Year of the Snake

[CRaZy]

Just reminding you that it's Chinese New Year today and its officially the year of the SNAKE. I personally like snakes as long as they keep away from me. Panadolboy has been bitten by one. It seems that a night spent delerious in hospital made him paranoid for life.

Here in Australia of course, we have the deadliest snakes in the world. Can kill you in seconds. Not like the pathetic old rattler which has such slow moving poison that you have time to ride to the nearest town, hold a shootout, chat up the barmaids then suck out the venom.

In England and Europe they don't really have snakes except for people who insist on keeping dangerous Australian and South American species as pets. Go figure.

So...in this Year of the Snake does anyone have any particular opinions/stories about this interesting reptile?

 

[Cheyenne]

Nope, not going there. Let's just say I hate snakes.

"Kiss my asp."

 

[Ambrosious]

Snakes

Now that there is good eatin'!

 

[CRaZy]

A S-s-snake story before bed

In Taipei there is a temple called Snake Temple and right behind it there is a road known locally as "Snake Alley". This is the city's red light district. At the start of the alley are dozens of grimy little stalls offering snake blood potions because Chinese believe these make you virile. In order to attract customers, the owners put on "shows". These might involve milking snakes, letting a snake bite them then squeezing the poison back out or putting two different species of snake in a cage to fight (bloody cruel I know). Most of these owners had the tips of several fingers missing. I often wondered why. One night, an owner was doing a show and while he was putting a snake in a cage it bit him. This had happened before and usually these handlers just took a large capsule which I assume was some sort of antivenene (sp? it's late). Anyway, this snake must have been particularly poisonous because his wife brought a large, sharp knife, he placed his hand flat on the counter and she chopped the tip off then and there. He grimaced a bit, then bound it tightly in what looked to be a rag.

The best entertainment was at one particular stall where the owner would hold up two snakes which looked the same. He would then explain the differences between the poisonous and non poisonous one. The climax occurred when he would juggle them then fling one of them (the non poisonous one we always hoped) into the audience. The crowd would disperse amid screams and mayhem. It was all fun and games until one night, hours later, they still had not found the snake which had been thrown. The girls who plied their wares in the makeshift shacks further up the alley were none too happy. They were only used to one type of snake and this certainly wasn't it!!!

On that note...good night.

[Edited by CRaZy on 01-24-2001 at 05:18 AM]