Hamster Family Connections
謝文珊 (Hannah Wen-Shan Shieh)
實踐大學應用外語學系副教授
A Golden Hamster
During his expedition to Syria in early 1839, the British zoologist George Robert Waterhouse (1810-1888) discovered a small animal in the desert outside the Syrian city of Aleppo. He named his find Cricetus auratus, which is translated as “Golden Hamster.” Looking into her black and surprisingly large eyes, George made a secret wish: “I wish that I could be a hamster and live but three springs.” Three years as a hamster, George thought, would bring more delight than fifty human summers could ever contain.
In the blink of an eye, the pretty rodent escaped his grip and ran back into her sandy burrow. As spring approaches, hamsters groom themselves several times a day and start looking for mates. The male hamster enters the female’s territory and marks the grass near her burrow with his scent. If the female hamster is receptive, she will sniff the male and allow him to investigate her head, ears and genital area. If the male hamster tries to overcome the female’s instinctive reluctance by force, she will respond by jumping nervously and biting him about his face and scrotum.
Hamsters do not make many sounds. They save their talk for important situations. Both male and female hamsters chatter their teeth rhythmically during courtship. Once mating is over, they revert to their solitary way of life.
As George awoke one night from sweet dreams he found himself transformed back into an ideal husband. Not wanting to disturb his wife and their young baby, he struggled to hold back his tears. Later that morning (the 9th of April, 1839), he would unveil the discovery of this new species at a meeting of the Zoological Society of London.
Golden and Beige
She could never forget her first pair of hamsters. Her family had never owned pets before because her parents could never agree on the type of pet. Her father was a dog person, while her mother was a cat person. Her mother thought dogs were too attention-seeking and in need of regular outdoor exercise, which was too time-consuming. Her father found cats haughty and nonchalant. After she and her two older sisters were born, however, her parents compromised their first choices and settled for small mammals. Her parents were both very busy at work, and her sisters studied abroad back then. They decided to purchase a pet to keep her company. Rabbits? No, their excrement was sticky and smelly. Guinea pigs? No, they always let out piercing shrieks. Gerbils? No, their long tails reminded them too much of their unwelcome fellow rodents—mice and rats. Eventually, her parents chose hamsters, which were scrupulously clean, quiet and had very short tails. Most importantly, their short life expectancy made them perfect pets for children, who tend to lose interest in pets quickly. It was her mother who, in spite of her own experience of marriage and childbirth, insisted on purchasing a pair of hamsters instead of a single one. “One on its own might be lonely,” she said.
On the girl’s eleventh birthday, a pair of Syrian hamsters joined the family. From the very first time she saw the two little creatures scurrying about the cardboard box lined with shredded newspaper, she knew she would love hamsters for the rest of her life. She called the male hamster Golden because of its golden-brown fur that is typical of its wild Syrian forebear. Golden was a handsome hamster. He had dark patches on both of his cheeks with off-white crescents behind. His large eyes were black, bright, and rimmed with a circle of dark fur as if he wore black eyeliner. Golden was a gentle hamster. When she tried to approach Golden with her right hand, he did not bite but sniffed her fingers.
Within two weeks he became so tame that he would sit at ease in her hand, stripping off the outer husk from a sunflower seed with his sharp incisors and dexterous front paws. Another endearing characteristic of Golden was that he always groomed himself thoroughly after being handled. “Look, Daddy and Mummy, Golden is performing again!” She considered Golden’s grooming ceremony as the best art performance she had even seen. Sitting on his “built-in cushions” (later she realised those two pink lumps were his testicles), Golden began with the head. With circling motions, he ran his front paws along his outstretched tongue and stroked several times against the direction of the fur—first over the muzzle, then over the entire head. In between, he kept licking his paws. Twisting rather acrobatically, he then rubbed his belly, back, forelegs and thighs. Afterwards, he used tongue and hind paws to help comb through the places he could not reach with his front paws. After watching Golden’s grooming performance, her father said something she could not fully understand: “How dirty human beings and this world are! Golden knows!”
