A line of glamorous visitors stood outside the Shanghai Museum twitching impatiently, tails flicking and whiskers quivering as they waited to be let in for the institution’s inaugural ancient Egypt cat night.
Feline tickets for Saturday night’s event sold out within days, as Shanghai’s devoted pet owners seized the chance to share an educational experience with their animals — and share the photos on the mostly pedigree cats’ personal social media accounts.
One pet owner said she had postponed a trip to Europe to ensure she could nab one of the 200 available tickets for her regal ginger “son.”
Photo: AFP
Trump — named for his physical and psychological resemblance to former US president Donald Trump — was dressed as a Chinese emperor, and blinked haughtily as journalists flocked around him with cameras.
“I cannot imagine my life right now without a cat,” his owner, Amy, said. “So I really can have the same feeling why Egyptian persons, they valued cats on such a level.”
The number of pets in China has soared, reaching more than 120 million last year, and cats are the most popular.
Photo: AFP
The trend is being driven largely by younger generations, many of whom see their “furred kids” as a cheaper substitute for human children, experts say.
The Shanghai Museum is capitalizing on that interest — Saturday’s event, heralded as a first in China, is just one of 10 planned cat nights.
As the guests of honor filed in, perched on shoulders or peering out of handbags, they had their vaccination and insurance records checked before they were transferred into a fleet of specially designed kitten-eared pet strollers.
Claire, who had dressed herself and her German Rex Tiedan in matching Egyptian costumes, said the exhibition showed that “cats have always been humans’ good friends.”
“Now young people are under great pressure, cats help us relieve a lot of mental pressure ... probably the same as in ancient times,” she said.
Cats were considered sacred in ancient Egypt, and associated in particular with Bast, a goddess of fertility, birth and protection.
“In the modern world, kitties are a symbol of cuteness, which is very different from” ancient Egypt, said a young woman named Feifei, clutching a resplendent white furball named Sticky Rice.
That cuteness has led to a surge in feline influencers and hopefuls. Many of the cats at the exhibition had their own social media accounts, and one or two appeared to have small teams helping produce content.
A section on Saqqara, a historic necropolis where archeologists unearthed dozens of cat mummies and artifacts from a newly discovered tomb, was filled with confused mews as the star visitors were photographed next to a Bast statue.
“There are many ancestors of cats here, I wanted to bring [Sticky Rice] to have a look,” Feifei said.
Like most of his fellow felines, Sticky Rice appeared largely unmoved by the historical experience.
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