Hong Kong monkey show

Once, when in Hong Kong in the late 1980s, my brother and I saw a comically terrible circus with a drunken monkey trainer, with monkeys who clearly hated him.

He’d yell at them in Chinese. They screeched at him angrily as they they rode little bicycles around while wearing opera masks.

At one point one of them deliberately pooped on the cement walk that was the stage.

You know how when you go to a zoo you feel slightly guilty to see the animals in cages, and wonder if they are being treated well? And you tell yourself little lies to feel less guilty?

Well there was no way around this one. Those monkeys genuinely hated that guy.

My parents were mortified. The whole thing makes me smile when I think of it.