The female hamster was named Beige after her creamy-brown coat. Like a peahen which is less colourful than a peacock, Beige was less attractive than her male partner. Compared to Golden, her eyes looked smaller and the colour of the patches on her cheek was lighter and less vivid. Beige was not as quickly and tame as Golden was and exhibited more personality. On one occasion she tried to grasp Beige from above, but the alert hamster wriggled and bit her. Her thumb was stapled by Beige’s incisors and left with two small blood-stains. She did drop tears, as the wound ached, but she did not blame Beige for her aggressive biting as her mother did. Rather, she admired her agility and defensive skills. Beige was also a master of stockpiling. Whenever the hamsters were offered food, Golden always ate the food straight away and only stored a bit of the leftover into his cheek pouches; Beige tended to pocket most of the food, until her cheek pouches were full to the brim. Then she would run back to her storage chamber to empty them. “That’s probably a female hamster’s instinct—to store food for her children in the future,” her mother said. Would our little Beige become a mother very soon? She could not imagine how a female hamster could reach her sexual maturity as early as in the thirteenth week of her life.
As a rule, her parents put her to bed each night around ten o’clock. But sometimes she could not resist sneaking back into the living room to observe the nocturnal hamsters. One night while she crouched down on her knees and pressed her face as close as she could to the glass aquarium cage, she saw Golden and Beige doing something she had never seen. Golden was chasing after Beige and Beige ran away for a few feet across the bottom of the cage. But when Golden touched her back with his front paws, Beige froze. She stood very stiff, with back arched and her tail and ears erect. Following this, Golden licked Beige’s rear end for a short time and then mounted her from behind by climbing partially onto her back. Golden held himself in place by gripping Beige around the middle with his front paws. Golden thrust himself into Beige for a few seconds and finished with a slight shudder.
She kept this “secret activity” between Golden and Beige from her parents. Eighteen days later, Beige built an extra nursing nest outside her small woodhouse with shredded newspaper and hoarded a large amount of food. Then, she gave birth to a litter of six baby hamsters. Beige licked the pink and hairless babies thoroughly clean. The little ones, with their eyes still unopened, instinctively found their ways to her pink teats and suckled vigorously.
Beige and Golden always slept cuddling together. However, Beige started behaving differently towards Golden after the babies were born. One night Golden tried to sniff Beige and their babies, she was disturbed and pushed him away with her front paws. Worrying that Beige’s gentle rebuff might lead to furious fighting, her parents decided to relocate Golden to another glass aquarium cage adjacent to that of Beige’s. “Poor Golden! Now he can only see his wife and babies through the glass,” the girl said. Golden, Beige and their offspring, however, seemed to be satisfied with this new arrangement. Now and then one of the inquisitive babies succeeded in getting out of the nest. Beige then grabbed it by the most accessible part of its body with her incisors and carried it back. One evening when she and her mother were having dinner, loud squeaks were heard from the drawing room. She dashed off to the living room, letting out a squeak of fright at the sight of the bloody battle between Golden and Beige. Her mother came in and soon separated the two fighters, lifting Golden out of Beige’s cage by a ladle.
To prevent Golden from climbing over the glass wall and falling into Beige’s “territory” again, her mother moved Golden’s cage to the other corner of the living room. The top of his little head was covered by a scrap of blood-stained newspaper. Her mother carefully removed the paper and applied iodine to the wound. In fact, a piece of furry scalp had been torn away from Golden’s tiny head. “He would have died,” her mother murmured. A few days later she noticed that one of Golden’s eyes had lost its former glow. Did Beige cut off the cornea of his eyeball with her incisors? She was at a loss for words.
A year later Beige died of a tumour grown inside her right-side cheek pouch. She was survived by the single-eyed, bald Golden who died peacefully in his sleep two years later.
She only ever kept one hamster after that.
Ginger
Her father joked while separating the eight baby hamsters from Beige: “Hamsters make perfect kids. They wean within twenty-right days of their births. And they don’t ask for pocket money!” They had found new homes for the little ones. Four of them had gone to her father’s friend’s laboratory, a pair had been sent to her aunt’s house, one was given to her best friend at school, and the last one had been kept for Bernadette. Bernadette had been their live-in housekeeper since she was born. As a divorced single mother from the Philippines, where the economic conditions were poor, she left her son to come to Taiwan to work in order to support him. Missing him, Bernadette asked whether they could give one of the baby hamsters to her. “Of course, feel free to choose the one from the litter you most like!” Bernadette chose a male one with a golden-reddish coat and called him Ginger.
“I went to the supermarket and took Ginger with me. He is just like my son!” Bernadette told the girl one day.
“How nice! Where did you place him?” The girl was curious.
“I placed Ginger in the front bicycle basket while cycling to the supermarket!” said Bernadette.
“What an adventure for the little boy!” she exclaimed.
Then Bernadette said dreamily: “By the way, I guess Ginger must be missing his mother very much. Shall we let Ginger reunite with his mother some day?”
