PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Pyongyang’s newly opened zoo has a new star: Azalea, the smoking chimpanzee.
According to officials at the newly renovated zoo, which has become a favorite leisure spot in the North Korean capital since it re-opened in July, the 19-year-old female chimpanzee, whose name in Korean is “Dallae,” smokes about a pack a day. Dallae is short for azalea.
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 lit cigarette if one is tossed her way.
Though such a sight would draw outrage in many other locales, it seemed to delight visitors who roared with laughter on 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 thank you and do a simple dance.
The zoo is pulling in thousands of visitors a day with a slew of attractions ranging from such typical fare as elephants, giraffes, penguins and monkeys to a high-tech 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 come as a surprise to foreign visitors is the dog pavilion, which has everything from German shepherds to Shih Tzus. The zoo also has performances featuring other animals trained to do tricks, including a monkey that slam dunks basketballs, dogs trained to appear as though they can do addition on subtraction 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, as part of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s efforts to create more modern and impressive structures and leisure centers around the capital. The zoo actually dates back to 1959, when Kim Il Sung, the nation’s first leader and the grandfather of Kim Jong Un, ordered it built on the outskirts of the city.
According to its official history, the zoo started off with only 50 badgers.
This is the difference between America and other countries. Sick and tired of all the bullshit outrage America starts. Yea I get it, smoking causes lung cancer. We’ll get a million talk shows about the subject and people lobbying congress over it. North Korea on the other hand gives a loosey to a chimp until she becomes a habitual smoker and it becomes all the rage. Their dictator leader might be a sham and may be looming on the start of the next world war but they don’t care to focus on those things when they’re too busy hysterically laughing at Azalea touching her nose and smoking a pack a day.
Compared to the rest of the zoo attraction though, I could see how this is a big hit. You guys see what else they got going on at this zoo? This place SUCKS. We want to see tigers and lions and shit at zoo’s. Beast that we normally can’t see do some primal shit like eat meat. Yea some cute animals is fine and this place has some of that, but this zoo originally started with 50 badgers. What the fuck are we suppose to do with that? That’s like just having a bunch of skunks run around. What else do they have? Just a dog park pretty much. We get to look at dogs at home all the time and we play with them everyday. I want my zoo attractions to be more menacing like a gorilla or a cross bred liger that looks like it can swallow me in one bite. That’s why American Zoos are better. We got all the dopest animals. This zoo honestly sucks balls with out cigarette smoking chimp.
P.s- This chimp, if given a gun, is definitely smart enough to shoot all these people. If it knows how to bum a light off of another lit cigarette, guaranteed it can work a hammer and trigger.
The Ugly Orange 