In a world of social media and short-form videos, the fastest and most efficient form of ‘healing’ is none other than animal videos. Furry animals like cats and dogs enjoy huge popularity, even commanding fandoms, while rare animals draw attention precisely because they are rare. In an era of ten million pet owners, with a Fubao syndrome in full swing and a meme that says it is only polite to attach a photo when mentioning the animal you keep, familiarity and affection toward animals run high. The animals that are loved across species, however, are usually young and healthy. Accounts that gain popularity often bring in a new young animal just as the previous one grows up, and accounts that rescue and promote adoption lament how hard it is for adult animals to find homes. I remember an essay I happened upon long ago while reading a magazine. Only young animals appear in the media, the writerwho kept a senior dogwondered why animals that had grown old, sick, and shabby were being pushed out of sight. It was a point I had never considered. True. “Where did all those young animals (once they grow up, grow old, and get sick) go?” I burst into tears reading a piece that confessed boundless affection for a senior dog who was no longer the star of the cute photos people wanted to see. Animals also grow old; their bodies change; they suffer illnesses or have disabilities. Yet it is remarkably hard to encounter this obvious fact as a matter of course. The setting of SBS Special <The Strange Zoo> (Netflix), released on January 18, is Cheongju Zoo. The reason this zoo is called an ‘odd zoo’ is that it takes in animals that are old or disabled.

The documentary <The Strange Zoo> follows the efforts of Cheongju Zoo and its veterinarians to change the meaning and direction of the conventional “zoo” space. As the nation’s first hub zoo, Cheongju Zoo emphasizes not only advanced medical equipment but also the protection, rescue, and conservation of wildlife. In particular, the ‘People Hall’, where visitors can freely enter and experience being confined like the animals, drew attention on social media. A sign out front reads, “Cheongju Zoo has decided to no longer use small spaces for animal husbandry. There are entrances on both sides, so please feel free to come in and become a zoo animal. This was the space where a lynx lived.” The change at Cheongju Zoowhich until a few years ago had the narrowest tiger enclosure in the countrywas led by veterinarian Kim Jeong-ho, the documentary’s protagonist. He is also known for rescuing a “rib-thin lion” from an indoor zoo that had neither soil nor grass, where only its jutting ribs remained. After being moved to Cheongju Zoo, the lion was given the name ‘Barami’, which carries the wish that he live freely. Barami, too, had once been at an ordinary zoo; as he grew old and his popularity waned, he was sold to an indoor zoo with even worse conditions. In that indoor zoo, which made money by selling skewers to visitors, they failed to provide Barami with proper food in an attempt to boost skewer sales. As sensitivity to animal rights began to grow and his shocking appearance spread, the Barami case provoked a huge public outcrybut in truth, such husbandry or convenience-driven abuse had been quite common. Even Cheongju Zoo once kept the birds hungry so they would step onto visitors’ palms during a bird-feeding experience. There were countless indoor zoos and hands-on events, and above all, human amusement was what mattered. In the process, injured, aging, and dead animals all vanished as if nothing had happened, to be replaced by new ones.

Now Cheongju Zoo focuses not on flashy, crowd-pleasing animals like elephants or giraffes, nor on acquiring many species, but on protecting native animals that cannot live in the wild. Although he believes that zoos should disappear someday, if they cannot be abolished immediately, veterinarian Kim Jeong-ho has thought hard about what role they can playand that conviction is reflected here. At Cheongju Zoo you can see animals you rarely encounter at other zoos, such as an eagle with a twisted beak, an otter with cataracts, and an elderly tiger named Iho (the twenty-year-old tiger Iho passed away recently). In <The Strange Zoo>, Kim Jeong-ho says, “In the past, if an animal was injured at a zoo and became disabled, it was kept in the back area. So, is it hard to show (disabled animals)? Do people feel uncomfortable? As we started bringing in animals with permanent disabilities, I think people began to empathize to some extent. … It is a bit strange, is it not, if a disabled animal takes a lap around the zoo and is nowhere to be seen?” The narration chimes in: “What is really strange?”