Knowing that Bernadette liked to let Ginger run in the empty bathtub while scrubbing the floor of the bathroom, she thought it would be a good idea to arrange for the mother and the son to meet in the bathtub. One late afternoon, she lured Beige out of her sleeping woodhouse with a piece of cheese and brought her into the bathtub, where Ginger was already skittering about. At first, the mother and the son sniffed each other carefully with their front paws raised to fend off trouble, but they lowered them again after a few seconds.
“Good, she did not bite him!” She felt relieved, recalling how Golden was attacked fiercely by Beige for intruding her territory.
“Of course, Beige loves his son. How could a mother bite her son?” said Bernadette with a catch in her voice. “Good girl, I am going to scrub the floor now. You’d better stay in the living room watching cartoons for a while. I will call you once I have finished cleaning the bathroom.”
Beige and Ginger’s whiskers touched, as if exchanging secrets. “Alright, they must have a lot to catch up! I won’t disturb them!” She smiled and turned into the living room. Half an hour later she returned to the bathroom to pick up Beige.
“Ginger, say goodbye to your mum.” The housekeeper raised one of Ginger’s furry front paws and made it waving at Beige.
Living in separate cages, Beige still smelled Golden’s presence occasionally when their running balls hit one another in the living room. Beige was more energetic and persistent than Golden, who tended to pause or rock back and forth in his exercise ball during their fifteen-minute exercise session. One evening, however, Beige appeared to be sluggish, crawling around with a staggered gait in her exercise ball. Her mother teased sadly: “Beige is having a mid-life crisis! She has aged and put on weight just like me, poor girl!” The next evening when she scooped Beige up to clean her cage, she came upon a litter of pink, hairless and blind baby hamsters attaching themselves to Beige’s teats. Startled by what she saw, she dropped Beige accidentally and the babies scattered around the cage. Then, the disturbed mother grabbed one of the pups and started eating it.
Pearl
Once her childhood was over, there followed many years without the company of hamsters, until the day she turned twenty-nine. She recalled spending her birthday in the hospital with her mother, who was recovering from food poisoning.
Lying in the bed, her mother asked the nurse: “The gastroenterologist Dr. Yao is very professional and handsome, isn’t he? Is he married?”
“Yes, he got married three years ago,” the nurse replied. “His wife also works as a nutritionist in this hospital.”
“Ohhhh—how nice!” said her mother with a long-drawn exhalation.
She broke in, walking towards the nurse: “Would you like to see some lovely photos of my hamsters?”
“Ohhhh—how cute!”
“I had them when I was a child.”
Standing next to the bed, her sister Vera suggested: “I can get one for you as your birthday present.”
Later in the afternoon, Vera took her to a pet shop near the hospital.
The ordinary golden Syrian hamster was the only option for hamster owners fifteen years ago, but now a wider variety of hamsters were available. “Dwarf hamsters are very popular nowadays,” the shop assistant said. Dwarf hamsters include the brownish-gray Chinese hamster with a slender body, a long tail and a dark stripe down the middle of its back, the sandy Roborovskii hamster with a large white patch above each eye and a small white patch at the base of each ear, and the Siberian hamster that occurred in dark-gray or white colour. Looking around the shop, she noticed that the Chinese hamsters were too rat-like, the Roborovskii hamsters too quick and jumpy, and the two Syrian hamsters not as handsome as her old beloved Golden. She decided on the Siberian. Because of her mixed feelings about Beige’s childbirth and cannibalism, she was planning, this time, to keep just one male hamster.
But something unexpected happened.
She was presented with two Siberian hamsters: one was male and dark-gray, while the other was female and white. She did not know how to express her admiration for the white Siberian hamster. She was like a pearl—her body was predominantly white, with purple-gray hairs scattered sparsely through the coat. The head and spine were mostly coloured. Her gleaming black eyes were picked out by her pearl-coloured coat.
The white and female Siberian hamster was just three weeks older. Since a Siberian hamster’s life expectancy is even shorter than that of the Syrian—a mere couple of years—Vera suggested that she purchase the younger one. Worrying that the white Siberian hamster would end up being the snack for a snake in the shop if not sold promptly, she chose the older hamster.
By the time she and Vera left the pet shop, she was no longer lonesome—she was on her way home with Pearl.
“Is Pearl male or female?” asked her father across the dining table.
“Female. I was thinking about getting a male, bur I could not resist her pearl-like beauty!”
