Meet Pyongyang’s smoking chimpanzee
PYONGYANG: Pyongyang’s newly re-opened zoo has a new star: Azalea, the smoking chimpanzee.
According to officials at the newly renovated zoo, which has become a favourite leisure spot in the North Korean capital, the 19-year-old female chimpanzee, whose name in Korean is “Dallae,” smokes about a packet a day.They insist, however, she doesn’t inhale.
Thrown a lighter by a zoo trainer, the chimpanzee lights her own cigarettes.
If a lighter isn’t available, she can light up from a lit cigarette if one is tossed her way.
Though such a sight would cause outrage in many other locales, it seems to delight visitors who roared with laughter yesterdayon Wednesday as the chimpanzee, one of two at the zoo, sat puffing away as her trainer egged her on.
The trainer also prompted her to touch her nose, bow a “thank you” and do a simple dance.
The zoo is pulls in thousands of visitors a day with attractions ranging from elephants, giraffes, penguins and monkeys to a hightech natural history museum with displays showing the origins of the solar system and the evolution of life on Earth.
Another of the most popular attractions that might surprise foreign visitors is the dog pavilion, which has everything from German shepherds to Shih Tzus.
The zoo also has other animals trained to do tricks, including a monkey that slam dunks basketballs, dogs trained to appear to do addition andsubtraction on an abacus and doves that fly around and land on a woman skating on an indoor stage.
Renovations for the new zoo began in 2014, part of North Korean leader Kim Jong- un’s efforts to create more modern and impressive facilities around the capital. – AP