Taipei pet shop strives to break down anti-snake prejudice

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — 

As the Year of the Snake approaches, a favored store successful Taipei is offering adventurous customers an accidental to bask the institution of snakes portion sipping coffee, hoping to interruption down immoderate of the prejudice against the animal.

Taiwan has been plastered with images of the reptile up of the commencement of the Lunar New Year, which starts connected Wednesday and whose zodiac carnal this twelvemonth is the snake.

The snake has a mixed estimation successful accepted Taiwanese and Chinese civilization arsenic a awesome of either bully oregon bad.

Some of Taiwan's Indigenous peoples venerate snakes arsenic guardian spirits, and portion the land is location to taxon perchance deadly to humans, including vipers and cobras, deaths are uncommon fixed the wide availability of anti-venom.

Luo Chih-yu, 42, the proprietor of the Taipei favored store Pythonism which opened successful 2017, is offering imaginable snake owners the accidental to interact with snakes implicit a cupful of coffee.

"I supply a abstraction for radical to effort and experience, uncovering retired whether they similar them without immoderate prejudice," helium said.

Liu Ting-chih took his girl to the shop, who looked curiously astatine the animals successful their cages.

"Through this enactment she tin larn however to instrumentality attraction of tiny animals and cherish them," Liu said.

Sub-tropical and mountainous Taiwan is location to immoderate 60 autochthonal snake species.