“I am living in a girl’s dormitory. A wife, three daughters, and now a female hamster, too!”
No one laughed except him. Her mother lowered her head, shovelling rice from the rice bowl into her mouth with chopsticks.
She recalled how, last year, one of her blind dates ended badly. The gentleman was the son of her mother’s best friend. His parents were successful businessmen who emigrated to New York in the 1970s and he was part of their American dream. A Taiwanese American made an ideal son-in-law for many parents in Taiwan. They believed that men who received a western education tended to be less chauvinistic than their counterparts in Asia.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” asked the gentleman.
“Yes, I have two older sisters,” said she.
“No brothers?”
“No.”
“Oh, I am sorry for your mother. Your father must have been desperate for a son.
Every Chinese man wants a son. Isn’t your father a gynaecologist? Didn’t he think of engineering a male heir?”
She looked sideways at the clock on the wall.
“Did I offend you? If so, it was probably a misunderstanding as your English is not that good. . .”
It turned out that he had been engaged to an older Caucasian American woman but it was broken off because of pressure from his parents. He should marry someone who was born and raised in Taiwan. Taiwanese American women were not good enough. They were just bananas. In addition to ethnicity, the fact that the Caucasian woman was thirty-five also concerned his parents. She would probably have difficulty giving birth to healthy babies to carry the family line. He was still in love with the woman.
Her mother felt sorry that things did not work out between them.
“It’s alright. It’s a blessing in disguise.”[4] She cried secretly; not because she was saddened by the prospect of a life without the Taiwanese American, but because her woman’s pride had been hurt by his refusal to marry her. She knew very well that she was no more in love with him than he was with her.
“So, you only got one hamster this time. Will Pearl feel lonely?’ asked her mother, who had lain down on the sofa in the living room. Her father was watching the news on television.
“Of course not. Hamsters are solitary and territorial animals. Don’t you remember what happened between Beige, Golden and their babies?” She walked back to her room.
Unlike her former Syrian hamsters, Pearl was less enthusiastic about running in the exercise ball. Instead, taking sand baths in a bowl was her favourite exercise. She removed the oil and dust from her fur by rolling in the sand daily, as though it were a religious ritual.
Despite her fastidious cleanliness, however, Pearl died of a malignant tumour of the mammary gland situated just alongside her nipple.
Happy
“These stories of your hamsters are fascinating! Why don’t you get one?” said her boyfriend John.
“I am living in a rented flat and not allowed to keep pets.”
“What concerns landlords are smelly dogs or fur-losing cats, I think. Who would mind a little rodent occupying a small corner in one of their flats?”
“And my visa…For me, owning a hamster is like adopting a child. It’s a big responsibility to care for his or her entire life-span. I am not sure how long will I be able to stay in this country. For example, what if I lose my job and can no longer renew my work visa?”
“Don’t worry too much about the future. You are very popular with your students, aren’t you?”
She nodded smilingly.
“I can get a hamster for you as your Christmas gift. Any good?”
“Yes, I would consider having a hamster if I can find one who reminds me any of my old hamsters.” She replied.
After searching for photos of hamsters for adoption on the website of RSPCA[5] and visiting three Pet Corner shops, she finally found what she wanted in an independent, family-run pet shop.
“Guess what? I have found a Syrian hamster who looks exactly like my Golden!”
“Hooray! See you in the shop in twenty minutes.”
John purchased the hamster and a two-storey wire cage with plastic platforms, ladders and a running wheel.
“Thank you, my darling,” she wrapped her arms around John. Knowing that the happiest period of her life was about to begin, she called this new hamster Happy.
Truly—she is too happy. It was still in the early days of their relationship, but John and she got along splendidly. They allowed each other personal space instead of cohabiting and invading one another’s territory. And John’s mother, Maria, seemed to like her. She always spoils them with perfectly cooked roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.
And she had an ideal hamster—Happy. All the good qualities of her old hamsters were encapsulated in Happy: besides his Golden-like handsome looks, he was an agile runner just like Beige. He was as adventurous as Ginger, and he shared Pearl’s passion for sand-bathing.
“Happy, mummy loves you, do you love mummy?” she whispered to the little creature every evening.
And John would tease her by saying: “Is he clambering up to the platform because of his love for you? I bet he is up for food only!”
She would not have believed it. Even if it was true that Happy was attached to her by basic needs, she would not have been hurt. For the moment, by overwhelming him with sunflower seeds, clean water, wood shavings, bathing sand and chew sticks, she could rely upon advantages extrinsic to her looks, her personality, her financial situation and her social status to prevent the day ever coming when he would be tempted to leaving her.
