SKIRMISHER

China’s “crudish” version of Big Brother is admittedly on a much lower budget than its Western inspirations, but what it lacks in creature comforts, it makes up with lots of raunchy simian action. Six people in the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi are going to live in a monkey enclosure in Qinling zoo in Xi’an with all the monkeys, and the one who outlasts the others wins 11,888 yuan (€1,182) and shall henceforth be honored with the enviable title of “animal lover.”

The idea behind the contest is apparently to allow contestants to “experience the lack of freedom the animals have,” the [China Daily] paper said. Critics of Chinese state censorship and human rights abuses might be tempted to ask if citizens really need to enter a zoo to experience restricted freedom, however.

“It is the first such activity in China,” the [China Daily] newspaper reports, stipulating that “any Chinese from 18 to 60 years old, in good psychological condition” was eligible to take part. It added, somewhat ominously, that “survival knowledge” was a further prerequisite.

We only have sketchy ideas on which monkey species these six humans will be dealing with, but somebody tipped us off on the possibility that the naughty Chinese state might either try to slip in at least one convicted rapist dressed up in a very convincing monkey suit to test the patience of the participants, or send in an aggressive Jehova’s Witness minister (also in a monkey suit) to proselytize on the finer points of the coming rapture — which we imagine would be a very tough job especially if you’re not allowed to speak in human language and you’re required to let your penis dangle before millions of TV viewers.

via DER SPIEGEL

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