My Life with Animals
For a long time, people have had the belief that one way of being safe is ensuring that animals are far away from the metropolitan area. However, it is significant to note that things have changed in the current world as these animals are extremely close to the people. For instance, apart from the zoo, the pet store street is the place with the most animals in the city where I lived. The pet store street is very close to my house in Shanghai, China. There are thousands of people who browse around this street every day. This pet store street was there since I was in elementary school. Therefore, this paper is focused on illustrating how the pet store street has a great connection to my love of animals.
The overall arrangement of the pet store street is similar to the Outlets Mall primarily because there are many small pet store shops inside this big region. Additionally, the Pet Store Street has been divided into different districts for selling different types of pets. I went there almost every weekend since I discovered the place. Therefore, this place reminds me of my childhood, and reflecting upon this place triggers my interest in animals hence inspiring my academic enthusiasm. Because of the great number of visitors that frequent the Pet Store Street, I strongly suggest that it should be recognized or in other words, set as a scenic spot in Shanghai (ZHENG 2007). I firmly believe that everyone who goes to this pet store would love the place very much.
I tend to believe that I was, to a great extent, destined to be in the pet store street to enjoy all the amazing experiences that the place offers. This is primarily because I have been involved with fishes from as long as I can remember, and I am an animal lover since I was very young. According to my mother, my grandmother brought me a couple of goldfish from the pet store and kept them in the basin, when I was only two years old. Whenever I discovered any dirt in the basin, I would take another basin and change the water for the fish. It is to imply that I had a great responsibility for ensuring that the water for the fish remained clean and safe. I would catch the fishes from one basin and put them to the other basin. However, the fish died based on the idea that they could not adapt to the dramatic changes in water temperature (Wood 189-201). This is something that made me cry a lot. To me, this was a big loss. My grandmother, who saw the agony I was going through, brought me some new fishes as the means to soothe my sadness, but unfortunately, they also died. My mother would repeatedly tell me that the fish died because I was treating them as my toys. However, I would disagree with her because I saw these fishes as my friends, and I had no intention of killing them. I would change the water for the fish because I desired to give them a better environment where they could live healthily. I firmly believe that my lack of experience and knowledge in fish farming contributed to the death of these fishes that I loved dearly.
I would later begin to catch fishes that were available in the field with the help of my grandfather, and this was in my hometown. I once felled into a riverside from the canal as I was trying to catch fish. This accident caused me to have an injury at the back of my head, something that left a big scar there. However, this experience did not impact my love for fishes negatively. As such, I did not give up exploring this river as I was able to catch beautiful fishes from the same river later. After that, I always wanted to bring some original fishes from my hometown to Shanghai. Ever since I could read, I bought a lot of books from the bookstore which record a lot of ornamental fishes’ pictures and the breeding skills of each kind of fishes.
It is an accidental chance that made me become very connected to pet store street, which is near my home in Shanghai. Since then, there are many precious experiences from pet store street. The first time I visited the place, I was with my parents. The next time I got my first fish tank from the place. After that, I would secretly visit the place with my classmates after school and on various other occasions. The fact that I was raised in Shanghai rather than in my hometown made me miss a lot of opportunities to get beautiful original fishes from my grandfather’s field. It is imperative to realize that the pet store street continues to ignite my passion for study in fishes, as I could get so many more different fishes, which I never saw before.
The pet store street equips me with much knowledge as well as skills when it comes to fish farming. As far as I can remember, the first time I went to the Marine fish shop in that pet store was in spring, when I was in third grade in elementary school. That day, I walked into a Marine fish shop in that pet store, which I never visited before. What I saw in the fish shop are many tanks filled with a lot of corals, which are similar to what I had seen in Ocean Park. There were a lot of gorgeous Marine animals, for instance, “Nemo,” the clownfish, and “Doly,” the Blue Tang, from the Disney movie “Finding Nemo” (Evely 70). At that moment, I was fascinated by the magnificent sight in that fish shop. My mind was then occupied with one idea that I want to have my own Marine fish tank, which includes a lot of real corals and Marine fishes.
Since I am an activist, I immediately asked a lot about the difference between the freshwater fish and the Marine fish from the boss. I discovered that water happens to be the biggest difference, as there is fresh water and salty water. Therefore, I bought a bag of marine salt and a seawater hydrometer trying to make some seawater by myself. However, the fact that I did not conduct enough research before starting struck me again. I ended up making errors in something that led to the death of the fish in the saltwater I had just made. Even though there were a lot of difficulties in that period, after many trials and knowledge support from the boss of the marine fish shop and articles from the internet, I successfully knew how to make seawater correctly and kept marine fish. However, besides raising the marine fishes, raising coral is another topic since coral is much more based on seawater quality. The boss of the marine fish shop reminded me that coral is fragile; any of the element’s indexes of the seawater in the tank could make an irredeemable hurt to the coral (Chornesky 41-51). The advice from the boss and the articles posted by other fish lovers on the internet gave me a lot of knowledge support about raising the marine animals at that time. Again, I did a lot of trials before I successfully kept my first anemone. Even though there were many failed trials, the experience still gave me a tremendous sense of accomplishment. And, these experiences really broadened my horizons in the field of keeping Marine animals. Doing all of these was something that was triggered by my interaction with the pet store street.
It is imperative to remember that my hobby played a tremendous role in connecting well with the pet store street, including benefiting me in various other settings. For instance, I was selected as the Bio-corner in my elementary school, middle school, as well as in high school. This was all because I knew a lot about different animals. The knowledge, as well as the skills I gained in these settings, would later help me while in my interaction with animals. Almost all of my practical knowledge background is from that pet store street, which has a lot of different kinds of pet shops that have puppies, kittens, tortoises, pet snakes, lizards, etc. It allows me to have contact with different animals which people would never see in the city. I learned and also tried to raise those animals as well. Reflecting upon what happens in the Pet Store Street encouraged me to get my first Burmese tortoise and my first Sand Boa when I was in third grade in elementary school. Since then, my heart of raising animals was out of hand, and as a result, raising animals would take up almost all of my entertainment time.
When I was in my sophomore year in high school, my biology teacher heard of my experience from my father, and she offered an animal corner in the school that allowed me to raise my reptiles in there. Also, I spread a lot of knowledge about the reptiles or raising skills to my classmates and the students in other grades. I was happy and proud of that, and such an act gave me more motivation to study science. Meanwhile, this leads me to consider whether I need to choose Biology as my major in the future. Although I did not choose to study biology as my major in college, my hobby and my experiences gave me more motivation to study chemistry and physics, which is helpful in the way of getting success in my electrical engineering major.
In conclusion, it is proper to note that the pet store street is the place where all my best memories and dreams are derived from. The place continues my dream from my childhood; it satisfied my long for and curiosity about the creatures in the world, gives me more strong practical knowledge about raising animals; it gives me interest and perseverance in my study and life. Therefore, people need to have their own center of the world, which could allow them to keep dreaming, experiencing, as well as studying.