“Happy does love food! Remember that he once escaped and hid himself behind the kitchen cabinet?” She talked to John while removing the leaves from the medlars he had got from the farmer’s market.
“Of course! And he came out later when he smelled the food you were cooking, right?” said John amusingly.
His iPhone rang and he turned into to her bedroom. He returned to the kitchen fifteen minutes later.
“What’s up? You looked sad.”
“It’s my mum. She has just had a terrible row with my sister-in-law.”
Not knowing what to say, she poured the medlars, apples, and water into a deep saucepan and let them boil. “I hope your mother will like the medlars jam I made.”
“She will love it! We can bring Happy to my mum’s at Christmas. She would like to see her grandson.”
They arrived at John’s mother’s house on Christmas Eve. John’s younger brother Paul, his sister-in-law Kate, his nephew Ian, and his niece Sharon were already there.
“How long will you be staying here?” Paul asked John.
“We will leave on the 27th. Are you staying at Kate’s mother’s tonight?” John replied.
“Yeah, we will spend two nights there and then off to her father’s on Boxing Day.”
Paul, Kate and kids left in the late afternoon after collecting children’s Christmas gifts.
“I always give Ian and Sharon pocket money and nice Christmas gifts, but what have I got in return? A box of cheap shower gels? She is a taker, not a giver, isn’t she?” said John’s mother over the Christmas dinner.
These words worried her. She was not sure whether Maria really liked the bottle of Clinique Happy Perfume she got for her on her birthday earlier in October.
“At least she spent some money on gifts. Unlike Paul, he got you nothing this afternoon when they came!” said John.
“Paul was a lovely boy like you. Unfortunately, he has become just like his wife.”
“Would you like to try some of the medlar jelly, Maria? John got medlars from the farmer’s market.” She presented the jar to John’s mother.
“No, thanks. I will have cranberry sauce instead.” She declined politely, and went on: “Paul shouts at me sometimes but always talks to her nicely. She is quite an attractive woman, isn’t she? He does love her, doesn’t he?”
“Well, she is not bad-looking, but not my type,” said John.
“He takes kids out at the weekend so she can have some me time. I never had any me time when you and Paul were little…
John turned his head to the left, asking her: “Do you know what the word ‘me time’ means?”
“I am not sure… Does it mean the time a person has to himself or herself?” she answered carefully.
“That’s correct. I can see your English has improved!” his mother added.
Finally, they finished Christmas dinner and withdrew to the living room.
Placing Happy’s travel cage on her thighs, she talked to Maria: “Would you like to see my hamster Happy, Maria? He is up now.”
“Ohhhh, he is lovely!” Maria exclaimed.
“I got this hamster for her as a Christmas gift. We love Happy. He is like our son!” said John. “I’ve already got something else for you, mum. But I can get you a hamster if you like!”
“No, get me nothing. I am a very lucky woman, aren’t I? You father left me with this house, and I’ve got a good pension. If your father had come back to life and lived with me, I would have fought with him since I’m used to living on my own . . .” said John’s mother.
She lifted Happy up with her right hand and placed him into the exercise ball, not saying a word.
On the morning of Christmas Day, she opened the present given to her by John’s mother. It was a bottle of Clinique Happy Perfume.
Suddenly, she felt that she was a single woman in a relationship.
Would John look after Happy if one day she had to leave him? She had no lasting arrangement for her life with John. Her fearful, cringing heart could enjoy a makeshift sort of rest only in stroking Happy’s fur.
Item BM (NH) 1855.12.24.120
“This species is remarkable for its deep golden yellow colouring. The fur is moderately long and very soft and has a silk-like gloss; the deep yellow colouring extends over the upper parts and sides of the head and body and also over the outer sides of the limbs […]”[6]
The single female specimen of Syrian hamster has been preserved at the Natural History Museum in London. She is actually named: Item BM (NH) 1855.12.24.120
[4] This line is borrowed from one of Laura’s lines in Scene 7 of The Glass Menagerie.
[5] RSPCA refers to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the UK’s largest animal welfare charity.
[6] Quoted in Chris Logsdail, Peter Logsdail, and Kate Hovers, Hamsterlopaedia: A Complete Guide to Hamster Care (Dorking: Ringpress Books, 2002), p. 8; originally from George Waterhouse’s description of the golden hamster in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1840).