Businessman Frank Pong, 63, is a key benefactor of the Animals Asia Foundation and recently visited its rescue centre in Chengdu to unveil a statue to its mascot Andrew the bear. Mr Pong believes bringing about a change in attitudes on the mainland may take a generation or more
The statue captures Andrew's spirit very well. He was one of the very first bears to be rescued and he had lost his left paw - he had been treated terribly. Some of these bears have been kept in a tiny cage for 20 years and they still have no grudge against humans, which is strange. Maybe they are smart enough to know that these humans are the ones who freed them and are different from the others.
Everyone loved Andrew. He was named after my eldest grandson who was only around one year old in 2000 when Andrew was rescued. Going to Chengdu to unveil the statue was my first visit to the rescue centre. It's a very good centre but it makes you realise the scale of the task. There are thousands of bears. How do you look after them all?
Bear farming started from the point of view that if you kill the bear for one little sack of bile they will die out very soon. People thought 'Why don't we keep the bear alive so we don't have to kill every one of them?' It was a sort of compromise and yet it ended up as a probably more inhumane method. You'd have to ask the bear. What would he prefer? To be killed or to be kept in a cage so small he can't scratch himself. It's like being put in a bathtub for 20 years with a lid on top.
We do all sorts of things to other animals as well, of course, but the bears are intelligent. You have to draw the line somewhere, and I draw the line where the animal is aware. I believe cats and dogs are aware of death. Bears certainly are. Monkeys and primates and elephants are. You have to decide for yourself where you draw the line.
The suffering of these animals is terrible but you have to be careful in the way you approach these issues because of people's reactions. If you thrust these things into people's faces, they may become so reviled they just turn away and don't want to know anything more about it.
You need to bring out the awareness of the suffering that these animals are put to but on the other hand you don't want to be too graphic. If you are, people would rather not know about it. It turns them off too much.
