while the VIPs had chairs, probably plastic chairs, but wrapped in black fabric, in an area cordoned off by rope barricades, right in front of the stage. But it was a small place--a circus tent--so there really wasn't that much difference between a standard seat and a VIP seat. The standard seats were behind the VIPs, but we were still very near to the stage. I think the hot seats were somewhere in between--we didn't really notice.

It was a two-hour show, featuring acts by tightrope walkers, contortionists, trapeze artists, jugglers, clowns, acrobats. In between acts, while they were preparing the stage, the clowns would come out to entertain the guests, particularly children. I think my favorite act was the acrobatics. I don't really like clowns, because slapstick comedy doesn't amuse me. The other acts were very entertaining. How incredible it was to see what the human body was capable of doing. It was like watching the videos of The Awesome People page, but in real life.

Enjoy the videos: