My Temporary Kitten

The Story of Kitten Little

The sky was not falling the day my friend and I walked down by the river in Tunxi.    And there was no little chicken sounding the familiar nursery rhyme cry.  But there was a cry.  A loud, distressing and ugly “weahhhh, weahhhh” from a tiny, orange rat-looking thing.   My friend heard and saw it first.  Upon inspection we discovered it was an incredibly young little kitten.  It had been left at the bottom of a staircase that led down to the path next to the river.  There was some sort of necklace or bracelet looped around its belly and there was a black plastic bag next to it.   Its four legs were splayed out and gripping desperately to the top of the cold, hard stone wall. 

I didn’t want a cat, and I certainly didn’t need one right then; I was about to go on a two week vacation.  But turning a blind eye when a little life is at stake is something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do.  So I nestled the tiny thing in the bend of my elbow and carried it home.  It wailed the entire time, drawing more pronounced and lingering stares from the locals than I already get simply by being a blond haired foreigner in China.

We stopped for a small box of milk and semi-force fed the little kitty with the straw once we got home.  When we held the kitty it cried.  When we tried to feed it, it cried.  When we put it down it trembled and looked helplessly around; and it cried.  So we held it.  Eventually kitty felt comfortable enough to fall asleep and we transferred it to its new nest of blankets and towels. 

My friend was staying at my apartment that weekend, and we had made some sangria with tasty French wine and fresh strawberries.  With these creative juices were flowing through us we thought of the perfect name for the little fur ball: Obamao.  Well, it was Obameow when we first said it, but Obamao was the official name, in part homage to the funny Obamao trinkets that can be found throughout China, but also because mao is the word for cat in Chinese.  Plus, its nickname could be Obi, like the alien looking dude from Star Wars because kitten actually sort of resembled Obi Wan.  Proud of our accomplishment, we drank some more sangria to celebrate.

When I woke up the next day and found Obamao still alive I was elated.  I kept dreading that I would lose the little bugger and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle the guilt.  My new mission in life was to keep this munchkin alive and to find it a good home.  Both of these things proved to be considerably more difficult to do in China than it would have been in the U.S. 

In the smaller cities in China, house pets are typically dogs, rabbits, turtles and fish.  Anything else kept in the home is most likely a future dinner menu item.  Because of this, finding anything for the kitten was tricky.  There was one type of kitten food in all of the supermarkets I visited, and it took me an entire week before I finally found kitty litter.  Even when I asked my Chinese friends where I could find it they had no idea what I was talking about.  And there are no cat vets in Tunxi.  I discovered this when I had my first cat crisis.     

It was about four days after finding Obamao that he took a turn for the worse.  I had managed to keep him alive for that long by constantly consulting my trusty kitten expert friend: the internet.  I was told that I had to keep kitty as warm as possible since it was still so young, that I had to help it go to the bathroom and I had to teach it to clean itself, and that feeding it cow’s milk is a big no-no.  Oops.  The good thing was I stopped feeding Obi cow’s milk after that first day.  Another good thing is that there’s an abundance of “kitten formula” recipes on the internet.  Unfortunately, nearly all of them required ingredients (KMR, evaporated milk, corn syrup, Pedialite) that either don’t exist in Tunxi, or if they do I can’t read the label anyway.  So I made a random mix of various ingredients I could find from the assortment of recipe lists.  I don’t think this was a good idea.  Though Obi got more energy and was at least getting some nutrients, he wasn’t going to the bathroom.  A few days later he started to look bloated, lost is appetite and his energy.  Based on these symptoms, the internet told me I should “take him to a vet immediately!”  Not helpful.  In the absence of a cat vet, I rushed tiny Obamao over to the little dog pet shop, and thankfully they were kind enough to indulge this frantic, teary eyed foreigner with a pathetic looking orange blimpy kitten with a pooping problem.

Through a mix of Chinglish and improvised sign language, they told me how to care for the little guy.   They got me a supply of puppy milk-replacement formula, some vitamins, feeding syringes and soft cotton; and they helped the kitten relieve himself.  For all the help and peace of mind they provided me with, they would accept no money for their service; they only charged me for the supplies.  Shortly after this issue got cleared up, I got a message from my friend telling me she found a family that wanted the kitten.  A lot of good shit was happening for Obamao that day!

Once on his new feeding regimen, Obi started doing much better.  And although he was still only about four weeks old, I thought it would be better to get him to the new family as soon as possible.  Problem was they lived in Hefei.  You can’t take pets on the trains, and we suspected the same would be true with the long distance busses.  But I had to chance it.  So a few days later, I packed up all of the supplies I had scavenged for Kitten Little, shoved him in a small box and headed for the bus station.  Whether it was because I am a foreigner or whether they actually allow pets on the bus is a mystery to me; bottom line was we made it through ticketing and security and onto a bus headed for Hefei.  The next major test was to see if I could keep him quiet.  I quickly found my seat, and to the shock of the man sitting next to me I took Obi out of the box and promptly put him under my shirt.  Strange as it may sound, this is the tried and true way to make him shut up.  As luck would have it, both Obamao and I were able to sleep peacefully (and quietly) for the entire four and a half hour ride. 

Saying goodbye was hard.  Keeping the kitten alive for two and a half weeks had been hard.  Seeing him alone on that stone wall and thinking about how he got there and what might have happened to him had been really hard.  But the hardest thing by far was waking up that next morning and not having him there.  Time is many things.  It flies when you’re having fun, it drags by when you’re in a hurry, it is money, and it heals all wounds.  I am thankful for this brief moment that Time granted me with my temporary kitten, and I know that in time I won’t miss him so much or so often.  I am thankful that Kitten Little is now with a wonderful and loving family, and I hope that Time grants them many happy years together.    

Blogger won't let me upload a picture right now, so here's a link to the photo album.