Tropic Museum and Tropic Animals

In a strange combination of activities, we decided to go to the Tropenmuseum which is essentially the Dutch attempt in recognizing and apologizing for all of its, not so wonderful, imperialism that conquered and enslaved much of Africa and the East Indies, as well as the Artis Royal Zoo. Funny enough, it also housed things appropriated from other continents and held against their will.

All joking aside, the Tropenmuseum which simply translates to tropics museum was pretty interesting. It housed quite a bit of relics that showed their formerly vast, incredibly abuse empire including weapons from the period as well as stolen treasures from the people they enslaved. In fact, the whole museum, with the exception of a small exhibit that showed the brutality of Japanese occupation in Indonesia during WWII, just seemed to beg for an apology for what it had done in the past. As a student of history, I appreciated the painful admission of guilt they had displayed so proudly, yet I could not seem to fully enjoy the exhibits. I do not know why, but I feel that the strange combination of repentance while still grinningly displaying your former power over helpless indigenous peoples is just off-putting in a broad way.  

In the more cheery part of the day, the Artis Royal Zoo was incredibly beautiful. Every inch of the park was replete with close, engaging animal enclosures, fountains, and well manicured parks. Of course, many of the animals they housed our own Pittsburgh Zoo had as well, but somehow, in a quarter of the space they were able to fit twice as many animals. Penguins, elephants, and giraffes were displayed alongside more exotic animals I had never seen before in person including tapirs, red pandas, and anteaters. It was simply a delight and I am a little embarrassed to admit that I took exactly 280 pictures at that zoo. In fact, I saw a penguin yawn and I stood there for over ten minutes waiting for it to yawn again to take a photo. In case you wonder later, that is why there is about five pictures of the same penguin due to me missing his yawn and trying again. One other fun anecdote from the zoo, the second enclosure we saw after the water buffalo was a group of tapirs, anteaters, capybaras, and patagonian maras. You will see in my pictures how close a tapir got to me and I was enjoying how close and friendly the animals appeared to be, and I was impressed with how close the visitors were to the animals. Well, maybe I should not have been too glad about that part owing to the fact that, again, second group of animals in, my new tapir buddy turned around and aggressively shot out a liquid (that I pray is urine) out of its backside and, despite a quick sidestep, ended up all over my right pant leg. So yea, I got literally pissed on by an exotic animal. Is that a Hallmark moment? In any case, it definitely made the trip more memorable. I took pictures of most of the animals I saw, like a total tourist I should add, so my pictures will paint quite the picture of my experience. Also, I just wanted to add this little tidbit, guess what the most popular exhibit looked to be, of all things, more people hung around the enclosure of North American animals than any other. Dozens of people stood in awe of the rodents we try to kill or shoo from our backyards including our fantastic little bandit, the racoon and our, never welcome, skunk. Funny that there most popular part of the zoo is two little pests that most people in Pennsylvania can see in their backyards or as roadkill. Hey, I guess American animals are interesting to people that have never been to America, makes you wonder if people from Africa become bored of big cats. The Artis Royal Zoo was very enjoyable and I am very grateful that I strayed enough to enjoy something I probably would have otherwise missed and I am also grateful that every single aspect of that zoo strived to be beautiful, just wait until you see the entrance, even that was a work of art.

First, here are the few photos I took at the Dutch "We're sorry we were awful and killed hundreds of thousands of your people museum" - which they euphemize as the Tropenmuseum.

Statue outside of Tropenmuseum

Art created by Indian muslims showing one of their temples.

Hindu altar (I think)

The Knaud Kris, the oldest surviving Kris in the world

More more elaborate krises with details of the hilts following:

Dutch Swivel Gun

Officer swords and Dutch officer's uniform

Coat of Arms of the Netherlands

Incredibly strange tribal fertility stature that depicts the genitalia
of both a male and female. I kinda thought it was interesting and that is the only reason it is here.

Very glarey headon photo of a canoe's prow designed to look like a crocodile

Same canoe prow from a different angle

Native boat models

I think Senegalese weapons

A bunch of tribal weapons

Modern art created from the parts of AK-47s confiscated in
 post-Civil War Mozambique, called "Peace Bird"

Facade of Tropenmuseum

Next, and due to shear quantity, I am not going to caption any of my Artis Zoo pictures. Just keep a look out for the very close pictures of the tapir- he or she is the one that unkindly urinated on my leg.

Here's the culprit ^