Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Elephants and other animals

The other day I received a beautiful postcard depicting an elephant as seen by our ancestors in the middle ages: a hairy animal, big and long-trunked, with bear-like feet - not a very close resemblance to the real thing but quite imposing. It had a gentle way about it, a kindness, even in the eyes of the artist of yesteryear, who must have seen it with more scared feelings than us.
I guess this is what I like so much about elephants - their strong but calm and tender outlook. They are gentle giants, with a temper but also with some form of wisdom (I know, I am attributing human qualities to an animal, not a fair practice).
In the same line of judgement, I cannot say I like monkeys, like another friend of mine does. I find them a caricature of humanness, an incomplete form of ourselves - I cannot get away from our too close resemblance...
If I were an animal, I guess I would be an elephant. Maybe to compensate for my small stature in this life :)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Aha, here is a note of elephant from me: about 5000 BC, they were still hanging around in northern China, the Yellow River basin area. even 300 years after China - as a nation - was first unified by Emperor Qin, they could be seen along the Yangtze river. however, now, only in the southern bordering area in between China and Vietnam, a few tens of elephants co-exist with local farmers.