The title ‘Strange Zoo’ questions a world that makes Cheongju Zoobecause it takes in old and disabled animalsseem like an odd place. This standard is not applied solely to animals just because they are animals. The urge to shove aside beings who are old, ill, ugly, or different in form as ‘uncomfortable to look at’ is simply a violence repeated upon animals. Cheongju Zoo does not conceal or prettify birth, aging, sickness, and death; it shows them as they are. That process is not an object of spectacle but the cycle of life that comes to everyone. “(Visitors) used to like only animals that were young, lively, and cute, but these dayseven including Baramipeople have come to understand that older animals inevitably have to be at the zoo too. We need to make sure those friends live well,” Kim says, noting that a shared empathy has formed among citizens. Middle-aged and older visitors feel kinship with aging animals, and visitors with disabilities call to say they are grateful to be able to see disabled animals. The screen fills with pages from Dr. Kim’s diary, in which he witnessed the discrimination and exclusion faced by his brothers with disabilities. “Wild animals that cannot return to the wild come to the zoo and continue their lives. Children who come to the zoo will see and hear the stories of how they were rescued and live on, and at the schools those children attend, my older brotherwill no longer be an idiot.”

<The Strange Zoo> is a two-part documentary. Part 1 emphasizes the term ‘an animal you know’. Once you recognize an animal in any way and feel something for it, that animal becomes a being you know. The moment you realize you are not unrelated to another being’s pain and sorrow, you awaken as an ethical subject. Hearing that a dog he happened to meet would be sold the next day, veterinarian Kim once stole the dog. The scene in which he confesses that, ‘knowing it was wrong’, he still could not look away even while accepting the consequences, is powerful. The members of Cheongju Zoo strive to save the animals they know, and visitors come not to gawk but to “see an animal they know”. Death is no different. Cheongju Zoo has a memorial hall. Animals that pass away at the zoo do not simply disappear; they remain in memory as beings with names and records. They are animals we knowcreatures who shared the world with us and formed relationships. In Part 2, the core word is ‘responsibility’. The desire to save. Injured capybaras, sea turtles, Asiatic black bears, and Himalaya Taalsha are transported to the zoo. Heaters are turned on in the hope the animals might be a little warmer, and ways to save them are sought, yet some still pass away. The weight of those judgments and outcomes rests entirely on the people closest to them. The responsibility conveyed in Part 2 encompasses not only veterinarians, but also the sense of responsibility of people who encounter animals in everyday life. Part 2 briefly includes a special lecture by Dr. Kim. Children raise their hands and brightly call out the species and number of ‘animals they have kept’. It is still common to buy animals easily, care for them at one’s convenience, and then neglect or abandon them. In some respects, an animal you know is a being entangled solely by highly self-centered reasons and the will of ‘me’. The meaning of taking responsibility to the very end is worth mulling over.

Animal rights are still treated as a secondary optionor as making a fussamid the cynicism that “humans can hardly get by as it is.” The documentary concludes that the efforts of the animals, Cheongju Zoo, and the veterinarians are ultimately “because at least in this moment we are living together in this world.” Not because animals are cute or lovable, or because they give humans ‘healing’ and ‘comfort’. Coexistence is therefore neither a choice nor charity. There is still a long way to go, but as Cheongju Zoo has shown, the process requires opportunities to ‘form relationships’ with animals in all their variety. In the media, and in the flesh-and-blood reality we share.

I am preparing to part with an old, sick dog. Akongi, eighteen years old, suddenly became unable to walk and came to the brink of death before barely being revived. I feel with urgency that the time left is short. A smelly, scruffy, unprepossessing dog. A dog who cannot come to greet me or act cute. I love and take responsibility for the dog who is living ahead of time the future that will someday come for you and me. Over the old and ailing animals in <The Strange Zoo>, Akongi’s face and fur overlap.

What is the best that a human who knows an animal can do for an animal they know?