Most locals come to visit the Nga Phe Kyaung Monastery not for religious reasons but for something very unexpected. Cats. In their boredom, the monks of the Nga Phe Kyaung monastery managed to train their cats to, of all things, jump through hoops. Yes. This is quite unlikely of cats. I normally consider cats to be full of pride and manipulative. Unlike dogs, letting them be trained is not something I describe them as.
Upon docking at monastery dock, there was already a cat sitting there greeting us. This was when I realize how important and cared for these cats are here. They do not seem to be afraid of humans and are perfectly comfortable with their presence. There were several other cats inside the monastery grounds, most of which were just lying around doing nothing.
We happened to chance upon local tourist group with a tour guide. The guide apparently knows how to make the cats do his bidding. He used the hoop to stroke the cats’ back and lifted the hoop up above their heads for the cats to see. If the cats feel like it, they would jump through the hoop. Some of the cats were have more pride than the others and refused to do it, tbey quickly get shoved aside in favor of the more willing ones. It was quite amusing to see this rather bizarre activity here in a monastery of all places.
It was quite dark in the monastery so the lighting wasn’t really that good. All my photos of the jumping cats were merely black blurs and totally unrecognizable. All this time, the monks were just sitting in his chair looking on. It seems that they have already deputized the tourist guides to make the cats jump for them so they can continue with their monk duties. After all it won’t be nice to interrupt monks just to see cats jump through hoops, right?
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