Moral Education Imminent

Moral Education Imminent                             Hu Han

One may say the rising number of pets owned by Hong Kong people is a good sign in the sense that we have become a more loving population.  However, the recent animal torturing and slaughtering committed by some pathetic haters may prove otherwise, let alone the high number of pet animals abandoned over the years.  Pet keeping apparently has become one more dividing factor among the many for the people in Hong Kong.  Now it seems that someone cannot bear to watch somebody else’s ‘luxury’ to keep a pet or the loving relationship between the pets and their owners.

So what about the pet owners?  Do they set a moral standard for us the city-dwellers to abide by?  I found it in doubt when a single woman in her thirties told me that she could take care of her little dog until it dies but could not commit to the life-long engagement of a marriage. It comes in doubt when young couples keep pets in place of raising their own children.  While I cannot deny that caring an animal is a kind of love, I must argue that true love means from one human being to another, and mankind can only find true happiness in true love. 

No wonder there is so much distress, dislike and dissonance in Hong Kong.  We love pets only because they are controllable.  You can bring your dogs to anywhere you feel like.  You can dress them and shave them in any style at will.  You can even turn them into vegetarian carnivores.  Other than peeing in your bed, there is nothing much your pet can do to complain.  But it is slightly more complicated in raising a child.  Peeing in the pants is probably the least thing you would worry about.  They cry, scream, jump around and fall, spit milk in your face and get sick with no apparent reason.  When they grow bigger, they begin to talk back, run away from home, date the boy you want to kill and rebel without a reason.  That’s why the young couples are scared away from having a baby.  The crux is they are not mature enough to handle interpersonal relationships of that sort.  They are still spoiled children themselves.  The society has to teach them.  The young adults have to grow up, or else one tragedy would only be followed by another.